There is a standard view of energy and the economy that can briefly be summarized as follows: Economic growth can continue forever; we will learn to use less energy supplies; energy prices will rise; and the world will adapt. My view of how energy and the economy fit together is very different. It is based on the principle of reaching limits in a finite world. Let me explain the issues as I see them.
Twelve Basic Principles of Energy and the Economy
1. Economic models are no longer valid, as we start getting close to limits.
We live in a finite world. Because of this, the extraction of energy resources and of resources in general operates in a way that is not at all intuitive as we approach limits. Economists have put together models of how the economy can be expected to act based on how the economy acts when it is distant from limits. Unfortunately, these economic models are worse than useless as limits approach because modeled relationships no longer hold. For example:
(a) The assumption that oil prices will rise as the cost of extraction rises is not necessarily true. Instead, a finite world creates feedback loops that tend to keep oil prices too low because of its tight inter-connections with wages. We see this happening right now. The Telegraph reported recently, “Oil and gas company debt soars to danger levels to cover shortfall in cash.”
(b) The assumption that greater investment will lead to greater output becomes less and less true, as the easy to extract resources (including oil) become more depleted.
(c) The assumption that higher prices will lead to higher wages no longer holds, as the easy to extract resources (including oil) become more depleted.
(d) The assumption that substitution will be possible when there are shortages becomes less and less appropriate because of interconnections with the rest of the system. Particular problems include the huge investment required for such substitution, impacts on the financial system, and shortages developing simultaneously in many areas (oil, metals such as copper, rare earth metals, and fresh water, for example).
More information is available from my post, Why Standard Economic Models Don’t Work–Our Economy is a Network.
2. Energy and other physical resources are integral to the economy.
In order to make any type of goods suitable for human use, it takes resources of various sorts (often soil, water, wood, stones, metals, and/or petrochemicals), plus one or more forms of energy (human energy, animal energy, wind power, energy from flowing water, solar energy, burned wood or fossil fuels, and/or electricity).
Figure 1. Energy of various types is used to transform raw materials (that is resources) into finished products.
3. As we approach limits, diminishing returns leads to growing inefficiency in production, rather than growing efficiency.
As we use resources of any sort, we use the easiest (and cheapest) to extract first. This leads to a situation of diminishing returns. In other words, as more resources are extracted, extraction becomes increasingly expensive in terms of resources required, including human and other energy requirements. These diminishing returns do not diminish in a continuous slow way. Instead, there tends to be a steep rise in costs after a long period of slowly increasing costs, as limits are approached.
Figure 2. The way we would expect the cost of the extraction of energy supplies to rise, as finite supplies deplete.
One example of such steeply rising costs is the sharply rising cost of oil extraction since 2000 (about 12% per year for “upstream costs”). Another is the steep rise in costs that occurs when a community finds it must use desalination to obtain fresh water because deeper wells no longer work. Another example involves metals extraction. As the quality of the metal ore drops, the amount of waste material rises slowly at first, and then rapidly escalates as metal concentrations approaches 0%, as in Figure 2.
The sharp shift in the cost of extraction wreaks havoc with economic models based on a long period of very slowly rising costs. In a period of slowly rising costs, technological advances can easily offset the underlying rise in extraction costs, leading to falling total costs. Once limits are approached, technological advances can no longer completely offset underlying cost increases. The inflation-adjusted cost of extraction starts rising. The economy, in effect, starts becoming less and less efficient. This is in sharp contrast to lower costs and thus apparently greater efficiency experienced in earlier periods.
4. Energy consumption is integral to “holding our own” against other species.
All species reproduce in greater numbers than need to replace their parents. Natural selection determines which ones survive. Humans are part of this competition as well.
In the past 100,000 years, humans have been able to “win” this competition by harnessing external energy of various types–first burned biomass to cook food and keep warm, later trained dogs to help in hunting. The amount of energy harnessed by humans has grown over the years. The types of energy harnessed include human slaves, energy from animals of various sorts, solar energy, wind energy, water energy, burned wood and fossil fuels, and electricity from various sources.
Human population has soared, especially since the time fossil fuels began to be used, about 1800.
Figure 3. World population based on data from “Atlas of World History,” McEvedy and Jones, Penguin Reference Books, 1978 and Wikipedia-World Population.
Even now, human population continues to grow (Figure 4), although the percentage rate of growth has slowed.
Figure 4. World population split between US, EU-27, and Japan, and the Rest of the World.
Because the world is finite, the greater use of resources by humans leads to lesser availability of resources by other species. There is evidence that the Sixth Mass Extinction of species started back in the days of hunter-gatherers, as their ability to use of fire to burn biomass and ability to train dogs to assist them in the hunt for food gave them an advantage over other species.
Also, because of the tight coupling of human population with growing energy consumption historically, even back to hunter-gatherer days, it is doubtful that decoupling of energy consumption and population growth can fully take place. Energy consumption is needed for such diverse tasks as growing food, producing fresh water, controlling microbes, and transporting goods.
5. We depend on a fragile self-organized economy that cannot be easily replaced.
Individual humans acting on their own have very limited ability to extract and control resources, including energy resources. The only way such control can happen is through a self-organized economy that allows people, businesses, and governments to work together on common endeavors. Development of a self-organized economy started very early, as bands of hunter-gatherers learned to work together, perhaps over shared meals of cooked food. More complex economies grew up as additional functions were added. These economies have gradually merged together to form the huge international economy we have today, including international trade and international finance.
This networked economy has a tendency to grow, in part because human population tends to grow (Item 4 above), and in part because greater complexity is required to solve problems, as an economy grows. This networked economy gradually adds more businesses and consumers, each one making choices based on prices and regulations in place at the particular time.
Figure 5. Dome constructed using Leonardo Sticks
This networked economy is fragile. It can grow, but it cannot easily shrink, because the economy is constantly optimized for the circumstances at the time. As new products are developed (such as cars), support for prior approaches (such as horses, buggies and buggy whips) disappears. Systems designed for the current level of usage, such as oil pipelines or Internet infrastructure, cannot easily be changed to accommodate a much lower level of usage. This is the reason why the economy is illustrated as interconnected but hollow inside.
Another reason that the economy cannot shrink is because of the large amount of debt in place. If the economy shrinks, the number of debt defaults will soar, and many banks and insurance companies will find themselves in financial difficulty. Lack of banking and insurance services will adversely affect both local and international trade.
6. Limits of a finite world exert many pressures simultaneously on an economy.
There are a number of ways an economy can reach a situation of inadequate resources for its population. While all of these may not happen at once, the combination makes the result worse than it otherwise would be.
a. Diminishing returns (that is, rising production costs as depletion sets in) for resources such as fresh water, metals, and fossil fuels.
b. Declining soil quality due to erosion, loss of mineral content, or increased soil salinity due to poor irrigation practices.
c. Rising population relative to the amount of arable land, fresh water, forest resources, mineral resources, and other resources available.
d. A need to use an increasing share of resources to combat pollution, related to resource extraction and use.
e. A need to use an increasing share of resources to maintain built infrastructure, such as roads, pipelines, electric grids, and schools.
f. A need to use an increasing share of resources to support government activities to support an increasingly complex society.
g. Declining availability of food that is traditionally hunted (such as fish, monkeys, and elephants), because an increase in human population leads to over-hunting and loss of habitat for other species.
7. Our current problems are worryingly similar to the problems experienced by earlier civilizations before they collapsed.
In the past, there have been civilizations that were confined to a limited area that grew for a while, and then collapsed once resource availability declined or population outgrew resources. Such issues led to a situation of diminishing returns, similar to the problems we are experiencing today. We know from studies of these prior civilizations how diminishing returns manifested themselves. These include:
(a) Reduced job availability and lower wages, especially for new workers joining the workforce.
(b) Spiking food costs.
(c) Growing demands on governments for services, because of (a) and (b).
(d) Greater disparities in wealth, as newer workers find it hard to get good-paying jobs.
(e) Declining ability of governments to collect sufficient taxes from common workers who are producing less and less (because of diminishing returns) and because of this, receiving lower wages.
(f) Increased reliance on debt.
(g) Increased likelihood of resource wars, as a group with inadequate resources tries to take resources from other groups.
(h) Eventual population decline. This occurred for two reasons: As wages dropped and needed taxes rose, workers found it increasingly difficult to obtain an adequate diet. As a result, they become more susceptible to epidemics and diseases. Greater involvement in resource wars also led to higher death rates.
When collapse came, it did not come all at once. Rather a long period of growth was succeeded by a period of stagnation, before a crisis period of several years took place.
Figure 6. Shape of typical Secular Cycle, based on work of Peter Turchin and Sergey Nefedov in Secular Cycles.
We began an economic growth cycle back when we began using fossil fuels to a significant extent, starting about 1800. We began a stagflation period, at least in the industrialized economies, when oil prices began to spike in the 1970s. Less industrialized countries have been able to continue growth their growth pattern longer. Our situation is likely to differ from that of early civilizations, because early civilizations were not dependent on fossil fuels. Pre-collapse skills tended to be useful post-collapse, because there was no real change in energy sources. Loss of fossil fuels would considerably change the dynamic of the outcome, because most jobs would become obsolete.
Most models put together by economists assume that the conditions of the growth period, or the growth plus stagflation period, will continue forever. Such models miss turning points.
8. Modeling underlying the book Limits to Growth shows why depletion can be expected to lead to declining economic growth. It also shows why extracting all of the resources that seem to be available is likely to be impossible.
We also know from the analysis underlying the book The Limits to Growth (by Donella Meadows and others, published in 1972) that growing demand for resources because of Items listed as 6a to 6g above will take an increasingly large share of resources produced. This dynamic makes it very difficult to produce enough additional resources so that economic growth can continue. The authors report that the behavior mode of the modeled system is overshoot and collapse.
The 1972 analysis does not model the financial system, including debt and the repayment of debt with interest. The closest it comes to economic modeling is modeling industrial capital, which it describes as factories, machines, and other physical “stuff” needed to extract resources and produce goods. It finds that inability to produce enough industrial capital is likely to be a bottleneck far before resources in the ground are exhausted.
As an example in today’s world, there seems to be a huge amount of very heavy oil that can be steamed out of the ground in many places including Canada and Venezuela. (The existence of such heavy oil is one reason the ratio of oil reserves to oil production is high.) To actually get this oil out of the ground quickly would require a huge physical investment in a very short time frame. As a practical matter, we cannot ramp up all of the physical infrastructure needed (pipelines, steaming equipment, refining equipment) without badly cutting into the resources needed to “grow” the rest of the economy. A similar problem is likely to exist if we try to ramp up world oil and gas supply using fracking.
9. Our real concern should be collapse caused by reaching limits in many ways, not the slow decline reflected in a Hubbert Curve.
One reason for being concerned about collapse is the similarity of the problems our current economy is experiencing to those of prior economies that collapsed, as discussed in Item 7. Another reason for this concern is based on the observation from physics that an economy is a dissipative structure, just as a hurricanes is, and just as a human being is. Such dissipative structures have a finite lifetime.
Concern about future collapse is very different from concern that one or another resource will decline in a symmetric Hubbert curve. The view that resources such as oil will gradually decrease in availability once 50% of the resources have been extracted reflects a best-case scenario, where a perfect replacement (both cheap and abundant) replaces the item that is depleting, so that the economy is not affected. Hubbert illustrated the kind of situation he was envisioning with the following graphic:
Figure 7. Figure from Hubbert’s 1956 paper, Nuclear Energy and the Fossil Fuels.
10. There is a tight link between both oil consumption and total energy consumption and world economic growth.
This tight link is evident from historical data:
Figure 8. Comparison of three-year average growth in world real GDP (based on USDA values in 2005$), oil supply and energy supply. Oil and energy supply are from BP Statistical Review of World Energy, 2014.
The link between energy and the economy comes both from the supply side and the demand side.
With respect to supply, it takes energy of many types to make goods and services of all types. This is discussed in Item 2 above.
With respect to demand,
(a) People who earn good wages (indirectly through the making of goods and services with energy products) can afford to buy products using energy.
(b) Because consumers pay taxes and buy goods and services, growth in demand from adequate wages flows through to governments and businesses as well.
(c) Higher wages enable higher debt, and higher debt also acts to increase demand.
(d) Increased demand increases the price of the resources needed to make the product with higher demand, making more of such resources economic to extract.
11. We need a growing supply of cheap energy to maintain economic growth.
This can be seen several ways.
(a) Today, all countries compete in a world economy. If a country’s economy uses an expensive source of energy (say high-priced oil or renewables) it must compete with other countries that use cheaper fuel sources (such as coal). The high price of energy puts the country with high-cost energy at a severe competitive disadvantage, pushing the economy toward economic contraction.
(b) Part of the world’s energy consumption comes from “free” energy from the sun. This solar energy is not evenly distributed: the warm areas of the world get considerably more than the cold areas of the world. The cold areas of the world are forced to compensate for this lack of free solar energy by building more substantial buildings and heating them more. They are also more inclined to use “closed in” transportation vehicles that are more costly than say, walking or using a bicycle.
Back in pre-fossil fuel days, the warm areas of the world predominated in economic development. The cold areas of the world “surged ahead” when their own forests ran short of the wood needed to provide the heat-energy they needed, and they learned to use coal instead. The knowledge they gained about using coal for home-heating quickly transferred to the ability to use coal to provide heat for industrial purposes. Since the warm areas of the world were not yet industrialized, the coal-using countries of the North were able to surge ahead economically. The advantage of the cold industrialized countries grew as they learned to use oil and natural gas. But once oil and natural gas became expensive, and industrialization spread around the world, the warm countries regained their advantage.
(c) Wages, (non-human) energy costs, and financing costs are all major contributors to the cost of producing goods and services. When energy costs rise, the rise in energy costs puts pressure both on wages and on interest rates (since interest rates determine financing costs), because businesses need to keep the total cost of goods and services close to “flat,” if consumers are to afford them. This occurs because wages do not rise as energy prices rise. In fact, pressure to keep the total cost of goods low creates pressure to reduce wages when oil prices are high (perhaps by sending manufacturing to a lower-cost country), just as it adds pressure to keep interest rates low.
(d) If we look at historical US data, wages have tended to rise strongly (in inflation-adjusted terms) when oil prices were less than $40 to $50 barrel, but have tended to stagnate above that oil price range.
Figure 9. Average wages in 2012$ compared to Brent oil price, also in 2012$. Average wages are total wages based on BEA data adjusted by the CPI-Urban, divided total population. Thus, they reflect changes in the proportion of population employed as well as wage levels.
12. Oil prices that are too low for producers should be a serious concern. Such low prices occur because oil becomes unaffordable. In the language of economists, oil demand drops too low.
A common belief is that our concern should be oil prices that are too high, and thus strangle the economy. A much bigger concern should be that oil prices will fall too low, discouraging investment. Such low oil prices also encourage civil unrest in oil exporting nations, because the governments of these nations depend on tax revenue that is available when oil prices are high to balance their budgets.
It can easily be seen that high oil prices strangle the economies of oil importers. The salaries of consumers go “less far” in buying basics such as food (which is raised and transported using oil) and transportation to work. Higher costs for basics causes consumers cut back on discretionary expenditures, such as buying new more expensive homes, buying new cars, and going out to restaurants. These cutbacks by consumers lead to job layoffs in discretionary sectors and to falling home prices. Debt defaults are likely to rise as well, because laid-off workers have difficulty paying their loans. Our experience in the 2007-2009 period shows that these impacts quickly lead to severe recession and a drop in oil prices.
The issue we are now seeing is the reverse–too low oil prices for oil producers, including oil exporters. These low oil prices are contributing to the unrest we see in the Middle East. Low oil prices also contribute to Russia’s belligerence, since it needs high oil revenues to maintain its budget.
Conclusion
We seem now to be at risk in many ways of entering into the collapse scenario experienced by many civilizations before us.
One of areas of risk is that interest rates will rise, as the Quantitative Easing and Zero Interest Rate Policies held in place since 2008 erode. These ultra-low interest rates are needed to keep products affordable, since the high cost of oil (relative to consumer salaries) has not really gone away.
Another area of risk is an increase in debt defaults. One example occurs when student loan borrowers find it impossible to repay these loans on their meager wages. Another example is China with the financing of its big recent expansion by debt. A third example is the possibility that businesses extracting resources will find it impossible to repay loans with today’s (relatively) low commodity prices.
Another area of risk is natural disasters. It takes surpluses to deal with these disasters. As we reach limits, it becomes harder to mitigate the effects of a major hurricane or earthquake.
Clearly loss of oil production because of conflict in the Middle East or in other oil producing countries is a concern.
This list is by no means exhaustive. Many economies are “near the edge” now. Recent news is that Germany has slipped into recession as well as Japan. One economy failing is likely to pull others with it.
From my point of view, this post shows that the definition of economics as the science of allocating scarce goods, Is not properly applied by economists themselves, because they omit the fact that there are a set of commodity non renewable whose deposits are finite, and they assume that the different ecosystems will always must provide raw materials and that the environment can be used as landfill indefinitely.
A scholar of the subject of “limits to growth” named Ricardo Almenar ,has devised the following metaphor to illustrate this problem:
What we call economy is only the visible part of an iceberg, the submerged part of the iceberg are the sun energy, the non-renewable natural resources and, especially, renewable natural resources that depend on the proper functioning of a range of ecosystems that economists suppose fact that they will always work.
Different readings on the topic of the decline of civilizations , show that the evolution of a society is highly conditioned by material circumstances as we have seen in the previous paragraphs and its exposed so well in the post. But It does not explain cases like these:
1) The military incapacity of the Western Roman Empire to deal with the barbarian invasions, in contrast to the proven ability of their legions in times of Cesar.
2) The disappearance of the Norse colonies in Greenland due to the advent of the Little Ice Age(XIV Century ?), when the Inhuits were able to adapt and remain till today.
3) The perpetual stagnation of many Latin American countries in contrast of the prosperity of USA.
4) The different levels of success of the societies of the Polynesian islands. Those societies belonged to the same civilization, but we see islands like Easter, which suffered a great social crisis due to over-exploitation of the environment, and islands like Tikopia who exemplify sustainability.
For me ,humble amateur, in this subject of the “limits of growth”,these four cases, which are just a few examples of the many that can be found,show us that human psychology plays a decisive role in the evolution of societies and therefore the economy. This psychology is influenced by philosophical, religious, cultural, economic, scientific, technical issues. And it is for this reason that the submerged part of the iceberg of the economy that we have mentioned, should not be include only the reserves of non-renewable resources, solar energy and renewable raw materials provided by different ecosystems. But also the submerged part of the iceberg of the economy must include spiritual factors.
If we take the Roman legions, it’s clear that their equipment at the end of the Empire shows a very clear decline in material prosperity.
The Legions of the peak era were superbly equipped, with well-made and intelligently designed weapons and armour, (using them one appreciates this) but those of the last hundred years or so had very cheap equipment which was very shoddy in comparison to their forebears – metal items very crudely made and of inferior design, and leather body-armour substituted for iron.
In material terms, they were the shadow of the early Legions. Basically, the Empire could no longer pay its way.
If you were a soldier armed with crap, I suppose your morale would drop somewhat!
There is a fascinating german documentary TV miniseries excatly on this topic, all based on recent findings using earth and aerial scans etc. Among other stuning things which were relevant to our discussions the TV docu revealed how the northern border forts decayed around the phase of terminal decline of western roman empire. Basically, they armies were still there manned by a legion but the infrustructure of the fort was in a fast decay mode, they relocated people and stuff into only one 1/4 of the compound, the rest was rotting away and/or canibalized for timber etc. Only after that moment it was abandoned for good, I can’t recall the exact time frames, but they used to function in that “starving mode” for decades before they left, very telling..
Spiritually the inhabitants of the Western Roman Empire in the days of its decline were totally diferent to the Romans who forged the empire. The following example is illustrative:
When started the Germanic invasions, the inhabitants of a city in central Europe whose name it was Treveris, were celebrating a festival, that some one can imagine it as a wild orgy. And came the barbarians, who sacked the city and they left. The response of the people of Treveris were ask for money to the Emperor to repeat the festival.
Of this event, which I find amazing, I could only find mention of this historical source:
After the sack of Treveris “the people demand games like supreme remedy for the salvation of their city.” Salviano (VI, 15,82) writes.
San Agustin in Civitas Dei ((I, 32) describes something similar to refugees in Tunisia.
If you see the mosaics rescued of the floor of the villages of the ancient Carthago, you´ll see happy and beautiful scenes of people fishing , or hunting. These mosaics are so well conservated because the villes in wich they were, were been abandoned with precipitation and the sand covered them. It means for me that the inhabitants of Carthago,were not very worried about the troubles of the Empire
Exactly, just spot the materials and you have enough clues. Switzerland, parts of Nordic countries and western Europe, also Singapore and Emirates. They have all something in common = abundant heavy stainless steel placed everywhere, zinc/galvanized is the basic metal to deploy public infrustructure etc. US = not so much ehm.
Thanks for your thoughts. I agree that the considering the economy to be the visible part of an iceberg which includes the sun energy, and the renewable and non-renewable resources underneath is a reasonable metaphor. We certainly cannot do very much without the benefit of the sun and the use or renewable and non-renewable resources.
It seems to me that there are a lot of things going on simultaneously, which explains the difference development of different areas of the earth. I have read quite a few books that point out different aspects. For example, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations by David Montgomery points out that as soil is used, it tends to erode and minerals tend to deplete. Also, if irrigation is used (that is not from rivers flooding over their banks), excess salinity tends to occur. The combination of these effects and rising population tends to lead to falling agricultural production per capita, and ultimately collapse.
Sing Chew, in “The Recurring Dark Ages” points out the recurring role of deforestation and local climate change. Of course, the world climate is also changing. These results (together with the natural tendency of population to rise) can lead to less production per capita, and a tendency toward collapse.
I have also ready about the killing off a top-level predators, even back in the hunter-gatherer period, as having a major adverse impact on ecosystems, leading sometimes to climate change and to collapse. I believe Australia’s climate is believed to have changed for this reason.
Industrialization only occurs in some parts of the world. As far as I can see, the two prerequisites needed for it are (1) access to a source of heat for making metals and for other industrial processes, and (2) debt to help ramp up production and sales of finished goods, even before new factories and other parts of the supply chain can be paid for with profits from the system.
There may be social considerations as well. Latin America did not have a good source of heat energy (other than trees which quickly deplete). Coal has been the starter fuel of choice for most civilizations that expanded. I am not sure that banking was as well developed either. If the climate is warm enough, there is less need for things like substantial homes, closed in vehicles, and other benefits of industrialization.
I agree that material circumstances are essential to explain the evolution of a economy.But spiritual factors play an important role.
If you look at the Industrial revolution, this would not have been posible without the Age of Enlightement.
I rather believe both coincided
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Does anybody remember way back when China agreed to “sterilize” one trillion dollars of U.S. treasury holdings? What did China get in exchange? Is this why China continues to hold just over one trillion dollars?
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Debunking-The-Myth-Of-Peak-Oil-Why-The-Age-Of-Cheap-Oil-Is-Far-From-Over-Part-1.html
That is one of the most ill-informed articles I have ever read… I must confess — I couldn’t get past the first 4 or 5 paragraphs… I won’t even bother to rip it to shreds because it is not worth even a second more of my time…
Whoever wrote that is either a total moron — or being paid by a shale company to spew that vomit.
yes, you’re right…
Funny, how most of the comments left says the author is way short on facts which is code for BS.
If expensive oil didn’t wreck the economy, this would be a good argument. Expensive oil is already killing the world economy. Expensive oil ranks right up there with expensive electricity as not keeping the system operating.
This is the best big picture explanation I have seen on what is going on in syria, iran, ukraine, etc…
http://www.popularresistance.org/the-latest-in-the-new-cold-war/
You know, Paul? Nothing in that article surprises me in the least. Thanks to ZH and other such sites, that is. Thanks for the link.
Another reason the MSM is completely worthless.
If an obscure site like that can come up with such a detailed and credible explanation — the MSM with all its resources could easily do the same…
But of course the MSM is not news — it is not about truth — it is PRAVDA — it is a tool used by the PTB to control the masses….. it has 0 independence… because it is owned by a few mega corporations who are owned by the PTB…
And they have nothing to gain by giving us truths.
Interesting article which makes sense from many angles. However, I would suggest that the ‘America wants war in Europe’ meme is clearly Russian propaganda – they are very skilled propagandists, too.
That America wishes to humble and constrain Russia, dominate its energy production and maintain US hegemony in Europe is very clear. It is not interested in good relations, and it is therefore the US which is the chief enemy of European stability, not Russia.
This strategy would involve deposing Putin, removing his inner circle, and leaving Russia as an humiliated regional power at best, not a global one.
A European war is simply not necessary to accomplish these ends. Imposing profound economic distress on Russia, rendering Putin so unpopular both with the oligarchs and the common people that he is removed is more likely to be the aim. So far, Putin is being quite a cunning fox, which is to be admired.
Along with his Basque home-brew, Xabier will be stocking up on gas, wood and coal for this winter…..!
I suspect that the US learned the wrong lessons from its experiments in regime change in Latin America and Africa in earlier and somewhat simpler times – the Middle East and Europe are very different waters to go fishing in.
It’s not profitable to conquer anyone anymore. Except for the cheap labor, maybe.
Appreciate the insights into the petro dollar. The world wide move away from the dollar, excluding the EU, could reach a tipping point at some point and be a contributor to a coming perfect storm.
One has to wonder what the major powers in Europe are thinking right now — as we saw France was planning to sell warships to Russia against the wishes of the US …
At the end of the day the EU needs energy — Russia so far provides that — the US cannot — the US is obviously desperately trying to do something about this …
Russia is armed to the teeth – China appears to support Russia and is armed to the teeth — so neither can be directly intimidated because of the nuclear option —- so the US fights proxy wars… which are relatively harmless —- I don’t think the US can launch a tactical nuclear war without causing total chaos and likely all out nuclear war.
Putin and his allies would appear to have the upper hand. A very interesting game of chess indeed.
Disturbing!
Paul you show your hand so much….it is obvious that you are Anti-American…but it is so much so that it blinds you into thinking that Russia is this kind and generous nation…Russia has got a very shitty army capability, compared to the rest of the world as a side note..and no they are not some benevolent country..Personally I don’t give a shit….we are doomed and this talk of my team is going to win over the other teams is such a waste of time….both countries are controlled by corporations and big money until the collapse happens all you are doing is wild speculation. You don’t have all the information just because you can get on the internet….
Of course if Russia usurps the US they will likely do the same things as the US — and I will despise them when they do…
But then as I have articulated — I despise the human race — we do not deserve to live on this planet. It would be best if an rat exterminator were to put an end to us.
The US just happens to be the worst offending flavour of the human race at the moment — so I like to single them out… Israel is right up there too.
The Russia / US part seems right to me. The other may be too.
I think the Nazi Party in control of Ukraine is pointed in the wrong direction. They should fight to the west Poland, Germany, France. European unity through might.
Dear Gail and All
I would like to add one more reference to my previous list of alternatives for growing food in a variety of future scenarios.
David Kennedy is the author of Leaf for Life, and the upcoming Eat Your Greens. Here is part of the blurb for Eat Your Greens
‘Shows how familiar garden plants such as sweet potato, okra, beans, peas and pumpkins can be grown to provide both nourishing leaves and other calorie- and protein-rich foods’
The 21st Century Greens book is available from Amazon or as a free PDF at:
http://www.leafforlife.org/assets/downloads/FrontMatter-21stCentGreens.pdf
The book begins by reviewing the fact that all land based food comes from green leaves. (Aquatic systems begin with algae.) Therefore, the green leaves contain the maximum energy. The next highest level of energy is in the plant products such as tubers and seeds…but the fewer calories are more dense and thus more attractive for humans who cannot eat enough green leaves to sustain life. Conversion to tubers and seeds is quite efficient, but the steps up the trophic ladder…from plants to cows and from cows to lions…are not very efficient. Green leaves also contain the maximum information for our genes and the maximum protective compounds such as antioxidants.
Why do I recommend this particular book for someone contemplating future scenarios? After all, one of its focal points is making green leaves available in the tropics to those suffering from malnutrition, and the delivery mechanisms often involve first world technology.
The answer to that question is that Kennedy dissects pretty thoroughly the methods which can be used to get the nutritional value from green leaves with a minimum of technology and energy. For example, he does not assume the availability of refrigeration or electricity in the place of residence, but he does assume that somewhere in the world industrial products are being produced…e.g., cloth. One way to think of it is that human processing is producing the equivalent of a tuber or seed: energy density, but retaining more nutrient density than tubers. The human processing won’t be as efficient as the plant processing of leaf sugars into tuber starch, but Kennedy’s thesis is that we can do pretty well.
I suggest a careful reading of Chapter 7, where he describes the various methods which can be used to produce Leaf Concentrates. The methods range from simple tools used by a household to a huge industrial plant in France. In both cases, the end product is a dried extract with a long shelf life which contains the nutrient complexity and density from the original leaf, but without all the water and fiber. The simple household tools used include pounding in a mortar and pestle, press the juice out with a method similar to what your grandparents did with wet laundry, heat the juice to the boiling point, separate the curd with a skimmer, press the curd to remove as much water as possible, dry with electricity or with solar dryers. The advantage is that one has in the pantry the nutritional value which would otherwise only be available from freshly harvested greens and in a more concentrated form. So Leaf Concentrates are a step beyond what hunters and gatherers would have done.
Small amounts of the dried concentrate have been shown to be effective treatments for malnutrition, due to their nutrient density.
Then Kennedy discusses the options for production ranging from the single household through small groups up to industrial processes. He gives the pros and cons of each.
Kennedy is quite familiar with Limits to Growth and Peak Oil scenarios, so he offers options (many tried out in his back yard) which are quite low on the technology and energy ladder.
If you are a dedicated believer in Back to the Stone Age, then I am not sure this book will help you very much. For example, separating the liquid from the ground pulp involves putting it through a cloth, but there wouldn’t be any cloth in the Stone Age. I would characterize his ‘simple’ recommendations as being consistent with much of sub-Sahara Africa or villages in India.
Don Stewart
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Rosneft, which has now been effectively cut-off from Occidental financial markets by recent sanctions against Russia, is reported to be seeking an emergency loan of USD 42 billion from the Russian government, which is now considering tapping its collectivist public pension funds…
Without that loan, Rosneft’s capability to extract oil & gas will rapidly be seriously impaired and that will likely impact both world energy markets and Russia’s internal economic & political stability.
A hungry bear is a very dangerous beast…
An economic war is currently going on for the control of the remaining high EROEI fossil fuel reserves of the planet, including Russian oil & gas. The Occidental World wants to prevent Russia from using its considerable remaining high EROEI oil & gas reserves as leverage to expand its political influence over the planet and, in particular, in Europe. It also wants to discourage Russia from grabbing control over the totality of the Caspian Sea oil & gas reserves and from the ultimate temptation of Middle East oil & gas reserves…
As a result, will Russia seek an even deeper “alliance” with China to counter the Occidental World sanctions ? Will Russia be now willing to launch a “joint initiative” with China to attempt to grab effective control over Caspian Sea and Middle East oil & gas ? What will Germany and Japan be willing to do to “save their necks” ?
All that to say that Earth based human civilization may be getting very close to an unexpected brutal “phase change trigger event”, which would transform the world that we currently know into but a frail souvenir…
the big problem you guys got with your paranoia about russia is this:
it’s the US government that intends to establish “full spectrum dominance” and “benevolent global hegemony”… it’s not the russians
the US made their intentions perfectly clear, they even said they needed a new pearl harbor to get their project going… they got their new pearl harbor and have spent the last 13 years proving they mean buisness
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everybody that’s been payign attention knows all this… but “full spectrum dominace” presumably includes dominace of the western media, including internet chatrooms like this
will it work?
too soon to tell, but the PNAC project and its propaganda seem to be losing credibility…
but that’s okay, isnt it? …because your basic moral belief is “might makes right”, and you got the most guns
This is an epiphany level article on the Russia situation… http://www.popularresistance.org/the-latest-in-the-new-cold-war/
It seems that the world has tired of being under the USD yoke — and they see the beast is weak — and they are attacking it not militarily but slashing at its Achilles Heel…. and the beast is lashing out trying to hold its ground…
I am with the author — might will not win this battle – brains will — and Putin and his allies are worked out how to bring this tyrant to its knees…
One concern here is that when faced with defeat will the US attempt first strikes?
well, that’s what “nuclear primacy” is about… first strike capability so overwhelming that very little retaliatory capability will survive in russia and china…
the capability that does survive can be picked off by the ABMs…
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just another sick neocon theory… and i have a really hard time believing anyone believes in it…
there’s got to be rational people involved in this goofy operation, and i’m thinking they’re using the operation as cover for the biggest looting operation in history
.
google: : “nuclear primacy” “first strike” russia china
I don’t like the term neocon — I prefer Deep State… neocon suggests that there are bad guys — and that there are good guys opposing them in the US.
No such thing — there is only one group — the Deep State — I am sure they have differences amongst them but at the end of the day there is no white night in there saying ‘we must act ethically’
There are no ethics – there is only power and wealth — and they will do anything they possibly can to keep it and get more.
As we can see Obama is really no different than Bush — he is being told what to do — and I am sure he is most happy to do so — he is not stupid — he knows how it works — there is nothing to be gained by defying the masters — he would have known that many years ago — its not as if he showed up at the white house and suddenly realized – hey I am a stuffed shirt…
The rewards are enormous if you make the Deep State happy — the riches fabulous …
http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/03/politics/clinton-speaking-fees/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1167682/Blair-worlds-best-paid-speaker-pocketing-364-000-just-hours-work.html
Of course this is just the tip of the iceberg — these guys get all sorts of sweet consultancy contracts.
The Deep State takes care of its own.
well, here’s a couple articles…
.
from alternet….
“What do William Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, Elliot Abrams, and Robert Kagan have in common? Yes, they are all die-hard hawks who have gained control of U.S. foreign policy since the 9/11 attacks. But they are also part of one big neoconservative family — an extended clan of spouses, children, and friends who have known each other for generations
“Though she doesn’t focus much on foreign-policy issues, Lynne Cheney also hangs her hat at AEI. Her husband Dick Cheney recently chose Victoria Nuland to become his next deputy national security adviser. Nuland, as it turns out, is married to Robert Kagan, Bill Kristol’s main comrade-in-arms and the co-founder of PNAC.
all in the neocon family, alternet, by jim lobe, a jewish american
http://www.alternet.org/story/15481/all_in_the_neocon_family
.
another article from haaretz…
“In the course of the past year, a new belief has emerged in the town: the belief in war against Iraq. That ardent faith was disseminated by a small group of 25 or 30 neoconservatives, almost all of them Jewish, almost all of them intellectuals (a partial list: Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, William Kristol, Eliot Abrams, Charles Krauthammer), people who are mutual friends and cultivate one another and are convinced that political ideas are a major driving force of history. They believe that the right political idea entails a fusion of morality and force, human rights and grit.
white man’s burden, haaretz
http://www.haaretz.com/news/features/white-man-s-burden-1.14110
I have seen those articles previously… and that brings us back to the question — who is really in control?
Who is the actual deep state?
Of course this is a ‘hoax — a conspiracy theory’ — all the typical jargon that it trotted out when a group trots out when something is leaked — and they want to bury it….
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protocols_of_the_Elders_of_Zion
looks to me like these lists are incomplete if they dont include people like cheney, rumsfeld, jeb bush, radek sikorski, joe biden, mccain, the deathwish christians like hagee, and corporations like exxon and its ex-CEO lee raymond, who became vice-chairman of the board of the AEI shortly after 9/11
;
and if you think everybody in your “deep state” is a neocon, i think you’re wrong… there’s probably american siloviki who think israel’s influence is bad for america, who think nocons’ amition is harming america, who think the “war on terror” is a farce, and who very seriously doubt that jesus will come back no matter how much real estate we blow up…
those guys –the amierican siloviki– are gonna have a much harder time of it thant he russian siloviki did when they dumped the russian neocons, because the neocn influence is more firmly entrenched in american media and politics
please name some members of the “deep state”
did they publish a document in september 2000 that outlined their plan to achieve global “full spectrum dominance” and “benevolent global hegemony”?
did those deep state people lament, in that same document, that they would need a new pearl harbor to kickstart their project>
did their new pearl harbor happen?
was their plan adopted –in places, verbatim– as the official US defense strategy?
have their actions since 9/11 attempted to follow the plan outlined by their september 200 document?…the same plan that was adopted as the official US defense strategy?
google: “rebuilding america’s defenses” bush “national defense strategy” 2002
here’s a map of russians’ response to NATO/necon aggression… they’re trying to avoid trouble by building pipelines that baypass necon trouble in poland and ukraine
meanwhile, NATO has been advancing steadily towards russia, gobbling up former states and satellites of the USSR…
the advance of NATO accelerated when the russians purged the russian neocons that had been controlling russian energy and media
he;re’s that map
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/a/img842/8264/fimw7.jpg
You will be well served to read this if you want to understand the energy war that is going on…
http://www.popularresistance.org/the-latest-in-the-new-cold-war/
As you can see there is no such thing as a neo-con… there are only interests … and right now the US is being attacked because the Russia Iran Syria axis are wooing (or perhaps forcing) the EU to join with them — because they are able to supply the EU with energy (or cut off energy to the EU if they don’t play ball)
Anyone who thinks the GOP and DEMS are different is in a dream world — if you read that article you can see that there is a seamless transition from one admin to the next…
That is because it is NOT the politicians who are in control — it is the Deep State — the president is simply their mouthpiece… congress and the senate simply along for the ride.
The real decisions are made by people who are not elected.
And you will never be told what is really going on behind the scenes by the MSM — that article gives you a peak behind the curtain…
doesnt make much difference what you call them, does it?
they’re united in a belief that maight makes right… different factions have different goals… some want to achieve benevolent global hegemony –which is out of the question, given the “benevolence” they’ve demonstrated so far
some of them want a big war so jesus will come back
some of them are multination corporations, especially big oil, who believe they can improve their profits if they can convince the US taxpayer to support their oil acquisition project
some of them are zionists, and there are different flavors of zionists… for instance, the deathwish christians are zionists, but the want a big war that will wreck everything…
then there are the jewish zionists, who believe they can secure israel from sea level rise by protecting it as it finishes ethnic cleansing the high ground in the west bank… and that’s got to be accomplished before the oil runs out and their aemrican protection implodes from oil shortages
iand the media, and the think tanks, and the lobbies… i’m lumping them all together as “necons” for convenience, and if you deny they exist, i’ve got a nice bunch of chemtrails here if you’d like to buy one
think i’m kidding about israel and sea level rise?
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/a/img513/5177/h81w.jpg
why did sharon abandon his settlements in the low ground in gaza?
this yapping aout the “caliphate” and “ISIS” is comical, really… in view of the neocons’ stated intentions and their actions since their neew pearl harbor….
of course, that “new pearl harbor” instantly turned everyone into necons –which is exactly what it was enteded to do
.
russia has been watching this performance… you cant blame them if they dont want to knuckle undoer to neocon “benevolence”, can you?
You are right. People don’t realize that we (the rest of the world) need the oil that Rosneft will drill. Cutting off Rosneft from credit could have bad repercussions.
Reblogged this on Southern Energy and Resilience and commented:
Why is it that reducing return on capital in the oil industry is combining with hugely problematic debt conditions globally to create a situation that many people are just plain misreading?
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Ms. Tverberg, I’m with the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy (CASSE). Your 12 points are all solid arguments against perpetual growth, however, you maintain that growth is good, especially in #11, “We need a growing supply of cheap energy to maintain economic growth.” If economic growth is the root cause of most of the world’s social and economic problems, maybe it’s time to rethink growth itself.
Are you familiar with CASSE’s postion statement on economic growth?
http://steadystate.org/act/sign-the-position/read-the-position-statement/
It is assumed the point #11 takes the argument from todays setup of the system towards growth. It has to grow or it goes into unstabel state and finally catabolic collapse (early signs perhpas as of now). The whole world is geared only for gradual growth, this has been the modus operandi for centuries (it’s not only those last 150-200yrs), it’s so much soaked everywhere that people don’t see it, it’s in finance, governemnt, politics you name it.
A steady state in an economy where resources are subject to depletion and the other issues listed in Item 6 implies a steadily rising use of resources, just to maintain a steady state. Thus, calling it a steady state is in fact deceptive. It really requires a rapid rise in the use of energy products to combat diminishing returns of resources of many types, and also to fight pollution and other issues that are increasing problems. To produce what you call a “steady state,” we need a rising supply of cheap energy resources.
We know that dissipated structures, such as humans, other plants and animals, hurricanes, and economies have a finite life. What seems to act to extend the life of animals is lessened used of resources over their full lifetimes. Thus, we end up with more slender animals. Humans who are not overweight tend to have longer lifetimes as well.
As a parallel, with respect to a world economy, it is logical that if we had decided years ago to use our resources subject to diminishing returns more slowly, they would have lasted longer. Thus, when we discovered that coal could heat buildings, we should have not gone one to figure out that coal could also make better steel plows for farming, and could support the production of cement and steel needed for hydroelectric plants. If we had stayed with the very limited use of fossil fuels, and only very gradually, if at all, added other uses, population would have grown more slowly, and we would not have hit depletion issues as rapidly. Of course, now that we are hitting depletion issues, we cannot go back and fix our earlier decisions. It is as if an 80 year old man is going back and saying, “Oops, I should have lived my life differently.”
CASSE’s “Steady State” statement seems to be based on a lack of understanding of our real predicament. We have a lot of researchers who live in academic “silos.” They read what other similar researchers have said and base their findings on what a long list of predecessors said. In fact, perhaps 40 years ago, the view that we should be following a steady state economy may have had some validity–we were far enough away from limits that using resources more slowly would have been helpful. But a cure for a 80 year old man is not the same as a cure for a 40 year old man. At this point, our concern is falling into the abyss. A steady state is not possible, or helpful.
An excellent explanation.
Agreed. The ‘steady staters’ do not realize that we are about 50% beyond what the planet can contribute on a year over year basis. We are destroying the natural capital at such a rate that there should be little left for my grandchildren.
If the counting were correct, we would be a lot more than 50% over what the planet can contribute on a year over year basis. Even the “Ecological Footprint” numbers assume that we can continue to get oil, natural gas, and coal out of the ground, to continue our lifestyle. The world could never sustain a population of over one billion without fossil fuels.
Steady state, like sustainability, is a mirage. Steady state, like sustainability, would have worked wonders to stretch out our fossil fuel and other resource endowments, but gradually, over a longer period of time, we would still reach the point we are at now. The only solution to this conundrum is more earth like worlds to consume. Steady state might have been a way to give us time for our civilization to advance and might have gotten us to the stars. Probably not though, because steady state wouldn’t lead us to high tech, and you need high tech for interstellar travel. Thus no extra earths for us to consume.
By definition, a steady state economy would not require “a steadily rising use of resources.” A steady state economy has been defined simply as an economy that recognizes that the economy is a sub-system of the environment. It would have stable population; stable per capita consumption; and energy and material flows within ecological limits. The most important feature of a steady state economy is its sustainable scale, where economic activities remain within the carrying capacity of ecosystems. And to be clear, the concept of steady state economy in no way implies that current global GDP is sustainable.
In your overeating analogy, the global economy is obese, but increasing GDP is not the solution! If economic growth is the increase in production and consumption of goods and services in the aggregate, and as you say, we live on a finite planet, it is simply impossible for our economy to grow forever.
We agree that we are experiencing resource shortages. I think we agree that using less would be a good idea. It seems obvious that growing the economy is not the way to preserve the natural ecosystems that our economy itself depends on.
I suppose possible — but such an economy would be extremely primitive — there would be none of the modern technology we are used to — because the production of such things requires a growing economy
For instance the energy required to make and power technology requires the full BAU behind it… without the complex economy to drive this it won’t happen — and a complex economy must grow — otherwise it withers — and you get a deflationary spiral to hell — and it dies.
Evolutionary physicists say evolution is the art of increasing complexity and energy flow rate, so more evolutioned things must consume more energy and are less lasting.
From http://steadystate.org:
In a society obsessed with growth, technology is used to increase the scale of the economy, resulting in more machinery extracting and processing more resources. The appropriateness of technology is not questioned, because it is needed to keep the economy growing. Inventions, even if they cause more harm than good, are developed as long as someone is willing to pay for them.
In a steady state economy, businesses, universities, and governments continue to pursue technological progress to the benefit of society, but technology is not deployed to grow the economy. In the current economic paradigm, when limits to growth become cumbersome, technology is developed to deal with those limits. If the technology works, we get a bit of breathing room. In a steady state economy, that breathing room is used for leisure, wealth sharing, pursuit of moral and spiritual progress, and development of better technologies, rather than to feed evermore growth. The result is better access to useful technologies with more attention paid over time to the appropriateness of technology.
Whoever wrote that has not thought this through. Because what they suggest cannot happen. Gail has already thoroughly explained why….
There are many issues with your statement. We have a huge number of people in the world living on less than $1.25 per day. You say, “In a steady state economy, businesses, universities, and governments continue to pursue technological progress to the benefit of society, but technology is not deployed to grow the economy.” If the economy does not grow any progress those that make less than $1.25 per day make must come directly out of the living standards of those making more. This is a hard sell.
Not to mention the fact that even the limited growth needed to help those making less than $1.25 per day is no longer possible, without a huge scale-up in energy use. Even the status quo requires a scale up in energy use. And with the status quo, or a decline in the economies where consumption is greater than $1.25 per day, there are a lot of debt defaults.
Why is it always assumed that the economic model which is proposed as a solution -in this case ‘Steady State’ – will be peopled with human beings doing more noble things? This is hardly likely.This betrays that it belongs to the ranks of Utopian social theorising, allied to Communism, Anarchism, the Caliphate, the Reign of the Saints, etc. Do we all become benign philosophers in the steady state economy?
I am sorry to inform you, that steady state is a myth. See the Red Queen syndrom. Either you run faster or you stay behind. There are many structures trying to stay in a steady state, but they lose in a constant race. There is no steady state in dynamic systems model. There are many countries trying this model and none of them is successful.
Ms. Tverberg, you’re right! A steady state economy is a hard sell to the wealthy nations that benefit from growth disproportionately and at the expense of poverty-stricken nations, but that doesn’t make it wrong. The fact that a billion people still live on less than $1/day and 2.7 billion on less than $2/day makes me question the effectiveness of economic growth in alleviating poverty! A steady state economy would reduce poverty through degrowth in the most grotesquely super-sized economies characterized by waste and conspicuous consumption.
The CASSE position statement addresses poverty: “For many nations with widespread poverty, increasing per capita consumption (or, alternatively, more equitable distributions of wealth) remains an appropriate goal.”
Regarding debt defaults, the transition to a steady state economy would be incremental, starting with adopting the right macro-economic policy goal and gradually resetting existing fiscal, monetary, and trade policy levers from growth toward a steady state. One of Herman Daly’s “10 Policies for a Steady State Economy” is to “move away from fractional reserve banking toward a system of 100% reserve requirements.”
http://steadystate.org/top-10-policies-for-a-steady-state-economy/
For a more in-depth explanation of why there is a fundamental conflict between growth and environmental protection, why the economy grows as a whole, and why growth can’t be decoupled from energy use, see Brian Czech’s book Supply Shock: Economic Growth at the Crossroads and the Steady State Solution.
http://supplyshock.org
A lot of sustainability myth propagande here lately, Gail.
Like Jehova’s Witnesses. They just preach, they don’t listen/read.
Can you explain, please what sustainability myth propagande can we found here? Thanks…
The last time a human was sustainable was in times of hunters and gatherers, say 200-12000 years ago, depending on location (some North American tribes, Aborigens could be classified as sustainable). And he needed 1-2 square kilometers per person to stay sustainable. Begining with agriculture it all stopped. Simple termodynamic perspective.
The whole fairy-tail of sustainable civilization with techno-toys is a total misunderstanding. The steady-state idea is one those myths.
I am not convinced we were sustainable as hunter-gatherers. We learned to control the burning of biomass over one million years ago. With the control of burning biomass, we could do many things:
(1) Cook at least part of our food, so could get more food energy from it, and use a broader range of food stuffs
(2) Cut down our chewing time, with cooked food. Chimpanzees spend literally half their time chewing. With less time chewing, could spend more time on other things.
(3) Move to colder climates, because we have heat from fire.
(4) Drive animals wanted for food to locations where they can be killed more easily, using fire.
(5) Spend more time on crafts and clothing, since we spend less time on cooking.
(6) Size of chewing and digestive apparatus can shrink and brain grow, with cooked food.
There is evidence that as hunter-gatherers moved to new territories, they wiped out whole species of large animals, suitable for food. Niles Eldredge says the Sixth Mass Extinction started 100,000 years ago, back in the hunter-gatherer era. It got worse, as humans learned agriculture.
Well, yes, from this perspective homo sapiens was never sustainable. It all depends on the level of sustainability. Let’s agree that at least the overshoot was mitigated shortly by the environment. Like it will be this time, but on a much bigger scale.
I couldn’t agree more. But the green brigade believes driving a Tesla is sustainable… so I can imagine it would get such people to see your logic.
Azerbaijan’s oil production reaches its peak
The State Statistics Committee reports that over Jan-Jul the country produced 24.922 million tons of oil — that is by 2.2% less than production for the 2013 same term.
http://news.az/articles/economy/91219
Actually, looking at EIA data, Azerbaijan’s oil production peaked in 2010. The year 2014 is down further from 2013 production.
Dear Gail and All
This note will recommend some resources that may interest some of you as you try to figure out what, if anything, can be done to survive the coming challenges. I will sort the resources by the sorts of strategies that you might be considering.
SMALL FARM USING LOW INPUT METHODS WHICH BUILD NATURAL CAPITAL
I recommend that you read the introduction to this long interview of a Canadian farmer:
http://www.permaculturevoices.com/podcast/re-thinking-farm-products-creating-a-brand-that-needs-ingredients-from-the-farm-with-philippe-choiniere-pvp065/
I see this article as a warning call that competing in the commodity crop space is not a very attractive prospect. If you think collapse of the industrial model is imminent, you may nevertheless choose this option. You may also think that you are more talented than most people, or that your location gives you inherent advantages.
SMALL VEGETABLE FARM USING HIGH INPUT METHODS WHICH MAKES MONEY WITH THE ‘ORGANIC’ LABEL IN THE CURRENT ENVIRONMENT
I recommend that you listen to the interview I previously recommended with Jean-Martin Fortier. If you think this is the way to go, I highly recommend his book.
http://www.permaculturevoices.com/podcast/grow-better-not-bigger-the-market-gardener-selling-140000-on-1-5-acres-pvp051/
COMMUNITY ORCHARD USING LOW INPUTS WHICH MAKES MONEY IN THE CURRENT ENVIRONMENT
I recommend that you listen to the interview with Stefan Sebkowiak:
http://www.permaculturevoices.com/permaculture/permaculture-voices-podcast-021-the-permaculture-orchard/
If you think this is the way to go, I highly recommend his DVD.
COMMUNITY GRASS FED ANIMALS ON LEASED LAND
I recommend the interview with Greg Judy
http://www.permaculturevoices.com/podcast/profitable-methods-used-to-heal-the-land-with-mob-grazing-with-greg-judy-pvp045/
Please note that any ‘community’ orchard or animal operation and any small farm which involves marketing to a large community will involve considerable transportation. If you think we won’t have transportation in the very near future, then you need to be thinking either about a homestead or about a close knit community. The first thing I recommend is that you read Vera Bradova’s essay describing a dozen as the ideal group size:
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-08-10/by-the-dozen
So let’s suppose that you have in mind a highly survivable garden which is not dependent on very much in the way of finance or government or fossil fuel based transport and is largely a self-supporting ecosystem. You do visualize a sharing and cooperative group of perhaps a dozen who team to accomplish things that they could not accomplish individually. The dozen are more defined by the tasks than by external factors such as religion or political affiliations…but they are close neighbors.
Then I recommend that you read the book Integrated Forest Gardening by Wayne Weiseman, Daniel Halsey, and Bryce Ruddock (W, H, and R). These three practice in the upper Midwest of the US, but their advice is broadly applicable everywhere. The subtitle for their book is The Complete Guide to Polycultures and Plant Guilds in Permaculture Systems. I will expound on this a little bit, since I don’t know of a handy interview or summary you can go to. Also please note that some of their example guilds provide places for annuals amidst the perennials.
A difference between farms and gardens is that farms want products which all mature at the same time and are machine harvestable. W, H, and R, in contrast, want ‘cost effective harvests: low input, diverse crops, and season extended harvest.’ This generally implies hand harvesting, unlike a commercial farm. But it also means that little specialized equipment is required, and the genetic diversity discourages large losses to pests or disease. In short, it is a gardening strategy rather than a commercial farming strategy.
W,H, and R make clear the distinction between ‘organic’ agriculture which disturbs the soil regularly and the type of low disturbance methods they recommend. They also emphasize one hundred percent recycling, which is incompatible with commercial conventional or organic farms.
W,H, and R emphasize that the fortunes of a higher trophic level depend entirely on the food and other requirements available to the lower trophic level. This attitude is completely at odds with current commercial agriculture thinking. Similarly, they emphasize reliance on very local resources, which are maintained with recycling and increased with best practices horticulture taking advantage of plant capabilities and the work of the soil food web.
They state that ‘waste is released to the organisms that decompose and metabolize the compounds to nutrients, which are then recycled into the system once again. All there is for humans to do is to develop ecological cycles by placing the components in a relative location and create a healthy ecology. Integrating ourselves into the landscape means making sure that each component of the design contributes to that landscape and increases its capacity to sustain us,’
The bulk of the book gives you more guidance about how to accomplish that, with a variety of very specific examples.
My own suspicion is that what W, H, and R are recommending is a fine gardening strategy, but don’t quit your day job. The difficulty of actually making money with gardening or small scale sustainable farming was covered above. I see the W, H, and R recommendations as being a survival strategy for tough times, and a soul-restoring method of gardening if you aren’t trying to compete with supermarkets.
If you are an impoverished family living on the 8th floor of a run down apartment building, the hurdles will be obvious. If you are a suburbanite, particularly in the old suburbs so beloved of David Holmgren, you probably have enough unused land of your own and in your neighborhood to make good use of the book. If you are in a ritzy suburban neighborhood, or have a local government which aspires to the ‘cosmetically attractive dead zone’ look, then you have lots of hurdles. If you are out in the country, you can do this on your own, but finding a dozen people to cooperate with may be a daunting task. Perhaps a large extended family?
If you are a suburbanite or an urbanite with access to waste land, who would like to practice integrated forest gardening on a small scale, I recommend Deb Tolman’s raised keyhole beds. The best description is to buy her DVD, but a pretty good TV program to watch is her 10 minute interview with the Central Texas Gardener:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hobrYWufEN0
Don Stewart
Thanks for your ideas!
The situation today is different from the past also in the fact that we use terribly complicated machines. Machines in the past could replace human work only quantitatively. Today, the machines replace the human work qualitatively. The machines became simply irreplacable by the manual or intelectual work of the humans.
E.g. nowadays the combine harvesters can not be controlled by low quality manual workforce. The depletion of the resources can be fought only by the high-tech machines and by the highly qualified workforce. Otherwise we are completely helpless. The same applies to oil extraction.
So one of the important factors besides the high-tech machines is also the presence of the highly qualified workforce that temporarily protects us from immediate hitting the resource limits.
Dysfunctioning the current machinery, weapons, cars is very simple: you either pour some water into electronics, or make a simple blow with the hammer on it…
Is it plugged in?, is it turned on?, did you give it a good thump? then it is broken, throw it away.
You are right–we are now using terribly complicated machines, and we have very technical people to operate them. (We also have a lot of computers, and folks who have been trained to program them–not all that different.) If we lose the capability to make those machines, we have a lot of people without jobs. It will also cut into our ability to extract resources.
I have just started to read your blog. I do not claim to understand all the arguments – my problem not yours – you put them over very clearly!! I do believe that the global society as we know it will collapse in some way at some stage. It rather reminded me of articles I have read about Cuba’s Special Period when their economy had to restructure itself dramatically after the collapsing USSR withdrew its funding – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Period.
Do you think globally we will be able to manage the collapse in a similar way to the Cubans?
The Cuban collapse was a much “lighter” version of collapse–a lot of things stayed in place, including the government. They are also a warm country, so don’t have the issue of heat. Everything I can see says that they were able to ramp up the production of particular kinds of foods locally–fruits and vegetables, particularly. They continue to be fairly big importers of quite a few foods–rice, meat, beans, and dairy products.
It is hard to know how collapse will proceed. Perhaps there will be a period where growing a few things locally to supplement things that are brought in will be helpful. But I would think for the long term, we will need to figure out how to get nearly all of our calories produced locally–either that, or develop some kind of canal shipping or other very energy efficient shipping to get food shipped around. Someone referred me to “The Resilient Gardener: Food Production and Self-Reliance in Uncertain Times” by Carol Deppe. The front says, “Including the five crops you need to survive and thrive–potatoes, corn, beans, squash, and eggs.”
The three sisters, native American phrase, and potatoes and eggs. Chickens are great if you can keep the hawks, foxes and coyotes off.
I get so tried of hearing about people growing green leaves as a solution to food security. It may have some vitamins and minerals but no protein, fat, nor calories the things one really needs to survive.
I am a big fan of pumpkins… gotta be one of the easiest vegetables to grow — and loaded with carbs…
Don’t forget to include ponds, a wealth of food can be taken from small ponds.
Same with Yams or sweet potatoes.
I agree. If you live in cold countries like Canada, you need animal fat to keep warm. Nothing, in my personale experience provide more body heat then animal fat. Take a lot of water to digest the fat.
I also notice then when I eat meat after a strong physical activity, I have less muscles pain.
Turkeys can be better than chickens in a predator environment. They are bigger, harder to kill and mean when attacked.
Turkeys are a lot harder to raise than chickens
Firstly, thank you for taking the time to reply. Whilst I think of it, may I also thank you for your efforts in producing this blog.
It is interesting to think how a collapse would take place. Would there be one event that due to our integrated global system would cause every society simultaneously to fall to pieces. I can’t see that myself.
One of your contributors suggested that in reality things happen over a period of time. It is in history books (books – that comment probably ages me) & Hollywood films that things happen quickly. Societies, especially first world ones have major infrastructures, which cushion problems. A good example is the UK , where I live. As an overall country we drifted into two world wars both of which nearly saw us starve due to the German U-Boats. Rationing, Dig for victory etc was enacted to help sort the problem. I say help as of course without the massive aid effort from the USA we would probably have gone under. I suppose the point I am trying to make is that societies can adapt to major changes. The outcome may not be pleasant. I can foresee rationing of fuel & food & goods. That alone will cause a major psychological shock to the consumer minded folk amongst us.
I do accept that this view presupposes time & probably cooperation of populations & possibly countries and that there is fair evidence that both those commodities are in short supply usually. However extreme circumstances make for strange bedfellows.
If our problem is governments and banks collapsing, it seems like this time may be truly different. I am not sure we can count of government rationing programs–perhaps a new local dictator. Or perhaps things don’t happen that quickly. Perhaps it takes a while before changes take place, and they take place at different rates in different places.
Now we depend on international supply lines to make anything but the simplest of good–this is quite different from, say, back at the time of World War II. Then there were many goods made locally, with local materials. It seems likely that any kind of manufacturing that depends on international supply lines (for example computers, phones, cars and trucks, oil drilling equipment, solar panels) will be interrupted, about the same time.
Bry, I urge you to back-read the previous posts on this site. They are very good. They will catch you up to speed quickly.
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Thanks for this overview, Gail. It’s hard not to believe that you are dead on. Will send the link to some people that need an awakening…
“UK economy grows at fastest rate since before the financial crisis – live”
http://www.theguardian.com/business/blog/live/2014/aug/15/markets-end-week-on-a-higher-note-business-live
Hands up those who believe in these numbers!
There’s an old saying: “It goes to show how figures lie and liars figure”.
It’s the same in the US. More people are unemployed and quit looking for work because there are NO GOOD JOBS left, they are overseas but the MSM and Govt keeps telling us how the economy is doing so well and unemployment is at around 6%.
Yet if you listen or read economist John Williams from Shadowstats.com the real unemployment figure in the US is approaching 26 PERCENT. Big difference between 6 and 26%.
Oh and the Dollar stores are filing for bankruptcies because their customers don’t have the expendable cash to buy $1 items. This is why we PREPARE. 😉
Indeed – ignore the numbers governments are feeding … and remember — without the massive stimulus that gets pumped out day after day…
We would sink to the bottom in a second.
Rodster
I think I saw an article about £1 stores in the UK being challenged by……89p stores! I haven’t seen one yet.
Well let’s think about it for a second.
Is human population worldwide still growing? Yes. Is global production of energy still growing? Yes.
Both of these mean that, incredibly enough, the world system is still growing, and any economy which successfully integrates itself with the global system will thus show growth itself.
Still, eventually these trends have to reverse, and at roughly the same time.
Look for closely as the UK economy — it is moribund — grocers other than the mega discounters are reporting horrible earnings… the UK is stimulating — primarily with subsidies for housing … they are also continuing to run up massive debts…
This does not mean they are doing anything better than any other country… the have their own currency so they have the luxury of engaging in such policies while others cannot (or refuse to)
The global economy is only growing because of massive stimulus projects — see China’s Ghost Cities — building stuff for the sake of building — they might was well employ a 1000000 people with spoons to dig a hole from China to LA.
They don’t do that because building stuff means raw materials are needed — which stimulates the global economy
Yes those that still have the means to stimulate by borrowing and printing are faring better than the rest in terms of overall GDP numbers — but if you look at the situation on main street — it is a blood bath.
There is no recovery in these places — there is only window dressing – Potemkin Villages — all they are doing is the same stuff pre 2008 — we are building to one giant crescendo of a financial collapse..
You simply cannot print money or build stuff that people do not need — or hand money over to people just to get them to buy houses…
Even with all these trillions of stimulus we are at stall speed….
And yet, restaurants in this small town are full; there are queues at the supermarkets; most cars on the road seem recent models; there is a lot of house-building, and no empty homes; there is zero unemployment and very low crime in this area. How can this be? Surveys by the Bank of England show that personal debt levels are much reduced. Je ne comprends pas.
Lizzy
The economics editor of the Guardian did a tour of Britain and said that he had the general impression of a third sinking, a third just hanging on, dangerously in debt, and the upper third doing very well thank you with lots of access to even more credit: that’s more than enough to account for the full restaurants, house extensions I suppose? The rather expensive pub-restaurants in all the villages here are usually packed, often with pensioners!
One thing to bear in mind about the UK is that the very last things that the modern English will stop spending on -even borrowing to pay for – are food and drink eaten out, and a couple of holidays each year in the sun. Clothes as well, among the fairer sex: so many clothes shops here! And there are still some very well-off pensioners around, eager to enjoy themselves before their personal sun goes down.
But I’ve noticed talking to owners of smaller businesses in the town that live off discretionary income that things went down in 2008 and haven’t really recovered. A friend with a good art gallery here, selling solid investment-quality pieces rather than limited edition rubbish, saw a whole tier of middle-class customers disappear in 2008, and they haven’t returned -similar story for many. A 40% loss of turn-over since 2008 is very common among these businesses.
The region I live in -with lots of bio-tech industry and a large and expanding world-class university, has practically zero unemployment, except among the drugged and drunken unemployables of the housing estates (often displaced in menial jobs by Eastern Europeans imported on contracts), and as someone I passed in the street said: ‘This place is buzzing isn’t it?!’ Real estate values make one’s eyes pop out – a lot of income is going to pay that: when interest rates go up, Bang! All pumped up to suit the politicians and banks.
So, superficially all looks well. But the real stats on indebtedness and quality of work for ordinary people tell their own story about the UK. 60 million plus credit-addicts on a chilly, damp, resource-depleted island without energy or food security and a services economy does not bode well.
Dear Xabier and Other Britain Watchers
This article contains some facts and some anecdotes about British spending proclivities:
http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21611074-how-new-technology-shaking-up-oldest-business-more-bang-your-buck
‘The most striking trend our analysis reveals is a drop in the average hourly rate of a prostitute in recent years (see chart 1). One reason is surely the downturn that followed the 2007-08 financial crisis. Even prostitutes working in places that escaped the worst effects have been hit. Vanessa, a part-time escort in southern England, finds that weeks can go by without her phone ringing. Men see buying sex as a luxury, she says, and with the price of necessities rising it is one they are cutting back on. Even when she offers discounts to whip up interest, clients are scarcer than they were.’
Don Stewart
Further evidence that the UK GDP numbers are not a reflection of the true economic realities there
A very good point re interest rates… normally if interest rates were so low we’d have hyperinflation … but in times when the deflationary pressures are overwhelming … ZIRP simply keeps things humming … but of course there are massive toxic side effects of ZIRP (too lengthy to get into here) which will eventually unravel the ball of yarn.
When I see such info I ask myself — the EU is a basket case on life support — Japan’s GDP just crash nearly 7% — the US is a total mess — even Germany is now negative on GDP — China is an enormous disaster waiting to happen…
And yet the UK is immune? How can it be…
Friends of ours returned the UK a couple of years ago and report that it took forever to find jobs — they ended having to take rather low paid positions and felt lucky to have them.
The restaurants were full etc.. in the US in early 2007…. because the US was engaging (and continues to engage) in all sorts of games that created false prosperity — kinda like if you had just lost your job and were continuing to live the same lifestyle by charging everything on your credit cards…
That works for a while — but the end result is obvious.
The UK – using various tools including piling on incredible amounts of debt onto their existing massive debt…
It is window dressing — it will not last.
Paul, Xabier, a couple of years ago I would have agreed. But despite everything, today, it seems it’s going well. I haven’t read that article, Xabier. I watch the news, I read papers (but not, ahem! the Guardian), I have friends who are doing very nicely. If either of you were to look here, in South Northants, you’d see the same. As I said, Paul, there is zero unemployment here — employers are advertising everywhere. But yet I know what’s happening, I read the figures. Paul, you’re spot on about the terrible status of the UK economy from a macro level. There is no doubt at all.
But so far things are carrying on nicely, sort of.
There are without some pockets that are doing ok — I am in Canada this month — the economy is reasonable ok — no sense of doom and gloom — but as a resource exporter Canada is riding the coat tails of countries that are stimulating with trillions of dollars… (China, Japan, US, UK)
NZ as a food exporter would be in a similar position — likewise Australia…
But this does not mean all is ok…
It’s like you are out of a job and your friend is out of a job — and your friend has much bigger limit on his credit card — so he shouts drinks and meals for you every night of the week…
Sounds like fun…. but of course it will not last…
Paul
All correct I’d say. But the electorate love well-dressed windows, and that’s what the government are serving up for them in advance of the elections soon to come.
It is tempting to look at totals and think that if population and energy supply are both increasing, everything is OK, but the issue is really keeping the overall system working. Even if energy consumption is rising, there can be huge problems.
For one thing, expensive energy of a particular kind is not equivalent to less expensive energy of the same kind. For example, high priced oil will make economies that use much of it in their energy mix less competitive. It will tend to push them into recession, and lower their sales, compared to countries that use less oil (and more coal) in their energy mix. It will push the governments of countries using oil into funding deficits.
High pried electricity is also not equivalent to cheap electricity. Germany is now learning this lesson, as it enters recession. High priced electricity tends to make either governments poor, or citizen’s poor, or both. It tends to make businesses less competitive in the world marketplace. The way Germany has priced renewables, it also tends to drive out electricity generated using natural gas.
A different issue is the need for oil exporters to make enough revenue from taxes. This can only happen if oil prices are high enough. If they are not, oil exporters start having internal problems, because the government cannot put in place programs citizens expect (food subsidies, jobs programs, desalinization plants for water). Of course, if oil prices are high enough for exporters, they will be too high for the big oil importers.
With rapidly rising supplies of cheap energy of many types, there tend to be few problems. (This is a reason we have not had a World War since the 1940s.) But once supply energy supply gets tighter and the price for even some types of energy rises, it tends to strangle economies. The most vulnerable economies succumb first (like Egypt and Syria, both former oil exporters), and Greece and Cyprus (both heavy users of oil in their energy mix). The concern is that financial problems will spread to the world as a whole.
The efficiency of Italy’s economy is also improving since the start of the crisis, as pointed by Ugo Bardi:
http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2014/08/italy-training-donkey-to-work-without.html
(I am ironic, naturally)
Hmm… regular reader of this blog, first time I comment, and take the opportunity to salute Gail’s efforts to explain patiently the nature (and depth) of our predicament.
I scanned the guardian earlier and saw a headline about how the EU has a spark of recovery… If I want fiction I will read a book so I don’t click such things…
But I wonder if the masses read that and think – bullocks — or if they still believe recovery is just around the corner…
Now this is interesting — if there is a recovery in the UK then why this http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/aug/21/food-spending-falls-price-wars-real-wages-drop
http://www.oil-price.net/
WTI dropped today 2.01 to 95.58 a barrel & Brent dropped 2.27 to 102.01!
Gail, looks like your concerns of oil price dropping are being realized as recessionary GDP’s out of the EU and bad data out of Japan are sending oil prices lower. Recent drop in oil prices is unmistakable and the further it drops the more pressure on marginal and future supply.
To follow up with more info. for the above post, here is a link from peak oil dot com:
http://peakoil.com/business/billions-in-oil-investments-at-risk-from-low-crude-prices
Billions in oil investments at risk from low crude prices
More than half a trillion dollars of investments in major oil projects over the next decade are at risk from high costs and low crude oil prices, an environmental think tank said on Friday, warning that shareholders’ returns could suffer.
“The majors have a potential capital spend of $548 billion over the period 2014-2025 on projects that require a market price of $95/barrel,” CTI said, adding that $357 billion of this is earmarked for as yet undeveloped, high-cost ventures.
The diminishing returns pie is getting sliced thinner all the time.
With recessionary pressures growing in Europe, I think the pressure on oil prices is down. Hopefully the drop stops soon.
Gail, here is an article by the Wall Street Journal about this topic. I was not able to copy & paste from their article so just a bit of information below.
http://online.wsj.com/articles/oil-prices-tumble-as-demand-flags-1407972596
‘Oil prices tumble as demand flags’
Investors & traders are less worried about oil supplies and more worried about soft demand, due to recession in Europe and less stockpiling by China.
Oil prices rebounded somewhat from yesterday but Brent is just over 104 a barrel. Also, the stock market was beginning to rebound then tanked, down last I looked over a 100 on the Dow today, but up a bit for the week.
I just went back to the WSJ link and now it requires a subscription. Oh well.
Here’s a secret — when WSJ articles are behind the paywall… copy the headline into a google news search … and voila — the full article
NEW YORK—The U.S. is staging airstrikes in Iraq, Russian troops are amassing on the Ukraine border and Israel and Hamas are at war.
Investors and traders say they are worried less about geopolitical threats to oil supplies and more about soft demand. Nicole Friedman joins MoneyBeat with Paul Vigna. Photo: Getty Images.
All three conflicts have the potential to threaten oil output. But investors and traders say they are worried less about oil supplies and more about soft demand.
They have sent Brent crude, the benchmark for world oil prices, tumbling this week. Brent hit a 13-month low during intraday trading Wednesday before recovering to end at $104.28 a barrel. Prices have gradually ticked lower since mid-June, retreating more than 9%. The drop has helped bring relief at the pump for U.S. drivers, who are paying an average $3.47 for a gallon of regular gasoline, down from $3.62 a month ago, according to AAA.
The most recent losses came after the International Energy Agency on Tuesday lowered its demand forecast for 2014, citing weaker-than-expected second-quarter economic growth in developed countries and a drop in oil stockpiling in China.
Some traders fear sputtering European economies will need less oil, after Italy reported last week it had slipped back into recession.
Brent hit a 13-month intraday low after the IEA cut its demand view. Associated Press
Investors are concerned that if demand doesn’t pick up, the market will be swimming in crude. U.S. oil production hit a 27-year high in July, the Energy Information Administration reported Tuesday.
On Wednesday, the first oil shipment left Libya’s Ras Lanuf terminal since the port was blockaded last year. The supply threats that drove prices higher earlier this year haven’t materialized, either. Fighting in Iraq remains far from the country’s oil fields, while Western sanctions against Russia have largely steered clear of punishing the oil sector.
For bearish investors, “time is on your side,” said Donald Morton, senior vice president for investment bank Herbert J. Sims & Co. in Haverhill, Mass.
The bank’s trading desk has been recommending clients bet that oil prices will fall further. “There’s no problem with crude oil in the world,” he said.
Money managers, including hedge funds, in June placed record bets on rising U.S. and Brent oil prices, but many traders have unwound those wagers since.
As of Aug. 5, their cumulative bets on rising prices on the Nymex fell to the lowest level since January, while speculative wagers on higher prices for Brent hit the lowest level since February.
To explain the recent drop in prices, traders and analysts point to mounting evidence that the physical market is oversupplied.
On Wednesday, the EIA reported an increase of 1.4 million barrels in oil supplies for the week ended Aug. 8, surprising analysts, who had generally predicted a decline. Oil futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the U.S. benchmark, ended up slightly at $97.59 a barrel.
The contract has fallen by about the same amount as Brent since mid-June.
In Europe, refineries ran at sharply lower rates in June, the IEA said Tuesday.
Market watchers say cargoes of West African crude, which normally head for Europe or the U.S., had trouble finding buyers at the end of July, a sign of weak demand.
“It’s a well-supplied market at this stage of the game,” said Roland Austrup, chief executive of Integrated Managed Futures Corp. in Toronto, which manages about $50 million. Mr. Austrup’s fund has a small bearish position on Brent.
To be sure, many analysts think the market is underestimating the risk of a supply disruption somewhere in the world. A loss of supplies from Iraq, the fifth-largest net oil exporter in 2013, or Russia, the second-largest net exporter, could send prices shooting higher.
After the supply-driven rally in June, “all of a sudden…demand was essentially playing catch up,” said Harish Sundaresh, commodity strategist and portfolio manager for Loomis, Sayles & Co., a Boston asset manager that oversees about $221 billion. “Unless emerging-market growth picks up, we would have to look to geopolitical reasons or another form of supply disruption to balance the market.”
Mr. Sundaresh is betting that oil prices will rise as threats to supply will eventually resurface.
A price spike is “a fair concern to have, certainly, if we do see any surprises on the geopolitical front,” said Lee Kayser, portfolio manager at Russell Investments in Seattle, which manages about $279 billion, including $1.6 billion invested in commodities.
Russell’s commodity funds have larger investments in oil than is recommended by the index they use as a benchmark, Mr. Kayser said.
But others say that barring a surprise drop in oil supplies, prices could keep drifting lower. Rising U.S. and Canadian production should keep the market well supplied, reducing the impact of disruptions elsewhere, oil bears say.
“This reaction over the past week is, I think, highlighting how much of a buffer U.S. oil production growth is to geopolitical risk,” said Ed Kevelson, head of over-the-counter energy markets at brokerage Newedge USA, which is owned by Société Générale. “The pressure’s still on the downside.”
Not a word in that article about the impact lower oil prices will have on capex…. the obvious implication is that big oil was cutting on 110 oil… what will they do with a sub 100 price?
Good point, Paul. But they tend to stick with basic cause and effect, rather than delving into deeper underlying trends, because their advertisers don’t want the stuff that could spook people. BAU or bust! should be the caption under all MSM headlines.
“…what will they do with sub 100?” Back off the pedal for exploration and acquisitions. As we tick down in price, if the trend continues, all sorts of marginal oil sources start getting mothballed. Starting them back up would require a high price. We are now in the Zone where:
Oil price drops due to recession
stocks go down, slow or fast
consumption increases due to low oil price
GDP begins to pull us closer to flat-lining
price of oil rises but is less than the previous price zone due to lower EROEI
rinse
repeat
until oil is dirt cheap & plentiful
but economy is too weak to mount a rally to break out of a deep recession
All hell breaks loose
That’s my take on it anyway
That sounds about right.
Thanks! Clearly a lot of people read falling oil prices a good problem–no problem with supply; oil more affordable. But it has a very definite bad side: cutbacks in future production by oil producers; more civil disorder in oil exporters, in some cases even leading to cut offs of production.
Gail. What are sanctions doing to oil demand?
I am not sure if sanctions are having much effect. To the extent that they do have an effect, they would tend to reduce oil demand, because they are making the world a more disconnected place. Russia is no longer importing chickens from the United States, so demand for chickens drops, and the oil that is used to raise those chickens declines. Presumably Russia raises a few more chickens, but it is doubtful that their approach would be as oil-intensive as ours. Perhaps oil exploration is cut back somewhat. Oil exploration also requires oil use. Workers lose their jobs in these industries, also leading to less demand.
Oil should be expensive. Even if economies might have an recede. That would make economies trying to be more oil independent and produce more local food. Be more auto-sufficient.
Yes. It needs to be more expensive than it is now, but that pushes economies into recession. The whole plan doesn’t work, I am afraid
Brent is back up to 103.15. I just invested in the ETF to make a quick profit. Maybe I can buy a few more solar panels (;-D
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/oilsands-investments-at-risk-from-low-crude-prices-report-finds-1.2737879
Oil Sands Investments At Risk From Low Crude Prices
Wow – $95 bucks for break even — I had though $80 bucks was the magic number… clearly costs have increased considerably…
Wow, those costs sure are rising fast, and when oil sands goes offline for say a year or two, how high will the price of oil need to be to jolt that mega business back into production? Most likely it isn’t going to happen. We really are looking at the last gasps of the oil age. For now, “Drive em if ya got em. Stop and smell the roses before all you can smell is burning tires (to stay warm in the winter).”
That is a good article. It links to Carbon Trackers’ report, and the exhibit in that report. http://www.carbontracker.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/top-20-risky-projects.png
My bet would be that oil doesn’t drop much further at the moment. We should be back to 110 rather than down to 90. For the past 2 years, it almost looks like someone has been keeping it in a tight range. Especially, I like the “analysts” explaining every little move.
The Fed has tasked their think tanks to work out how they can force the price higher… Clearly they cannot allow oil to drop much below 100…
I request your permission to add as a comment the translation of your post to Spanish
There are various people around the world who make translations of my posts from time to time. Do you have an existing website where you could post the translation? I am not sure that posting the translation as a comment would work well. I know that there is a Spanish “peak oil” website. It might be willing to host the translation.
Yes. It´s the Oil Crash Forum, I´ll post the translation as a post.
Thanks !
Reblogged this on Stephen Hinton Consulting and commented:
Reposted from Gail Tverberg’s blog. If anyone was in doubt that the assumptions underlying economic policy are flawed, Gail gives you 12 basics to gain a much clearer understanding.
“But once oil and natural gas became expensive, and industrialization spread around the world, the warm countries regained their advantage.”
Gail – which countries are you referring to here — as I see it no countries have an advantage at the moment – Germany is the cleanest shirt in the dirty pile of laundry — and even they are faltering — they are a cold climate country… even China – which is a total mess – cannot be considered warm climate.
Perhaps in the post collapse world the warmer countries with adequate rainfall would fair better than colder countries — because we will be reverting to economies based primarily on agriculture.
I do not envision an industrial renaissance.
People in warm countries don’t need the robust houses and a lot of heating, so they can live on less. The growing season is longer. This means that warm countries can produce more at a lower cost = advantage.
There is a downside for the warmer climate types. When there is overshoot (and those countries encounter it the same as cold countries) the epidemics is much more probable. Cold kills instantly both humans and disease infections. Cleansing period. Tropical countries don’t have it. Overshoot = overshoot. The only difference is the scale. Research the populations from 1500-1600 per country. This is the level we are heading in the first downward secular cycle.
kesar,
anyway a post oil life is easier in a warm country, I think – what do you say, Gail?
Mildly warmer with sweet water available, arable land and low current population definately yes. I just mentioned one downside, I didn’t tried discredit the idea.
A post oil life is easier in a warm country, if there aren’t too many others fighting for food. As humans, we are adapted to a warm climate. We are hairless and have sweat glands to keep ourselves cool.
One issue with warmer countries is that if you were not born in one and you move to one — you might be getting yourself into a micro Clash of Civilizations… when resources (food in this case) are short — we tend to go at each other on the basis of ethnicity….
But then I have also seen research that indicates that even that breaks down when food is extremely short — no point in teaming up — it’s every man for himself at this point (people even turn on their families).
I’d say ideally a place that is warm, agrarian, decent rainfall, low population, similar culture
You are right about warmer climate types being in overshoot as well.
Part of the epidemic problem relates to lack of a cold period to kill off insects and other disease carriers. Warmer countries seem to be especially at risk.
Right so I assume the reference is to a world that is primarily agrarian … yes certainly place with moderate climates good soil and water and low populations would be best…
South Island New Zealand comes to mind
I’m a 6th generation New Zealander, and I’m seriously worried about how NZ (New Zealand) will fare.
1. We have a population that is 30 x larger than it was pre-fossil fuels, a mere 150 years ago. It is thought that it had reached maximum non-fossil fuel levels before the fossil fuel/immigration impetus hit. In other words, post-collapse, it is not unreasonable for 29 out of 30 of the present population to not survive.
2. Farming here is VERY dependent on fossil fuels. I have talked with farmers who have told me bluntly that it just won’t work without diesel, petrol, oil. They also routinely carry multimillion debts on their large properties.
3. NZ as a nation has very high levels of indebtedness (public and private) – one of the worst in the “developed” world.
4. South Island has just had a week or so of snow. People using a lot of electricity and fossil fuels to get through!
5. NZ is incredibly dependent on international trade – and with thousands of miles of ocean to cross, that implies dependence on fossil fuels for transport.
In short, NZ is often held out as a safe haven.
I wish it was, but I’m not at all confident.
Simple Simon wrote:
“In short, NZ is often held out as a safe haven.
I wish it was, but I’m not at all confident.”
A bit like Norway then – a good place to be when the economy goes to pieces – but for a lot less people than today…
Likely nothing is safe — however the south island is probably one of the better places to be no?
If we speak of NZ in terms of maintaining some sort of BAU where they farm with tractors. debt etc… then of course they will fail.
But what I see happening is that when the global economy collapses — people will have no BAU jobs — they will be forced to go into the fields and work together to produce food – organic faming is labour intensive — not a problem when nobody has an office job any longer
Certain areas will no doubt fare better than others — for instance an area with a decent amount of established permaculture…
By no means perfect but it would be on my short list of places to be when the SHTF.
As a fellow 6th generation kiwi, don’t forget, the Maori were stone-age with very limited agriculture. They had no wheels, no pottery, and the indigenous crops and fruits were sparse. I’m not blind to the problems we will face, but I reckon the land can support many more than before. Even North Otago.
The countries with the advantage are the wet, warm countries, including where you live now. I don’t see that industrialization will ever be prevalent again. Overpopulation is of course an issue practically everywhere, though.
China is divided with respect to climate. The coastal and southeaster areas tend to be quite warm. My impression is that industrialization has tended to take place in the more populated warm areas of China. The areas with more severe climate have not been as much affected by recent changes.
It is a miracle to me how China has stayed together as one country for as long as it has. I am sure different areas of the world (and of China) will be affected differently. I can’t say that I understand China well enough to know how it will fare. It certainly has a lot of people there, but it has worked harder than most countries to hold population down.
China stays together over millenium because it is a culturally united civilization. Its confucian outlook on life binds it together. I imagine that the same forces that have held China together for 4000 years will continue to be potent through this bottleneck. Once it loses about a billion citizens that is…
I have had people in Vermont tell me they like the cold it keeps the undesirable people out, yes they were referring to Africans of whatever passport.
As I understand it, InAlaska, China has been the country it is since the 1300’s. The Ming dynasty. Still a long time, but before it was warring, separate states.
The warring state and spring and autumn period ended in 221 bc by chin shi wang di who unified most of the country we know as china today. The first emperor of china who gave his name to the Chinese people. Ironically Mr.Chin might have been more of a mongol or Turk than Chinese.
Yes, Lizzy, separate warring states, but cultural unified nevertheless. Despite the internecine warfare, there has been a continuous “chinese” culture for thousands of years.
The bottom line is that the amount of energy which can be accessed at positive EROEI diminishes each day, while the population continues to increase, basically on inertia. So, everybody’s standard of living begins to fall, and the Resource Wars over what remains begin. This is the phase we are in now, and those wars represent everything from Ukraine to ISIS to Ferguson, MO. (not too far from you there Gail!)
Monetary economics are unlikely to remain the driving factor much longer, the physical fight is beginning in earnest here now. Meanwhile, the climatic conditions continue to deteriorate and credit is constained everywhere to rebuild in the face of further climate related disasters. Long Island got hit by torrential rains in the same neighborhood that Sandy hit, underwater once again there.
The spin down is well underway everywhere now, so it is just a matter of time and pace in terms of when it shows up in your neighborhood. What will be left at the end of it remains to be seen at this point, but for the forseable future, COLLECTIVE INSANITY will rule the day.
Part II of Collective Insanity up shortly on the Doomstead Diner.
RE
Re Ferguson … a very good friend of mine in HK – black American – MBA grad — runs his own biz… when I ask him about this stuff …. he says — this is not new — this has always been going on — the police beatings… shootings… harassment … racial profiling…
Recall the movie Crash… that says it all….
Things are coming to a boiling point — there seem to be more of these incidents — and people are video taping them… everyone is angry now — they know this recovery stuff is bs… the youth have no jobs –no hope…
I can see this erupting in massive race riots,… all that is needed is the match…
Call it a very shallow observation but what I see from the pictures of recent US riots is a very clear distinction, two worlds appart, perhaps almost evidence of two casts. The people on the “public order” side in riot gear are usually muscular, clean shaved. However the rioters are often either very obese or “narcotic thin”, over tatooted, dressed in clownish outfits, presenting naive banners and slogans.. It’s almost like a scene from a Kunstler.
It’s actually quite sad, the other impoverished side at the moment has absolutely no chance of wining, it’s in effect almost darwinian struggle . Probably in the near future as more people from formely “middle class” niveau start to openly question the status quo the riots or “civil war” could be separated into another additional cast. The history would offer some fiting parallels into it as well.
Dear worldofhanuman
See this street view:
https://www.google.com/maps/@38.736429,-90.275411,3a,75y,264.12h,90t/data=!3m5!1e1!3m3!1sJ16zj6OqNe_w7iZNyrG67g!2e0!5s2008-10!6m1!1e1
This is a very common street view of neighborhoods which are suffering from poverty more of the imagination than lack of money. Not a single plant which is being taken care of. No garden for food or birds or to support pollinators.
I don’t know the people who live here…so I am treating this as simply an abstraction. The US is so accustomed to having an inert underclass that buys fancy cars on credit, that buys most of their food in fast food joints, and doesn’t have a decent knife to prepare a home cooked meal, that these sorts of scenes are very common. The poor people have been promised that ‘the economy is improving’ and that a split shift part time job in fast food makes them ‘middle class’. Meanwhile, they should rush down to the mall or the car dealership and buy something on credit.
At the other end of the spectrum we have a class of people who never do any real work (except when they go to the gym) but have a 5 million dollar house on the beach and a 3 million dollar boat in the marina and a second home in the tropics somewhere. They have beautiful yards because they hire a lawn service, which does all the work with illegal immigrant labor.
Can you imagine what might go wrong?
Don Stewart
According to Lord Blankfein they do indeed do work – he refers to it as god’s work… far more important that doing manual labour…
If you think about that deeply… and from a certain perspective… he is right…
Let’s listen to Lord Blankfein — cat caught your tongue? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlRzbBEAVFE
I read this editorial in the latest issue of National Geographic. In part, it reads:
“I’ll never forget the words of the Cleveland school administrator or how awful I felt when he uttered them. It was 2007 and as the new editor of the Plain Dealer, the city’s daily news paper, I was meeting with a group involved in improving public education. The topic turned to Cleveland’s “lake effect” which dumps about 68 inches of snow on the city every year. “The kids must love all the snow days, ” I joked. The room went silent. People exchaned glances. “We try never to close the schools,” one man finally said. “When we do, a lot of kids won’t eat.” I’m embarrassed to admit this had never occurred to me before.”
…
“Emergency food programs have ballooned from a few hundred in 1980 to 50,000 today. At the same time schools quietly have become de facto food banks for an astonishing number of children. Last year about 19 million students received a free school lunch and another 2.5 million got a reduction in the price.”
There’s more. Is this a sign of a healthy nation? What happens when these programs stop? Or when California dries up once and for all?
Wasn’t this the street where Marty Mcfly lived in 1985 ?
At some point this will broaden and it won’t just be the bottom of society that feels the wrath of those all American brown shirts… eventually the former middle class gets drawn in… and a lot of them are armed to the teeth (just have a look at Zero Hedge comments when a gun article runs… a lot of those people are primed for action … just need the fuse to be lit)
Of course the NSA knows who they are … and they will be dealt with accordingly.
The Deep State is experimenting in Egypt using their puppet regime there — and they know how to keep an unruly crowd under control. They also have some experience in Gaza with this.
There will be zero tolerance and zero mercy. If you raise your hand you get a sniper bullet in the head. When the masses know that protest is not allowed – under penalty of death – most will cower in their basements — and they will turn on the few who dare to fight back — because they will see that fighting back only brings further wrath upon them and more chaos.
In Egypt that is exactly what has happened — anyone opposing the new junta is labelled the bad guy — because they have seen what protest means — it ruins the economy — and it ultimately fails….
In Egypt they have embraced the heavy hand — because the heavy hand brings stability. They are beaten dogs. They have no fight left.
And all these tough talking gun toting rebels in America … most of them will quickly scamper back to their bunkers to hide (where the NSA will find them and the all American boys will deal with them) or they will be shot down in the street like rabid dogs.
That is what is coming.
Paul
Not sure about the Deep State experimenting in Egypt: it’s just what life has always been like there – one poor man in a uniform with a stick beating another poorer man like a mule. It’s the way the Turks ran their Empire, it’s the way Spain was, and is becoming again, etc……
Egypt was not always like this — I have American friends who have lived there for over 20 years — the wife taught at the university there… they were advising some of the leaders of the protests (some were former students)… there was a true desire for a fairer country — and paid thugs were deployed to put an end to this…
The man beating the people with the stick was given the stick by the Deep State… Mubarak was a Deep State puppet — as was Morsi USC Grad by the way) … as is the current junta leader.
The tear gas and APVs all supplied by America.
Democracy is not allowed in Egypt — Egypt is too important for that. Just like democracy was not allowed in Iran under Mossadegh — because that is not good for the corporations who loot these countries — and it is not good for Israel to have a major country next door who is antagonistic to them…
Morsi was simply another Mubarak — another US puppet — but he failed so he was thrown under the bus… because he could not control the people…
The new guy did not make the same mistake — he shot dead (with US supplied weapons – 3 billion $ per year i believe) — did the US lift a finger? Nope.
They would have sanctioned this — because the last thing they want is a failed state — better to gun people down in the streets — and observe…
As we can see – the Egyptians are beaten dogs — the message is — stop any protest in its tracks — do not let the protestors generate momentum — jail and torture the leaders — never let them out — and gun down people until they get the message — you cannot win.
You will see the formula deployed in America — because it works…
Paul
The point is there are deep continuities in human existence, and the stick, the whip, the axe, the garrot have always been the lot of most people at the bottom if they step out of line. And most of the misery in the world is caused by poor people doing down their fellows.
Cairo was certainly a very pleasant place indeed under the Europeans. But there has always been a sordid underworld in Egypt: it’s standard procedure among small shopkeepers to use hired thugs against business rivals. Then those thugs can be hired for ‘political’ action when needed.
We can perhaps blame too much on the USA and its manipulations: people have to take responsibility for their own actions. We need to keep a sense of balance when judging events – everyone has dirty hands to some degree.
Hong Kong is no different — and it is one of the most admired economies in the world.
One of the partners in a legal firm we use in HK is Chinese — she was explaining to me how virtually every single business in the city pays protection money — every single shop keeper is paying ‘Tony Soprano’
One of the wealthiest expats in the city Allan Zeman had his offices trashed by the triads about 15 years ago — one assumes he was defying them
To understand Egypt you have to understand the hopelessness of the situation — the US has put in place total thugs like Mubarak — he was a criminal – a gangster — he cared nothing for the people — he sold them out so he could be rich and powerful …
The people have lived in misery for many years — and they despised Mubarak of course — but make a peep and into the dungeon you go — to be tortured by US trained animals…
And a few years ago they had had enough — there was a legitimate democratic movement — but as I have said – that is not allowed — the US and Israel want to run the show — so the movement failed.
And the people sink back into misery — knowing that they have failed – and that there is no way out…
Agreed!
Sorry Paul, Americans are cowards. They talk big but will never take action. As they say in Boston USA, USA, USA
A lot of those people voted for George Bush — a guy who likes to talk the talk as a tough guy — but whose actions throughout his life reek of cowardice.
Pretty hard to stereotype 350 million Americans as cowards. The two physicians working in Liberia on the Ebola outbreak aren’t cowards and their are millions of Americans who don’t fit your narrative…
Agreed, InAlaska.
I forget who told me the story. The story line was when there are Africans, possibly also Americans but one can not tell by looking, rioting in Florida the police, sheriffs, from all the surrounding states go to Florida as a chance to shoot Africans. Basically, a sporting event. Nothing new, the problem is now the police are branching out to shooting everyone. Maybe we can be proud that racism is dead.
You say: “When energy costs rise, the rise in energy costs puts pressure on wages”.
Pressure on wages –> pressure on consumption –> pressure on prices –> pressure on production costs –> more pressure on wages –> shipping jobs overseas –> unemployment –> more pressure on wages, etc.
Eventually, this is really a race to the bottom, even if it is creating some new wealth along the way, offering discount stuff for the masses.
Economic death spiral…
Right! There are a few winners in the process (those in charge of sending production overseas, for example), but an awfully lot of losers.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-14/we%E2%80%99ve-opened-gates-hell
Ain’t that special…. again — there are 500+ atomic plants around the world — and 4000+ spent fuel ponds…
All waiting to go Fuckushima — when we are no longer able to cool them.
I am trying to get some sense of just how catastrophic the more-or-less simultaneous melt-down of several hundred nuclear power stations around the world would be. Is this an extinction-level event? And, if so, over what sort of timescale? How long would it take for the effects to be felt by people in the southern hemisphere, where there are only four or five?
There is a lot of conjecture out there – can anyone point me to some well-reasoned science?
We do know that huge numbers of people have not died directly from the events we have had so far. We also know that a lot of people live in naturally high radiation areas. I think those facts give us some hope that the direct and indirect effects of nuclear power stations will not cause an extinction level event. We have so many other things going on, why worry excessively over that one, unless you are very close by to such a station?
Keep in mind Fukushima is still being cooled by thousands of tons of seawater that is being pumped onto the site…. so we are not experiencing the full fury of the meltdown….
What would happen if the water stopped stopped?
I have also seen info that a spent fuel container is far more dangerous than a live reactor — I suppose the main difference would be the ponds are chock a block with these rods vs the reactors which have fewer fissionable materials in them at one time.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/08/14/us-japan-fukushima-insight-idUKBRE97D00M20130814
The operator of Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant is preparing to remove 400 tons of highly irradiated spent fuel from a damaged reactor building, a dangerous operation that has never been attempted before on this scale.
Containing radiation equivalent to 14,000 times the amount released in the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima 68 years ago, more than 1,300 used fuel rod assemblies packed tightly together need to be removed from a building that is vulnerable to collapse, should another large earthquake hit the area.
So assuming that is correct — I believe there are 4000 spent fuel ponds around the world…
14,000 x 4000 = 56 MILLION Fukushima bombs exploding across the planet. Add another 500 active plants melting down and completely out of control…
And keep in mind unlike a nuclear weapon which explodes once —- these ponds will continue to spew massive amounts of radiation for many decades…. think of them as the gift from hell — that never stops giving…
If there is no way to keep these ponds cool —- and I can’t see how we can in the long run — my money would be on an extinction event… anyone who survived the initial period of death due to starvation — would be exposed to enormous and endless amounts of radiation ….
Perhaps we could get someone in the industry to comment on this on an anonymous basis?
Or perhaps we don’t have to. We can see that the sky is blue without having to ask van Gogh…
As long as someone exists to throw the spent rods into either a river or an ocean we are good.
Somehow I can’t see that working out very well — those particles need to be contained — (‘containment ponds’) — if we throw these rods in the ocean surely that would just result in spewing radioactive toxins throughout the world — killing all life in the oceans … keep in mind throwing them in a body of water does not mean they fizzle out… they will be emanating cancer causing materials for decades….
It might not cause an extinction event — but cancer rates would surely go off the charts for those who survived the big die off
The best source, Harry, is Arnold Gunderson, former nuclear industry executive. His website is here:
fairewinds.com
You should also read his bio on Wikipedia for more information.
Gunderson always impresses me as a little boat of integrity and humanity floating in a swamp of deception and slime. May God Bless Him !
Pingback: Gail Tverberg: Energy and the Economy – Twelve Basic Principles » Plan B Economics
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-14/ice-wall-go-eth-japan-scraps-fukushima-freezing-plan
As we can see even with the full power of BAU — we are unable to do anything about a melted reactor…. so what happens when they all melt down….
And for anyone who says technology will solve the oil problem — there’s a perfect example of how technology fails…
Meanwhile Fukushima continues to pouring tonnes of radioactive water into the ocean…
Thank you Gail for another good analysis.
I am a big fan of the Limits to Growth study, it has greatly informed my thinking in the 10 years since I first learned about peak oil. Resource depletion and the resulting knock-on effects in the form of diminishing returns to the economy are indeed critical limits, but students of the dynamics of complex systems know there is another equally important limit in the form of “sinks”.
In basic ecological terms, setting aside for the moment economic or social justice issues, the three pillars of sustainability are (as taken from “Limits to Growth: 30 year update”)
1. Not using renewable resources at a rate greater than they can be replenished
2. Only using non-renewable resources to maximize renewable resources
3. Not filling waste sinks at a rate greater than can be safely absorbed by the environment
The ongoing climate crisis is a textbook example of violating the 3rd pillar, we have badly overflowed the atmosphere’s ability to safely absorb our outrageously high carbon emissions. The resulting increase in greenhouse gases is triggering a number of positive feedback loops that are driving the climate out of equilibrium and into a chaotic state not seen in the 10,000 year history of human agriculture and city-state civilizations.
There is evidence that climate played a big role in the collapse of previous civilizations:
Climate change heralds end of civilizations:
http://www.climatenewsnetwork.net/2014/08/climate-change-heralds-end-of-civilisations/
In addition to the climate crisis, the ongoing disaster in Fukushima Japan is another example of the limits to sinks. The 400-and-counting other nuclear reactors in the world are all potentially capable of becoming just as toxic, and on time scales of thousands of years.
Yes, energy and economy are going to be big problems in the next few decades, but don’t forget the other “e”, the environment. It is just as capable of abruptly ending our increasingly futile attempts to sustain the unsustainable.
Near the end of the post, I mention natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods as one of the issues that could push our current situation along. The issues you are talking about are an extension of this.
Climate change is a possibility. The part we see now is related to the hurricane issue. If we hit financial collapse, overuse of sinks with respect to globular warming gases will be less of an issue. But burning of wood for fuel and attendant problems may become more of an issue.
There certainly are a lot of nuclear power plants in existence. How these will eventually end their lives is a concern, as is all of the spent fuel.
Climate change is not a possibility, Gail, it is a reality. It’s already happening.
Please SHOW me the link between CO2 as a greenhouse gas and the last 17 years of ABSOLUTELY NO GLOBAL WARMING even though global CO2 output has steadily increased.
There is no scientific evidence to show this relationship, only lies, spin, strawmen and “flat earth” comments from desperate, loony lefties. Seriously, all you Global Warming hucksters are going to be holding your head in shame pretty soon because our sun is being very quiet these days and if the Solar Physicists are correct, we may be headed into some cooler weather for the next several decades.
Woofpacker75: I have a job for you — Fukushima needs some people to throw buckets of water on the reactor cores…. Big money…
And don’t worry — radiation doesn’t exist just like global warming is a hoax…. they say a good dose of radiation each day keeps the doctor away.
Let me know — I will pass along the recruiters info…
Fun reply to Woofpacker75, Paul. I recall a proponent of using radioactive material for all sorts of reasons including growing tomatoes. He kept talking up the benefits of radiation and how it was good for living things; “Why just look at these huge tomatoes”, he would exclaim. He ate the tomatoes and kept boasting until a month later when he was laid to rest.
I’ll volunteer. I’ve seen the radiation readings at Fukushima. Way less than parts of my native country…and less dangerous isotopes than radon as well, which is the natural radiation source that predominates.
People seem to forget that all the long lived radioactive materials are in the earth already, being exposed and creating radiation as they do. There’s 4 billion tonnes of uranium in the oceans., Its far far more harmful than the few tonnes of waste that are produced every year which could be safely dumped on the ocean floor with no effect on the general land radiation levels whatsoever.
Nuclear power is the way we burn up nature’s nuclear waste, making the whole world less radioactive overall.
Unstable nuclei will decay eventually. Why not help them on their way? Its your duty to unborn generations to take all the dangerous thorium and uranium which has billion year half lives out of the environment and turn it into something else. 😉
I bet Leo also belive Global Warming is a hoax too!
Isn’t that amazing – so do I!!!
I think what we should do is triple the amount of coal we are burning. I love the smell of toxic mercury laced air in the morning — smells like ——- VICTORY!!!
Leo – I tell you what — if you will demonstrate to me (documentation) that you have volunteered to take on a job that exposes you to the melted core — I will buy you a ticket to Japan that will allow you to fulfill you dream.
Kinda like that org that sponsors kids who are dying of cancer to have a chance to do one fun thing before they die.
I used to think you were just a silly irritant … like one of those people who spends his time watching Dancing with Stars…. yet knows everything about everything (but who in reality knows very little)
But based on the comments above I have over-estimated you.
Hi Leo,
Seeing is believing and in your case it is easy to deny with eyes wide closed shut.
Michael Ruppert provided a stunning video presentation about the meltdown and its aftermath: RIP Mike, after reading Leo’s comment here I can understand why you chosed to end it all.
“after reading Leo’s comment here I can understand why you chosed to end it all”
Excellent.
And because most of the people on the planet would share many of Leo’s completely uninformed comments — the human species does not deserve to carry on. And hence we are suiciding the species because are are too stupid to understand what we are doing to ourselves and the planet.
Carry ON!
Except perhaps one of the porn vids posted by pigs on the internet to achieve fame without the slightest bit of talent — this has to be one of the best examples of how we have plumbed the depths as a society — (don’t worry – it’s not xrated — but get the barf bag ready:
This is what music has turned into in this most recent era, a predictably repeatable sing song routine with whiney lyrics explaining day to day stuff like having cereal an so on. It’s not music to me or a lot of people not recently born, but apparently it is a lot of the US music being drummed up these days. I call it children’s music because there is no appreciable difference between how one song and another is created or sung, but it will probably get 20 million youtube hits, she will become a billionaire and take her brand public on Nasdaq, and we’ll see her on the news ringing the stock market bell.
This “childish culture” is completely in line with the infantilization of the new generations of the adults, as the age of achieving the financial independence moves up or even beyond the death with the help of goint into debt. A quite large group of todays young people will never grow up. That is the impact of the resource limits.
The thing about children is, they take over eventually. It doesn’t matter how much debt they do or do not have, what their ideals or skills are. They take over for the simple fact that they become the future adults. It has always been and will always be that way.
When you say that they will never “grow up” that’s a cultural claim, not a physical reality. By definition, children become adults.
If one argues for some sort of mass starvation or malnutrition or something, yes, that’s different, but in that scenario the diseased and elderly won’t get off scotch free. Can you imagine starving kids gladly keeping the nursing homes running? See what I mean.
I guarantee nobody in their 60s is going to keep working and maintaining things forever no matter what their knowledge and skills are.
The problem is that when the population shrinks because of energy reasons, there is so much work as regards securing basic life needs that many do not have time to think and realize they go the wrong way, i.e. in the way of false progress and thus become energy loosers. And the older generation wins. Because their world was better. In that way many of the “good children” respect bad examples of “once good parents”. That is the paradox of our times. The other big group revolts. Both of these groups miss the point and waste the energy. And that way they never grow up.
So only a small group of children has a chance to survive and grow up, i.e. those who do not look back and at the same time do not revolt.
Well put, MG.
It is said that Hitler printed foreign currency, but it’s easier now to generate cash bits and what is at stake is even higher. So, as worldofhanuman says…
Gail, perhaps you can write something on dry casking or decomissioning funding. We can bring more info, while it’s somewhat off topic
The power of commanding resource distribution (generally speaking) within topdown human societies has been always immense. The fossil fuels/energy worked only as “a mere multiplier” of this old fact. That’s why usually every market crash or regime change (lost war and uprising) just transfers or switches the trajectory, there is no final end of the world, the human project goes on like the proverbial batterybunny. However, I’m increasingly in favor of the school of thought that sometimes several long term cycles have to collide and only then the potential for real shakeout is on schedule, e.g. as we have seen in the ancient world with rise and fall of civlizations. Today there is still so much fat that can be burned out on the altar of “preserving civilization” and some hints and precursors are already here, but who are we to question “viability” of the near future vision, where +75% unemployment is the norm, living days are spend in virtual reality (on cheap yet powerfull hardware), people are kept on veterinary healthcare and junk food rations. While the elite is still able to keep its sanctuaries of high education and freedoms. Look around we are partly already there. In such a world peak conventional oil means little, escapism into precious metals goes nowhere (unless left for grand grandkids), and discontent is faced not with police but home front storm troopers division. Yes, the nightmare can go on for decades more, it’s a club and you or me are likely not in it.
I think your arguments are very important. Nevertheless, everything is already a big fat lie, and which will be the last lie? It may very well happen tomorrow as in say five years. Shale peaking will surely hit the US, not sure it will kill global economy. But it’s hard to imagine ATM at work in 2025. Very hard.
http://epiphenom.fieldofscience.com
It is hard to tell among the superstition kids
trying to work out the point of posting that
Because I’ve discovered the new ‘Janis Joplin’ ….
One of the previous strings at ourfiniteworld had extensive discussion of some of the “hot particle” junk science. It was on a discussion following a natural gas post. No need to go over it again. Leslie Corrice has written about the hoax and other matters with emphasis on Fukushima. http://atomicinsights.com/atomic-show-212-can-learn-fukushima/
Went to your link, seems to be a pod cast and have no time to listen and a host of comments.
A recent link to Leslie Corrice with data on radioactivity in the ocean. http://www.hiroshimasyndrome.com/is-there-fukushima-radiation-on-north-america-s-coast.html
Hmmm, Tell that to the monkeys Robert:
http://www.businessinsider.com.au/the-serious-biological-effects-of-fukushima-radiation-on-plants-insects-and-animals-is-slowly-being-revealed-2014-8
A growing body of empirical results from studies of birds, monkeys, butterflies, and other insects suggests that some species have been significantly impacted by the radioactive releases related to the Fukushima disaster,” says Dr Timothy Mousseau of the University of South Carolina, lead author of one of the studies.
Common to all of the published studies is the hypothesis that chronic (low-dose) exposure to ionizing radiation results in genetic damage and increased mutation rates in reproductive and non-reproductive cells.
Robert, hope you are able to hold your breath too!
http://www.enviroreporter.com/2014/08/u-s-air-radiation-surges-higher/
Radiation surges in the air across US, likely from Japan
In my opinion Mousseau is another quack. It is not difficult to google supporting data. Here is another Fairewinds link. http://www.who-sucks.com/people/arnie-gundersen-for-profit-anti-nuclear-activist
You know what they say about an opinion….every one has one…too bad for YOU the data backs up the claims!
Yep, Robert THERE is a lot of quacking going on about Fukushima
http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-manipulation-of-health-by-Shaun-McGee-Chernobyl_Corruption_Fukushima_Health-140725-508.html
Concerning the reports of health effects in Japan caused by the nuclear disaster in Fukushima prefecture, we have heard of many issues being reported. The Japanese government has now made health studies a state secret [2][3] and has threatened anyone who tries to release any findings with huge fines or prison sentences.
…
As we can see today, Japan has brought in laws to stop the free flow of information and Japan is not funding credible epidemiological studies. Measurements of contamination data for scientific analysis are not being done in a fully transparent and honest way [15]. Only computerised statistical findings using limited data is being used.
Information concerning further contamination incidents are being covered up and not reported [17]. Independent activists and scientists are being targeted and even imprisoned [16][17][18].
Shaun appears to be an electric and hydraulic engineer with an MA equivalent course in Psychology but no engineering degree??
“I am an electric and hydraulic engineer with a wide range of engineering experience and i also taught these and other relevant skills to disadvantaged youth in inner city London.
I also have attended training in statutory organisations and have completed an MA equivalent course in Psychology with Brunel University in the UK.”
Suppose the author wrote the whole piece from the armchair…LOL.
The Japanese government and a complicit MSM have LIED about what is happening at Fukushima from DAY 1. And these lies have been exposed time and time again.
So when it comes to that issue — I assume the WORST.
If 400 tonnes of radioactive water are acknowledged as the amount pouring into the ocean daily — I add a 0.
Leslie Corrice publishes summaries of Fukushima news items on Mondays and Thursdays. Here are the latest “LIES” http://www.hiroshimasyndrome.com/fukushima-accident-updates.html
I prefer to take my news from Zero Hedge… not from regurgitated spin from the Japanese MSM — which has from day one been the mouthpiece of lies from the Japanese government.
I am seeing comments on this forum from yesterday that radiation and the associated particles may not be that bad for you…
The phrase ‘lost the plot’ applies…
Paul, I wish to thank you for all your contributions here. I gained much from your comments and reflections.
I am in agreement with you concerning many topics; climate change, the “economy”, population and the upcoming result, destruction of life due to “technology”, cultural zombies to serve the PTB, ect.
Yes, it us an useless task to “debate” these issues and others because as Gail has shown many times “it is already baked in the cake”.
Perhaps “nature’ provides a bell curve of perception of reality in a population pool.
In that manner, the ones with the survival advantage will continue to exist. In the case of human beings, the “wrong” perception will account for the demise of life.
(The following is a summary of the Fukushima contamination issue with the North American Pacific Coast. As of late July, 2014, no Fukushima isotopes have been detected along the coastline.)
So I am to believe that Fukushima is pouring tonnes of radioactive toxins into the pacific every day — 365 days a year ….
And all that stuff is just swishing around offshore from Fukushima as if there were a border guard forcing it back because it doesn’t have a passport…
Somehow I have trouble believing that … particularly in light of the fact that Japan denied there was even a meltdown….
That’s because the Deep State is conspiring with TPTB, the military industrial complex, the central bank, Don Regan, and the Kennedy assassins to hide the truth about the contamination of the North American Pacific Coast. But sshhhhshh, don’t tell anyone!
Paul,
That’s because the Deep State is conspiring with TPTB, the military industrial complex, the central bank, Don Regan, and the Kennedy assassins to hide the truth about the contamination of the North American Pacific Coast and keep up BAU. But sshhhhshh, don’t tell anyone (;^D
That is why Hillary had to killed Vince Foster– he had a vision of this happening.
She hid the gun in Lenin’s Tomb– the Queen of England lent her one of the Black Helicopters.
What other explanation could there be?
You guys are hillarious students even of your recent history. Lets have a little overview of the past few decades. While four of your leaders (JFK, MLK, RFK, Reagan) were on purpose openly “shot in the streets like dogs” the Russians came out as comparatively more civilized culture also in terms of this fun of governmental coup, only hanged one person and that was in the mid 1950s (Berija as potential replacement for Stalin) with the rest of them during following years of reshuffles of power being more or less peacefully removed or left to die by natural overaging processes (Chruschev, Breznev, Gorbatchov, Jelcin).
Mr. Greer and Orlov talk about the complete and utter paradigm shift within the US public from all social strata, which now despise and hates the elite on unseen levels, such a shift it has even reached proto revolutionary stage according to Greer. Therefore the wake up into reality will be something to follow from across the ponds, that’s for sure. Good luck.
Everyone knows. I called all my Elected Reps during the financial meltdown NOT to bailout Wall Street SCUM. ALL offices I called revealed that NEVER before have the had such an outpouring of response by citizens in agreement with me. The phones were literally ringing off the hook. So, what happened? The Deep State stepped in and made sure that our elected officials approve the ONE SHEET blank CHEQUE terms.
Yes Sir, still remember Little Bushie Jr smirking as he explained he didn’t know what happened or how it did, but these two fellas, Paulson and Bernanke, standing besides him told him it has to be done. Strange how our elected Reps voted it down and the next DAY approved the measure. No Sir, we KNOW who runs the nation…as “Paul” stated corrected… the ones the control the money!
“I called all my Elected Reps during the financial meltdown NOT to bailout Wall Street SCUM. ALL offices I called revealed that NEVER before have the had such an outpouring of response by citizens in agreement with me.”
The decision they made to do the bail outs was in direct conflict with capitalism, which is to let weak companies go bankrupt, to be replaced by newer, better companies. In the case of AIG, many smaller insurance companies would have quickly filled the void by becoming larger. To learn of AIG’s extravagant party’s using bail out money, including huge bonuses was the final slap in the face to the American taxpayer, that like you stated did not want the bail outs.
As much as I think it stinks… if the bail outs had not happened we would not be here having this discussion I reckon…
OK Paul, but was it right to ENRICH FURTHER the ones that created the mess?
That is what this is ALL about, Ralph Nader hit it right when he said they “Socialized the loses and KEEP ALL the PROFITS. Paul listen to Mr Nader
Of course the wealthy became wealthier … but do you have a 401K? Do you own stocks – a house?
Then you benefited too — because if the Fed does not launch QE and ZIRP — the stock market collapses – the housing market collapses
Why do you think they initiated QE and ZIRP?
Was it because Bernanke is stupid? Nope
Could it be that Bernanke wanted the billionaires to make a few billion more? Nope
Why do I know that? Because Bernanke is most definitely not stupid… and because if I was a billionaire I would understand that money printing is going to blow up the world at some point. So what if I make another couple of billion in the meantime — I want a functioning economy so that what I already have is not blown to pieces.
There is absolutely no way that Bernanke did this so some rich people could become richer.
He did it because he had to — because growth was STOPPED. Because oil was $147 per barrel.
And he had to offset the impact of that. And one of the side effects of this has been that the wealthy became wealthier — but you also did ok if you dipped into the stock market.
If money printing and zirp — the global economy would grind to a halt.
i dont know what’s going on with this comments system, ut i’ll post it again, try a different tactic –see if this shows up where it’s supposed to
.peak oil sites like theoildrum came out of nowhere, the logic and facts of peak oil went viral, and the price of oil got way out of hand
luckily, the big money boys had prepared a device to control oil prices –they’d been selling houses to people who couldnt afford anything but a bicycle and a cat and the big money boys plastered the US with ditech commercials 24/7, encouraging the bicycle/cat people to refinance their mortgages to get some cash…
the big money boys packaged these bad loans and peddled them globally –professional money people making bad loans and peddling them everywhere.. this behavior doesnt make sense– professional money people making bad loans then selling hem everywhiere… they surely knew better
.
but it was an experiment –faced with the certanty of peak oil, the big moneys boys needed to know how high the price of oil could go before economies started imploding… and when it got high enough, they popped the housing bubble to calm everything down
the price of oil overshot on the downside, way lower than was necessary for the fracking the fracking being the next big selling point for peak oil denial, but nevermind… the price of oil soon recovered to the point where fracking was at least marginally profitable
so now peak oil is dead, the US will be energy independent and even have enough to export energy to replace rkussian gas, which is politically incorrect
and now everything’s just fine and dandy
here’s a graphic that tries to tie it together… peak oil, US imports, price of oil, US prodcuction, global production, events that seem to be related…
…with particular attention to the number of drills working in the US and globally
http://ourfiniteworld.com/2014/08/14/energy-and-the-economy-twelve-basic-principles/comment-page-4/#comment-41114
wrong url for the graphic above
here’s the right one
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/a/img853/8431/dtr7.jpg
“…now everything’s just fine and dandy.” Like I say to my cornucopian wife who always soaks up the govt. stat propaganda served up on MSM news to bolster the masses into continuing to be good cogs in the wheel of life, “Yeah honey, everybody is becoming millionaires and billionaires.”
A bit of light relief is needed now, I think. This comedian uses quite a few props, in addition to his lighting and music and microphone. OK, they’re not expensive, but he uses more than he needs. What would such an act look like if revived in 2100?
1] Watch from 7:24 to 9:18
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00dFzPbzOws
2]
Exactly, they bought another 1-2decades of calm or more. However, that means postponed crash or leveling event would be that much steeper and violent, especially for those completely oblivious/naive.
I guess everybody was happy about the delay in the end afterall. The Russian got even more time to retool and rearm. The Chinese got even more time to hyper industrialize and set up currency swaps around the globe. The slow crash scenario prepers got more time to set up the land and skills. The shark speculators got more time to enrich on the back of consumers.
So, the only unhappy people now are the fast doomers, lolz.
U still dont get it at all LOL.
Actually that bought us 6+ years…. I do not see this kicking the can one or two decades down the road…
That’s baloney. I would use a different word to describe it but Gail would ban me.
Hard to admit you’re a serf, isn’t it. Much easier to believe in the imminent apocalypse…the world is going to end!, rather than face up to the reality that your existence has one purpose…to run the machines for the owners and to consume stuff.
And that’s the brilliance of it, really. They have you convinced that if they don’t get everything they want, the system ends. And they will do this to you again coming up soon, and again 5 years from now, and again 10 years from now, count on it. They will keep doing it all the way down.
Dolph — but I am an owner… I work for myself… I am no serf.
If the bail outs did not take place (they continue to take place) the global economy collapses.
You may hate banks and bankers — but if the banks collapse — you are a dead man. And so am I.
BAU needs a functioning financial system — without it — BAU collapses.
If that is what you want then all good — hope that there are not bail outs – no money printing — but I warn you – be careful what you wish for. I doubt you will like the result
“As much as I think it stinks… if the bail outs had not happened we would not be here having this discussion I reckon…”
How would any of those big banks or in the case of AIG going down hurt at all. It just means those corporations go out of business and lose their shirts. What replaces them are smaller one’s. The bail outs saved huge corporations we would have been better off getting rid of. Capitalism works, it’s just that people with a lot of money had so much influence in DC they got what they wanted – a big, fat, freebie by shifting the losses on to the National Debt.
I knew the fat cats lobbied in DC, but it wasn’t until the bail outs that it became clear we the people had lost our government to big money. We don’t matter anymore. Only the one’s that can pay for a $10,000 dollar campaign meal matter. We are just the cogs in the wheel.
Stilgar — you saw what happened when Lehman Brothers was let go — the global economy seized up — because all these institutions are inter-connected… contagion is the issue…
If one bank doesn’t trust another then all lending stops – dead.
That’s one of the many problems with a globalized world.
The only reason the economy re-started after Lehman was because the central banks agreed to back stop every single significant financial institution on the planet… which took away the contagion fear…
Bank A lends to Bank B even if Bank A suspects Bank B is in trouble — because the Fed has co-signed the loan.
If that doesn’t happen then we would not be having this discussion.
Unfortunately I’m not so sure
“Capitalism works, it’s just that people with a lot of money had so much influence…” In all complex societies wealthiest people are granted major influence, and it is not surprising in capitalism -where greed and money structure the more universal language- this influence is absolute. The “invisible hand of the market” is invisible because… it doesn’t exists, or rather it exists as long as it helps to create more money or more growth. Think about the scale of the black market, where the invisible hand is not even supposed to be found.
It’s difficult to imagine the icelandic solution adopted at a global scale. Of course you can shoot down supposedly-too-big-to-fail entities, but this is not the point. Growth would disappear anyway, and the ideological impossibility of solving this problem would remain as no other banking would work. It would rather worsen the ideological situation: it’s better to boost up already existing entities than creating new ones and having to boost up theese instead.
And, about Iceland, don’t forget IMF’s role “saving” the country and that “currency devaluation effectively reduced wages by 50% making exports more competitive and imports more expensive.” (Wikipedia). That’s why they have been able to reboot the system and resume growth, we did it several times here. But we can’t devaluate the whole world financial system.
Stilgar, we are too interconnected. Money that is sent to Canada may be rerouted through US or even UK and through multiple banks. When one of them is not trustworthy, the whole chain collapse. When trust evaporates, the whole chain collapses. We were so close to a total collapse in 2008. I was there, in the middle of the collapsed logistic chain. If central bank did not come in within 1-2 weeks, we won’t be here typing this sentence out.
CTG: “Stilgar, we are too interconnected.”
So let it fall where it is going to fall, but don’t make Wall Street’s greed get shifted over to debt on the people. So it would have collapsed – good. All the better to teach people hard lessons. It collapses the banking system, which then has to pay up on FDIC insurance to replace deposits, the bad loans are converted to low interest fixed loans or taken as a loss by those banks and investors. Then the banking system starts back up and a few weeks later it’s working fine.
Instead, what happened was a bunch of greedy manipulators skewed the system to their short term benefit at the expense of the long term average citizen. People with enough money to gamble on that big a scale should suffer the consequences of their actions, to lose big and spend time in prison.
I mean, we are arguing with people who believe the world is going to end unless multi-billionaires are given more free money.
What can you do? There’s nothing you can do but just wait it out, and there will come a time when finally the system does collapse, and currencies go bust and trade slows down, but you will be able to talk with someone and say, see, we are still here talking, right? That proves the world didn’t come to an end.
I suspect we’ll have to wait for that point.
Ya to that Dolph9. I’m sure when SHTF, there will be many people ask, “So how much money, gold, property or diamonds do we need to give to the billionaires to get this thing going again?”
Stilgar, Dolph
Next time the TSHF the system will never resume. You can hang all banksters you want, this would not improve oil entropy nor help find another Ghawar. We can’t go back in time, what is gone is gone
The Fed does not give a rats ass about making bankers more wealthy — or the 1% more wealthy — they are focused on one thing only — keep BAU alive for as long as possible —- attack the end of growth caused by high priced oil.
If one of the side effects is bankers make money what does the Fed care — what do we care?
The fantastic wealth of the elites will get them nothing in the end.
All I care about is that the hamster keeps running — the only way the hamster keeps going is if the financial system does not collapse.
And for finance not to collapse — for the markets not to collapse — for people to still have a reason to get up in the morning (i.e. a job) — we MUST have functioning banks.
It absolutely sickens me when I read how the head of was it Merril Lynch spent 100k on his toilet room — and when the bank got sold out when it was worthless he asked for 10M for doing the deal…. I would so like to see some of these pigs put in jail cells…
But they have a sword over our necks — seems be can do nothing because the sleaze runs so deep
But don’t worry — things will get evened up at some point. I hope they enjoy their champagne and caviar while they can.
You are benefiting from the free money too.
Do you have a job?
The free money is what is driving the stock market — if the free money stops the stock market collapses – as does the bond market — as does the housing market.
Basically the entire global economy would collapse
Guess what would happen to your job?
The system is collapsing anyway, Paul. We agree on that much?
So why not let it collapse and let the chips fall where they may, rather than giving free money to those who don’t deserve it.
The rest of us can sink or swim. Despite all of your talk about a fast collapse, you sure don’t seem prepared for it.
Paul,
I see a contradiction in your arguments. Here you are on the global banksters side while in other comments you are full of hate to the US as a military hegemon. Aren’t these things united in one organisation? Can you imagine dominating financial subsystem without military power? Hmmm…, one goes with the other.
kesar
Yes Paul is torn because he has been made rich by this system that he so despises, he was lucky to have come from a country of wealth and that is all. But all of us here are of the same vein who else would have time to analyze and reanalyze this over and over…if you are alive today and you are criticizing the system you have to be a bit of a hypocrite. Unless you know of another that would work better…
Yes of course I and the rest of us benefit from having winning lottery tickets to the first world…
I participate in the system because there is no other system — I suppose I could move to the bush and live off grid and be self-sustaining… but to what point?
As we have already discussed that would be futile (and lonely and boring) because nearly nett 100 million new consumers land on planet earth each year.
I have been assimilated by the Borg — the Borg believes I am now a Borg — the Borg treats me as if I am a Borg — but I have not lost my consciousness —- perhaps like James T Kirk I will — before it is too late — come up with a clever strategy to defeat the Borg!!!
http://startrek.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/borg2.jpg
Paul, a fella by the name of Ben left something for you to pick up at table….mumbled something about there is “no free lunch”.
I remember during the financial crisis our wonder boy Timothy Franz Geithner rushed to China to plea for a “loan” of around say trillion (the actual amount does not really matter), promising…”We’ll pay you back…really we will….I swear!” LOL
Timmy since then has moved on:
“After leaving office, Geithner wrote a memoir of his time serving as Secretary of Treasury entitled Stress Test: Reflections on Financial Crises, published in May 2014. In November 2013, it was announced that Geithner would join the private equity firm Warburg Pincus as president and managing director in March 2014.”
drum roll please:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-04/warburg-pincus-to-invest-up-to-600-million-in-zenith.html
Warburg Pincus LLC, the $39 billion private-equity firm where former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is president, agreed to invest as much as $600 million in an oil distributor with operations in the emerging markets.
Zenith Energy Group LLC, based in Houston, is pursuing opportunities to buy, build and operate terminals in Latin America, Europe and Africa, according to a statement today. New York-based Warburg Pincus announced in April it was expanding investments in Africa and the Middle East.
“We are looking beyond the core euro-zone markets into the rapidly growing emerging markets around Europe for investment opportunities,” Joseph Schull, head of Warburg Pincus in Europe, said in an April interview with Bloomberg News. “Africa is the next big frontier in private equity and we are spending an increasing amount of time investigating opportunities in that region.”
Warburg Pincus, founded in 1966, has invested more than $9.5 billion in oil, gas and alternative energy companies, including investments in Antero Resources Corp., MEG Energy Corp. and Targa Resources Corp.
Life is stranger than fiction!
Oh but is goes well beyond that … many of those charged with writing new regulations within weeks after finishing stepped into high paying banking positions.
Where did I say I am on the banksters side?
I specifically stated in an earlier post that I despise these people — they are like vultures hacking hunks off of the carcass of a dying beast… no matter how bad things are they get their bonuses it seems….
That disgusts me.
But at the same time I understand why they do that — because they can — because they know that they are indispensable — they know that we cannot allow them to fail — because if they fail we collapse — and we are both eating dog food warmed over plastic bags under a bridge.
So do I want to cut my nose off to spite my face? Nope. I prefer that BAU continues as long as possible — and if that means bankers get their bonuses then so be it
When I think of these types of people who I see from time to time (they often smell of superiority — in fact one of them — when I suggested bankers were the biggest welfare queens in history responded with ‘the people are work with are just so smart — that is why we have not had a single trade go wrong this year’ – I kid you know — that was what was said) I take solace in the fact that the fall will be much harder for them — because it always hurts more when you fall from the corner office of the 60th floor than if you wall out of your bed….
Post 2008 I was livid with Bernanke — I did not really get over this until the past year — when I began to understand why he was doing what he was doing….
I used to think he was insane — corrupt — but then I saw the nature of the problem —- and I realized — he is fighting for our lives…. he is fighting to keep civilization running a little longer….
And when he stepped down and said — I know many people hate me — but when you see why I have done what I have done — you will think me.
That confirmed what I suspected — the end game is very very close….
But of course the vultures feed best when the smell of death and rot is in the air… so what do you expect of the bankers? They are gorging …. but the carrion is laced with toxins…
Paul,
I guess we are on the same page here. We both despise these guys but on the other hand we must admit that Lloyd Blankfein is doing “the god’s work” keeping the hamster running. Well, how would you expect to do it without making war here, revolution there and installing dictators everywhere else? If you accept the Bernanke’s mission you have to accept the other means as well. These are complementary weapons in global dominance game. Sad, maybe cynnical but true.
Stilgar
I see you are not replying to my points. “Then the banking system starts back up and a few weeks later it’s working fine”. How does it will work fine if THERE IS NO GROWTH IN GDP, THERE IS ALMOST NO NEW LOANS AND INTEREST RATES MUST BE CLOSE TO ZERO?
The 2008 banking crash was a consequence of two things: excess of credit and oil price spike. You seem to forget the later. Perhaps you believe we don’t live in a finite planet
Stilgar, our money is in the bank. We don’t keep in the mattresses anymore, unlike our grandparents. A lot of businesses rely on financing. Even if you don’t, your neighbours do and they may have a lot of loans. These loans are made by sales people who works for the bank and they have a family to feed too. So, like in 2008, if the bank collapses, then it will be extremely difficult to move on. One can only say – “let the bank collapse !” unless they have personally experienced it before. It will be a disaster now but not in 1960s or 1970s. Everyone is entitled to his/her own opinion and mine is shaped by real life experience in 2008 and not something that I conjure out in the air. I know how bad it was then and I know how bad it will be in future when there are no fallbacks…
Sure Leo and I bet you eat pink slim with mayo!
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-04/tepco-set-to-miss-target-for-fukushima-radioactive-water-cleanup.html
Levels of toxic water at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant are rising at a rate of 400 tons a day as groundwater seeping into basements mixes with water used to cool reactor cores that melted down in the accident on March 11, 2011. The site had more than 373,000 tons of radioactive water needing treatment as of July 29, Yoshida said.
Corrosion has delayed full use of a filtration system known as ALPS, which is designed to remove strontium and 61 other isotopes from 500 metric tons of water a day.
Equipment delays and the failure to stop radiation contamination of groundwater indicates the utility’s president, Naomi Hirose, will be unable to meet a commitment he made to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in September last year to treat all water at the site by March 31, 2015.
So you say human nuclear activity just concentrates and/or accelerates naturally occuring radiation?
That was for Leo, sure
Have you seen Marina Silva, former Lula’s Environment Secretary? It looks like she’d struggle for Brazil’s first chair. It’s a very interesting person, her “party” (while it doesn’t work outside an alliance) is called Rede Sustentabilidade. She has rural origins and learned reading at age 16. She’d confront Dilma Roussef, Lula’s choosen successor (while this is old history). It’d be quite remarkable in case she ever succeeds: Lula was something like the perfect incarnation of a struggling workforce (lost a finger within a machine but insisted three times until getting presidency), but her presidency would be really amazing. Of course if I was a brasilian I’d vote for her, Dilma is lost pretending presalt will work.
Very funny. Bravo, Paul.
\From today’s Financial Times: Desperate Drought in Iran
The Zayandeh Roud, or “life-giving river”, has flowed through the ancient city for more than 1,000 years en route from its source in the Zagros Mountains in the west of the country to the vast wetlands of Gavkhooni in the south of the Isfahan region. But the riverbed now resembles a vast, gravelly beach, a dead stretch of sun-baked land that winds through the heart of Isfahan, a five-hour drive south of Tehran.
Thousands of villages rely on water tankers for supplies, according to local media, while businessmen complain shortages are a daily hazard in factories around Tehran. At least a dozen of the country’s 31 provinces will have to be evacuated over the next 20 years unless the problem is addressed, according to a water official who declined to be named.
The situation may be even worse than that, says Issa Kalantari, a reform-minded agriculture minister in the 1990s. “Iran, with 7,000 years of history, will not be liveable in 20 years’ time if the rapid and exponential destruction of groundwater resources continues,” he warns, adding that the shortages pose a bigger threat to Iran than its nuclear crisis, Israel or the US.
Hey Bud —- I think the finals of American Idol 2009 are being rerun on channel 897… and Domino’s has a buy 1 get 3 big slops tonight — say I sent you and they’ll give you a family size cola with that….
That ought to keep you away from the keyboard for a while….
When some one gets this angry over a dissenting view their view has become their religion.
Not anger — see the phrase ‘I do not suffer fools gladly’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffer_fools_gladly to understand where I am coming from…
As a physicist, I can’t let that uninformed comment go by without pointing out that :
It is a FACT, not a belief, theory or opinion, that triatomic molecules (e.g. CO2,NO2,H20) let high temperature radiation (ie surface of sun) through, but stop low temperature radiation (ie earth’s surface) going back into space. ergo, thermal energy of this planet is increasing at a slow, predictable rate that is proportional to the amount of such trace triatomic gases added since pre-fossil fuel times.
Whether the earth heats up here or there, or whether more clouds form etc etc are secondary effects that may counter the primary trend, or amplify it (e.g loss of arctic ice).
Whilst the first, primary (radiative forcing) cause is extremely simple to understand, the secondary effects involve interactions between every aspect of the planetary system and are probably not calculable with today’s models. However, the extra heat has got to go somewhere and hence global warming – even if it is at present largely confined to the deep ocean – is inevitable. It is not going to stop in 2100 or even 2200, so this is a life-or-death issue for future generations.
People who don’t understand the basic physics shouldn’t embarrass themselves by voicing their opinions. This is too important an issue to be left to propagandists of whatever persuasion.
Sorry for my sounding arrogant.
Please do let us know whether you, as a physicist, have ever received any taxpayer-funded government grants for ‘research’ purposes. Clearly if your livelihood depends on receiving money from people pushing a radical global wealth redistribution agenda your research is going to have to go along with the agenda. IMO the scientists who truly believe in global warming should be forced to donate all their belongings to some third world family, burn down their home and plant a bunch of trees on the land. You guys want to keep driving your car to the store, you want to a nice home with heat and AC, you want to barbeque on the 4th of July, etc. etc., but you want others to give up all their modern necessities to live in caves and serve you. You cant have it both ways!
Thanks for that. What’s the reasoning for the more powerful pentatomic GHG – methane please?
Russell,
In answer to your question: the number of ways a molecule can rotate and vibrate goes up rapidly with the number of atoms is is composed of.
This is the reason why CH4 is about 100 times more more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2 (and why O2 and N2 have no effect whatsoever).
BTW, Every time I hear some ignorant climate change buffoon spout off that “CO2 is only a trace gas, so how can it be such a big deal ?” , my internal temperature goes up a good deal more than 1.4 C.
I know a lot of scientists as well. The ones like you involved in the greeny-weeny climate disciplines all HAVE TO believe in global warming or else they lose their grants and careers. They HAVE TO do all they can to perpetuate the lie. Most real scientists know global warming is a bunch of nonsense. How is lowering the natural trace element of CO2, by taking away a lot of my own HARD EARNED MONEY, going to actually help the environment?
Hugoton2 wrote:
“Most real scientists know global warming is a bunch of nonsense.”
Oh, do they? Show me some facts, you troll you.
Even if 100% of the model assumptions from the climate disciplines are correct, if the modelers get the fossil fuel estimates completely wrong, the model still has a big problem. Climate scientists can’t be expected to understand the situation with fossil fuels, so the vast majority will not recognize the “flaw” in the model. They will see the model as correct, even if the selected values of fossil fuel use is wrong, and also the values of other variables that indirectly depend on fossil fuel use are wrong (like industrial outputs of gasses that tend to raise global temperatures).
Climate change has been happening as long as the world has been in existence. It wasn’t until we built huge infrastructure in one place that we cared whether climate changed. (It may be changing worse now.)
Climate change, resource depletion, financial collapse, war, etc., etc., pretty much any one of these & certainly more in combination are going to be enough to pull the rug out from under our global civilization – and not with the finesse of a great stage magician. I find myself currently convinced that while they may be partly, slightly (at this late date) avoidable, they are all overwhelmingly inevitable. Still, my favorite candidate for a precipitating event causing a cascading if not an outright collapse before anything on the list except war, maybe, could set us back 200 years would be a coronal mass ejection from the sun that hits us dead on. Recently and briefly mentioned in the mass media was the event of July 2012, during which, had the Earth been a few days farther back in its orbital track would have caught us right between the eyes with a force determined to be equal or greater than the Carrington Event of 1859. An informative article with a video illustrating what happened long ago as well as two years ago is available at NASA at: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/23jul_superstorm/ ,take a look.
This is no “tin-foil hat” lunacy, and as the article explains, the probability of Earth getting nailed by one of these solar superstorms -which will be an unprecedented catastrophe in our modern electrical/electronic age- is calculated to be about 12% within the next ten years. Just shooting from the hip I’d say that makes it close to 50-50 by mid-century and near certain by 2100, and neither the climate nor the resource threats will have receded any by then. NASA says we need to be prepared, so here we have yet another trillion dollar plus infrastructure conundrum that needs to be addressed concurrently with all the others for which there is no possibility of adequate funding. I guess it’s a case of “higher power” help us all.
DrCiber
Yes it is easy to forget about all of the naturally occurring hazards to our civilization and our planet. A coronal mass ejection, a very large meteor, a polar magnetic shift…who knows if one of these takes us out before we take ourselves out. A few posts back, Gail mentioned how our current global warming may actually be protecting us from an ice age that otherwise would already be upon us with devastating effect. In fact, if you look at the ice core records, our interglacial period has already been too long and we are (or were) due for another big ice age. So, it has all become too complex for us to predict, but having something like CME take us out, at least relieves us of feeling guilty about how terribly we have behaved toward the planet in the last 200 years.
Well I’m going to go ahead and still feel somewhat guilty, at least to the extent that it helps control destructive behavior. If something “gets” us that we could never have had any control over, that’s one thing, but to have allowed our own cleverness to seriously threaten our own and so many other species natural span of existence…paints us as too smart by half and kinda argues against “intelligence” as an evolutionary advance. Like Arthur C. Clark once remarked: “It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value.”
In fact the opposite — our intelligence has lead to our downfall….
“progress” should be a dirty word…
You are right. If we can continue along this path, our electricity system is very much a candidate to be hit by a coronial mass ejection.
It is indeed no tin-foil lunacy.
In contemplating the smorgasbord of single causes that could precipitate the end of the party for all time, one is really spoilt for choice.
A propos the 1.2 percent p.a. risk of a Carrington-type event, it begins to look as though nature/providence/God never intended for us to have a techno-civilization on this planet – the ice is just too thin.
As Jim Kunstler is fond of saying, we are going to have to find out some other living arrangement here on this planet – of which I believe there are several viable alternatives.
One of the most powerful memes of our time, assiduously propagated by the mainstream, is that there is no alternative to the current paradigm, so don’t even think of swimming against the stream. This is in essence an absolutist, quasi-religious position, akin to the old edict “thou shalt have no gods but Jehovah”, and it has a suitably numbing effect on the aspirations of nearly everyone.
I am a great fan of the literature of alternative histories, and I don’t think it takes a great deal of imagination to see that the path leading up to the disfunctional present was only one of a multitude of possible outcomes. Consider, for example, a timeline in which Rome had decided to make peace with Carthage, to their mutual benefit…….or one in which the Austrians had failed to check the advance of Ottomans before Vienna…..
And here we see why the stock market continues to bust records in spite of a horrible economy:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/14/column-markets-saft-idUSL2N0QI0SJ20140814
It is hard to understand. The pumping up of the stock market seems still to be working. Oil prices are dropping, though.
I suppose to be expected because the increase in stock prices does not reflect the real economy….
Or it reflects the declining value of the dollar.
Gail you say oil prices too low are a problem. I say it is substitution as the economists predicted. The only difference from their prediction is that people are substituting not driving for driving with a “new fuel”, not heating for heating with a “new fuel”, not working for working at wages that do not pay the cost of commuting, living in southern states for living in northern states, working in China for unemployment due to non-existent jobs in the U.S., etc….
Substituting it is: Substituting something for less or nothing…
You are using substitution in a little more general way than economists would. Substituting “not eating” for “eating” would seem to be another substitution, according to your logic.
Substituting pink slime for meat…
Paul, Now you’ve gone and ruined my appetite. Are you saying that we’ve reached Peak Meat?
“Twelve Reasons Why Globalization is a Huge Problem”
“Energy and the Economy – Twelve Basic Principles”
The number 12 again. Clearly Gail is being instructed by the Disciples and the Divinity. Everyone must listen.
Twelve is as high as I can count.
We physicists can only deal with one or two objects after that it is many. So, twelve is pretty impressive. It is also evenly divisible by so many small integers 2, 3, 4, 6
It’s a lot, btw. Regular human’s brain can count to maximum 3 or 4 in some cases with very developed cognitive perception. The rest – mathematics – is only the intelectual, artificial construct.
You can test it by simply laying down matches on the table. Above 3-4 you have to count or divide to pairs/threes and add/multiply.
12 is two times six. If Gails ups to 18 it’s three times six, and we all know what that means…
Posts get way too long with 18 points. Twelve is pushing the limit.
Why are there 12 eggs in a standard box?
Great article, Gail! Germany and Japan both slipping into recession should be of great concern to world leaders, as both in the past have been leading economic powerhouses producing many high tech. products, including vehicles.
My impression is the days of stimulus to kick the can down the BAU road are waning, both in the EU, Japan and the US. We will see if China tries to extend the game a while longer with their forms of stimulus. In any case, it seems as we head towards fall & winter, that by early 2015 things will most likely become quite dismal, with recession also hitting the US. Whether we are at the leading edge of a Thelma & Louise moment remains to be seen. The Fed could always backtrack and decide to throw another hail mary QE pass to buy just a little more time. But certainly my opinion is the goose is pretty much cooked.
I think the EU is going to introduce at least one more round of stimulus. It looks very much on the cards. Also, although the US is formally tapering its QE, there does seem to be lots of behind-the-scenes activity to suggest that it is continuing in different guises: http://www.hangthebankers.com/why-the-hell-is-belgium-buying-so-much-us-debt/
But we are clearly entering a phase now when even our absurdly inflated GDP figures (which here in the UK include drugs, prostitution, insurance claims and now military spending) are struggling to indicate growth, so 2015 may well be dismal.
Is there anything more recent that we know about the Belgium situation. I know I read about it a few months ago, but is there an update? As more clue as to who really is behind it?
This is a more recent article suggesting that China is using Belgium as a front – but, as it says, no one really knows or is admitting to knowing!
http://money.cnn.com/2014/07/23/investing/belgium-china-bond-mystery/
Thanks!
North America is the only economy in the world that is showing any type of growth (2-4%). This will keep inflation here low and attract investment from all over the world. Some bond funds here are yielding 8%. Italy is in recession, Japan, Germany, UK, and all of South America is in recession. China is a mystery, but their growth will only be based on borrowing.
If the US were not using fake CPI numbers it would be printing negative GDP too…
Also the US and UK are engaging in money printing… subprime lending … props for their housing. stock and bond markets… basically doing the same things pre 08 but on a much larger scale…
The numbers out of the US are totally worthless — the ‘growth’ they are quoting is built on dry piles of sand…
Officially UK is growing. (3.2% rise for Q2) – but the metric is absurd. Velocity of money and median income tell the true story. US growth is bogus also.
We haven’t seen the revisions to US GDP growth yet. I don’t know if these happen in the UK as well.
One of the (unexpected ?) effects of the energy/resource crisis has been that governments have replaced economic indices such as GDP and CPI that used to be grounded in some sort of reality with complete fabrications. Please do not waste any of your time trying to make any sense of the numbers flying around official/mainstream media outlets. The USSR resorted to exactly the same tactics in the years before its sudden demise.
Spot on.
I don’t even bother to look at the numbers out of the US — all I need to know is that 50M people are on food stamps — most of the new jobs being created are part time and low paid — tens of millions are collecting disability benefits — subprime auto loans are rife … and on and on…
The country is a basket case — shot through with rot — and I am supposed to believe there is real growth?
Nope.
When I meant 2-4% growth in the US, I should have qualified that by saying “perceived growth” and that is what really matters. As long as the average Joe around the world perceives that the US is still the best house in a bad neighborhood, this country will benefit from the flight to safety and do better than the rest. This is good because it’ll keep the ball rolling longer everywhere.
Yep – and he’ll pop another xanax to relieve the frustration of not being able to live large.
Gail,
I think that this blog stands alone in clearly pointing out the failure of current economic models to take into effect a world of limits. Standard economic models were developed at a time in world history when it appeared that there were no limits, or limits were so far in the future as to be ignored. Well now that future is here. Standard economic theory is very much like Classic Newtonian Physics. Newtonian physics works well to explain the physical world that is obvious to us. But Newtonian physics breaks down when applied to the world of the very small, the very fast or under very high gravity. Standard economic theory works well when applied to a limitless world, but breaks down when applied to the real world, a world of finite resources. One could argue that economics as a science is invalid in any closed system, otherwise there would be a whole new branch of economics for a resource constrained world. Thanks again for the post.
Classical economics can be used, it just needs to add the feature of fixed resources supplied by mother nature and renewable resources supplied by mother nature. There is a whole spectrum of resources of any particular type like energy for example.
wood renewable harvest per year A1, energy yield per year A2, cost to produce A3
coal non-renewable harvest per year B1, energy yield per year B2, cost to produce B3
uranium
thorium
He3
oil
tar sands
tight oil
tight natural gas
natural gas
algae
animal power
human power
solar for plant growth
solar thermal
solar PV
solar thermal stored
solar PV stored
etc
and there is some level of elasticity with the amount of money you are willing to throw at the endeavor.
just to be clear with non-renewables there is the net amount ever producible X1 at cost Y1, producible X2 at cost Y2, etc… at some point the demand and supply curves cross as they have already done for some consumers of oil for some applications.
What the supply/demand model doesn’t tell you is that there is a feedback loop from oil price to demand. If oil price is low, it helps make the future demand curve higher. If oil price is high, it helps make the future demand curve lower. A person reading a textbook would think that the supply curve and the demand curve are independent.
Thanks for the information about similarities to Classic Newtonian Physics.
I suppose in some ways the Earth is a closed system, in others it is an open system. Clearly, with respect to energy from the sun, the earth is an open system. The existence of solar energy allows all of the dissipative systems we have on earth
The soil is regenerated over time from the wearing away of rocks, deep underneath. If we think as the outer surface of the earth being the area of interest, the new soil entering it allows it to be a “sort of” open system. Our big problem is using that soil faster than it regenerates.
Minerals and fossil fuels seem to be close to a one-time endowment. The higher concentrations that are best for mining are what we seek out first. Once they are gone, we are pretty much out of luck.
Yes, I agree. Although over massive time scales, the Earth is an open system, in terms of economics on a human scale, it is a closed system. As such, you can’t apply classic economic models to a closed system, just as you can’t apply Newtonian physics to the quantum world.
Thanks for another excellent article Gail.
Same comment from me.
This article would even deserve publication in some prestigious review (but… what for?)
Yes again Gail.
All of the economic theories developed from the 1700s onwards are redundant and can never be re-applied, because this time around we have globally used just about everything required for an industrial form of civilisation.
No one can tell what comes next … if anything if WW3/4 happens and/or control is lost for the hundreds of nuclear power stations around the world.
“May you be cursed to live in interesting times.” All one can do is live according to circumstance and keep informed, so that nothing will come as a debilitating shock/surprize … don’t panic.
I hope that your son has recovered Gail.
My son got out of the hospital after seven days, and is now back at work. He is now receiving follow-up care from a physician. Thanks for asking.
Hope I am not intruding here. Best to you and your son. I mention because, while I had been a regular commenter on the whole sustainability crisis so deftly presented by you on ‘Our finite World’, my outlook has recently changed. After a week of hospitalization this summer my son was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. I will leave it at that for now.
Type 1 diabetes is very bad. My sympathies! I have a sister who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes as a young adult. She seems to do very well now with the new types of insulin available and frequent monitoring of her blood sugar level. She needs to have refrigerated packs with her if she travels, and she is careful to keep her exercise level uniform (neither low nor high) from day to day. It would be a very hard path for a young person to follow.
I think reviewing Charles Hall’s work would introduce you to someone on a similar page. What is below is only part of his many research papers. This part of an editorial I wrote:
New scientific studies show it takes years to payback the energy used in solar electric devices. EROI (Energy Returned on Energy Invested) says it takes energy – mining, drilling, refining, transporting, installing, maintenance, and replacement parts – to make the devices necessary to capture solar energy.
Spain’s Photovoltaic Revolution: The Energy Return on Investment by Prieto, Pedro A., Hall, Charles 2013.
http://www.springer.com/energy/renewable+and+green+energy/book/978-1-4419-9436-3
and http://energyskeptic.com/2013/tilting-at-windmills-spains-solar-pv/
also
Energy in Australia: Peak Oil, Solar Power, and Asia’s Economic Growth
By Graham Palmer. 2014. SpringerBriefs.
Spain’s Photovoltaic Revolution presents the first complete energy analysis of a large-scale, real-world deployment of photovoltaic (PV) collection systems representing 3.5 GW of installed, grid-connected solar plants in Spain. Prieto and Hall conclude that the EROI of solar photovoltaic is only 2.45, very low despite Spain’s ideal sunny climate. Germany’s EROI is probably 20 to 33% less (1.6 to 2), due to less sunlight and efficient rooftop installations.
Spain’s disastrous attempt to replace fossil fuels with Solar Photovoltaics
http://energyskeptic.com/2013/tilting-at-windmills-spains-solar-pv/
Thanks for your suggestions. I am quite familiar with the studies you mention, and also know Charles Hall well. Charles Hall certainly has his heart in the right place, and has advanced the study of energy. His studies and those of Graham Palmer have shown that Solar Power cannot be relied on from an energy point of view, because when broader cost are included, the EROEI of solar energy are quite low.
My differences are mostly with folks who latch on to one or another report and declare that because Wind has an EROEI of 18, it must be the world’s energy savior. I have dug too deeply into how EROEI is calculated, what is left out of these calculations, and what distortions occur when comparing one EROEI to another EROEI to be comfortable with such comparisons.
EROEI can “work” for eliminating something (solar) as an energy possibility. I think it is too “blunt” a tool to prove the opposite–that something like wind is a worthwhile addition to a total system. A wind turbine may be a worthwhile addition in one place (onshore, little wind already on the system, lots of hydro backup, little need for additional long distance transmission lines), but a terrible addition in another place.
There are other issues as well. If the intent is to reduce CO2 emissions, there are less expensive options than wind (or solar). Many people believe that wind and solar PV can extend the life of the grid. Everything I can see says that the opposite is the case. They make the grid harder to manage, and the pricing schemes that are put in place to “help” wind and solar create financial problem for other sources of energy generation. Driving other electricity generation is not really helpful to the whole system. This is a kind of issue that depends on the actual implementation. The life of the system depends in part on how long we are able to keep transmission lines repaired. Wind and solar are not helpful in the least in this.
I know
Perhaps we are about to conclude a wider-larger cycle, let’s say a robust growth pattern started around the renaissance (with explosion phase after 1800s), plus that undercurrent cycle resulting from the “6th extinction activities” going back dozens of thousands years of organized human activity. If these two cycles/trends are about to commingly soon, it’s not going to be pretty.
I agree with your general time-trajectories. We are in for a hard landing whether its played out slow or long. Folks need to get serious about where we are in history and stop fantasizing…
Perhaps Nature has different plans for the earth in the future. When one species declines in prevalence, other species increase to replace it.
As I have said before, I would not rule out the possibility of a higher power being behind all of the changes we are seeing. The “Big Bang” that seems to have happened to start the universe didn’t just come out of nowhere. There is unbelievable organization underlying all of our physical systems.
I second the above. The world and universe is to complex, balanced and organized to just come out of nowhere. I truly believe there is a HIGHER power who made this all happen. That’s as far as i’ll go without getting into a religious debate.
Back in early 2005 there was a program on PBS regarding quantum physics which was just fascinating which proposed that we are not dealing with 3 dimensions but actually four. IIRC the forth dimension was either time or order. I forget which as it was too long ago. Just utterly fascinating stuff that just makes you think, how did all of this stuff happen by itself?
It was Nobel Prize laureate Ilya Prigogine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilya_Prigogine
who said that.
He’s the author of ‘dissipative structures theory’ mentioned many times in Gail’s articles.
“Prigogine’s formal concept of self-organization was used also as a “complementary bridge” between General Systems Theory and Thermodynamics, conciliating the cloudiness of some important systems theory concepts with scientific rigour.”
He strongly supported non-deterministic physics.
http://press.anu.edu.au/info_systems/mobile_devices/ch11s05.html
I don’t remember he was mentioned quite possible as a narrator was presenting the show. I vaguely remember the example of placing a drink on a bar table. When the bartender places the drink on the counter, it’s organized enough that you grab the drink where it was placed. So you could be right, the 4th dimension is order as they mentioned that the sub-layer to the fourth dimension was unorganized and chaotic and the fourth dimension organized the sub-layer of quantum mechanics.
The link you give http://press.anu.edu.au/info_systems/mobile_devices/ch11s05.html is very good. It seems to come from “Information Systems Foundations: Constructing and Criticising Edited by Dennis Hart and Shirley Gregor, Published June 2005.” An outline of the contents is here:
http://press.anu.edu.au/info_systems/mobile_devices/index.html
I also do not rule out a higher power — but if one exists — I cannot imagine it is one of those that requires us to pray to it on bended knee…. anything capable of this surely is beyond being worshiped on bended knee — one would hope such an entity would not be on an ego trip.
That’s as far as I will take the religion debate….
I am not convinced a higher power is one that requires us to pray to it on bended knee, either. At best, all scriptures of various religions tell us is humans’ interpretations of what is happening and what is needed.
“The world and universe is to complex, balanced and organized to just come out of nowhere.”
Mathematical analysis shows that is false logic.
All it takes is a few natural laws.
As to why those laws are in place? well if they weren’t we wouldn’t be here as we are. so its chicken and egg.
And of course if you want to equate those natural laws with ‘higher powers’ you are free to do so, but remember. there is no guarantee that the higher power is animate, intelligent, sentient, or his operating for the benefit of mankind.
I am sure the chickens in the factory farm think the farm managers who bring the feed are gods dedicated to the good of chicken kind. They simply dont see all the McChicken burgers coming out the far end.
There is a fine SF book by IIRC Kurt Vonnegut, where the whole of human civilisation was in fact designed to bring a spare part – a piece of ,metal – to a marooned spacecraft on was it Titan?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sirens_of_Titan
Stick to your faith if it gets you through the night, but I wouldn’t bet n it guaranteeing mankind’s survival. No sirree bob.
We as humans, sometimes need to suffer in the flesh to learn something. We only learn what sticks to us and penetrates us. Abstraction or an concept, an idea becomes real and alive. It fuses with ourselves. It becomes part of what we are. It adds to us, and redifine us. All of a sudden we will value tremendously energy and resources. We will nourish them.
Our civilization thought that tecnhology progress was enough. It was the main driver of our evolution. Technology as a spiritual route for our progress as human beings and civilization. Innovation and tecnhology pushed ethics aside.
Next civilization, generations will learn from us. They will try again, but differently. They know that they must first answer the question, is this sustainable? Is this road, way of evolution sustainable? We can use tecnhology if that route is sustainable, if not we must discard this. Technology will be just a tool. Sustainability is first. Energy, resources and even financial systems, all have to be sustainable.
It’s is also a lesson of humility. I just cant to whatever i want. I cant just use energy, use things and throw it away like if it was nothing. The more we are aware of it, the more we become connect to our real self. The less selfies we become and hopefully less selfies we take. When future look at our archives and look at facebook they will see all this selfies, which are perhaps 70% of Facebook nowdays, and think how selfish and distracted this persons were.
I am sure there will be “soon” a deep energy crises. The more you think about it, the more it becomes noticeable and clear. And it’s going to be ugly. I am new to this. I am still in shock and not knowing yet what i should do. I dont know if it will be just a deep crises like we havent experienced before in our civilization, a collapse of our civilization or human extinction. I personally dont believe in human extinction, it possible but i dont believe. Even with all nuclear, there might a couple of humans far away. Maybe Africa? I dont know exactly.
Of course i want this energy crises to be just nothing, that we just find a unknown (huge reserve of cheap oil, like the Saudi Arabi) and meanwhile manage to transit to an sustainable way of life. But maybe this shock and devastation would be the only way our civilization would learn from this. Maybe we must need to experience it.
I don’t see there being a next time. This is as impressive as it gets in terms of technology.
The industrial revolution was built upon cheap energy — which fosters technological advances – including those that have allowed us to keep the cheap energy flowing — until recently.
If we can’t get energy out of the ground cheaply now — and we cannot invent replacements now — I fail to see how we do any of this when we are at Ground Zero…
If we are around at all we will scraping the soil trying to eke out a living using the left over tools of this civilization — and when those wear out … we’ll be back to a very primitive existence.
No more rockets to the moon I am afraid
I dont know, you dont know, no one knows. Coal will be around, maybe we can find an algae fuel that can be slowly implemented. Maybe not. Future will tell…
I don’t believe in miracles…
Paul wrote:
“No more rockets to the moon I am afraid”
When I was young I used to dream about mankind travelling they great void and maybe meet other lifeforms that we could communicate with. I’s not going to happen. Now I’m hoping that someone find us instead…
If a superior being finds us — they will likely examine us — and conclude that we are an abomination — cancer on the planet — and put us down like one would a rabid dog….
Leaving the planet to the other life forms that co-exist in harmony.
Paul wrote:
“Leaving the planet to the other life forms that co-exist in harmony.”
It’s sad, but you are probably right…
I am really disappointed reading this kind of statement. There is zero species living in harmony with the rest of the environment. All species struggle for resources. The homeostatsis is a temporary state in nature. And it concerns all the species. Human is one of them. We just got the bigger brain in evolutionary lottery.
I suppose relative harmony is a better way to describe it….
No other species other than humans exterminate other species — none engage in wars — none engage in the industrial farming of other species locking them in small cages and torturing them — none have developed WMD that can wipe out the planet — none bulldoze nature to put in condos (or farms) — none kill for joy…
There is no comparing the human race to any other animal on the planet — we are an abomination.
‘Relative harmony’ – yes, I can agree on that.
There can be a next time. The next civilization (post population collapse) just won’t be nearly so technological. I would imagine that scientific knowledge will still be available and valued, but there will be an inability to apply it on anything like the scale we do today. Under such chastened conditions it certainly seems likely that mankind in general will adopt some sort of stoic philosophy able to contemplate the follies of our age, and in that sense I expect some sort of spiritual evolution/enlightenment to evolve naturally.
The operator of Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant is preparing to remove 400 tons of highly irradiated spent fuel from a damaged reactor building, a dangerous operation that has never been attempted before on this scale.
Containing radiation equivalent to 14,000 times the amount released in the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima 68 years ago, more than 1,300 used fuel rod assemblies packed tightly together need to be removed from a building that is vulnerable to collapse, should another large earthquake hit the area.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/14/us-japan-fukushima-insight-idUSBRE97D00M20130814
I am doubtful there is a next time at all — there are 4000 of these ponds around the world — very sophisticated installments that require high tech robots to manage their lethal contents…
How do you keep such things operational when the supply chain is busted – oil flow has stopped — and the global economy is in chaos…
See p.56 http://www.feasta.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Trade-Off1.pdf
Unless someone has a way to keep those ponds cool — and I cannot see how as they need to be maintained for decades — then I struggle to see how this is not an extinction event… or at the very least a total hell on earth for survivors who will be riddled with cancer…
Australia, New Zealand and Central Africa dont have any nuclear facilities… http://www.euronuclear.org/info/encyclopedia/n/nuclear-power-plant-world-wide.htm
Southern hemisphere would be the best for avoiding radiation issues…
I only hope you are right. My intuition says though, that we will encounter the reverse path of building civilization, but 100 times faster. There are two authors, who made me thinking about this: Aldous Huxley with ‘Island’ and virtual response of Michel Houellebecq in ‘La Possibilité d’une île’. The last one is the most probable, but not very comforting, outcome, IMHO.
Paul,
OK to be completely honest, the issue you raise also keeps me awake at night sometimes. Although I was once an atomic (not nuclear) physicist, I had always assumed that nuclear power plants were designed to gracefully going to sleep at some reasonable temperature in the absence of any power input. When I discovered a few years ago that, no, uranium reactors require active cooling indefinitely or else they melt down, I was first horrified and then absolutely disgusted. How could we consider ourselves civilized if we were prepared to leave a future technologically-compromised generation with a problem that they might not be able to deal with ?
I think it was this issue more than any other that led to my conviction that mankind is simply not spiritually enlightened enough to deal with high technology. Period. Since there is no way our view is going to prevail, I suppose we must just wait for the inevitable design of this vile system (I am not going to grace it with the epithet “civilization”).
Notwithstanding, should there be a global breakdown in power delivery systems, it may not be as bad as you fear. Fukushima is perhaps (?) the largest repository on the planet, and in the worst case scenario, the 60 000 spent rods will just melt their way done into the earth’s crust and presumably just pollute water supplies in the immediate vicinity ?
(I am not too hot on geology, so I may be wrong about this.).
It would be interesting to get someone in the industry to comment on this… All I have to go on is the Reuters article.
With Fukushima we never get the truth — but as far as I can see the core is exposed but it is still being cooled with sea water — which is bad enough as tonnes of radioactive water is pouring into the Pacific on a daily basis —- but what happens if the fuel did not have water poured on it?
Chernobyl holds some of the clues — I understand that there were high rates of deformaties in children born as far away as Germany and France where the radiation cloud drifted for many years after the disaster… of course there were cancers in undetermined numbers in the areas around Chernobyl…
It is important to keep in mind that Chernobyl was entombed in concrete using helicopters — so the full impact of the meltdown was not felt — if they were not sealed off they would continue to this day I assume — to be billowing radiation into the atmosphere.
So if over a short period major health affects were felt in the adjacent countries — what happens if you have not one plant but hundreds spewing radiation out of control — along with thousands of spent fuel ponds.
The PTB are not stupid — if we can anticipate this potential extinction problem so too have they…
Perhaps Chernobyl offers another clue — cement entombment — I would suggest that the PTB have a plan for when the collapse is at the door step.
While BAU is still functional — the military engineers in all countries with nuclear facilities are ordered to entomb all these facilities with tonnes of concrete sealing them off for eternity.
That does give me some comfort that we may be able to avert an extinction event for all life on the planet.
Greetings Julian, Paul, and the community,
I hope this message reaches you. I am a young thinker working with some internationally-renowned artists, likely to be familiar to this site’s audience; we hope to recruit some high-profile computer scientists and physicists in the coming months to assist with technology development, model/simulation-building, and to help grow a network of researchers.
The issue of reactor meltdowns in the case of systemic collapse has become my primary concern of late. This does strike me as a possible extinction-causing event. While I do hope to assist in preservation efforts to maintain some of the scientific, artistic, and intellectual insights and related technologies for potential future civilizations, my highest priority is in spreading awareness of what I believe are our greatest dangers:
1. Thermonuclear war, fallout, nuclear winter, etc
2. ~450 reactor meltdowns following systemic instability or collapse
I have read David Korowicz study “Trade-Off,” Kjell Aleklett’s book “Peeking at Peak Oil,” listened to countless lectures, watched many films, read dozens or hundreds of editorials, papers, etc. I have come to the conclusion that we have the resources to make a somewhat elegant transition toward permaculture-based societies, given unprecedented unity, careful conservation, etc. Of course, we will see many strategies, from hunting and gathering to more traditional agricultural methods from various epochs. Mass die-off and the loss of most technologies seems unavoidable, but I think it at least possible that we may have energy surpluses in some parts of the world such that we are able to maintain sophisticated libraries and various academic disciplines.
The energy output of our agricultural production can support 7-9 billion humans, in terms of joules/calories, according to Aleklett, a physicist. He and his team at UGES are aware of the energy losses that happen during production, processing, distribution, vending, and home-waste; as I understood it, the data was offered for us to have an idea of what kind of yield can be gotten from the land under ideal circumstances. Nutrient deficiencies are rampant, but that is symptomatic of how we segregate our crops and divorce them from their ancestral ecosystems. Food forests etc offer higher yields per acre if well-designed, and allow for nutrient-cycles to develop, replenishing the land and simultaneously offering more complete nutrition for humans and wildlife. I think it’s intuitive to people studying our compounding issues that population will not be 7-9 billion, and that such numbers of people could ruin the ecosystem even without any machines. How many people there will ultimately be is anyone’s guess, but it seems at least plausible that we could have a gradual decline in population rather than a precipitous one.
I was very excited to see this thread discussing the reactor issue; others will read your comments and, gradually, awareness will build. I hope it is somewhat comforting to know that you are not the only ones thinking about it and working to prevent it.
I have had some difficulty determining the magnitude of the threat, though. Opinions on the severity of Fukushima are all over the place. This is actually the first conversation I’ve came across online discussing reactor meltdown in the context of systemic collapse.
May I request your assistance in locating information and experts? Ideally we will model such a catastrophe in software so that we may more simply communicate the predicament to a wider audience. I am keenly aware that any sort of mass panic can trigger collapse, and so discussion of the issue will likely remain outside of public view. Perhaps a carefully-laid contingency plan such as Paul describes with concrete encasement could be implemented, as I am not sure it’s possible to decommission the reactors without causing infrastructural instabilities in the global system. It is my hope that such safeguards are being planned already, but the response to Fukushima doesn’t inspire confidence.
While I worry that humanity will not realize this threat and address it, I refuse to give up hope. We committed great folly in using energy resources as we have, but out of this period came many revelations that will be perhaps impossible for future civilizations to come to without first reaching the state we are in now (seems very unlikely). I can still envision something like utopia for the biomes of earth in the distant future, with humans operating harmoniously among them. I think it at least possible to progress in our scientific understanding of the universe given enough eons, but any progress is predicated upon our ability to preserve a vast, seemingly-irreproducible body of research.
As a species that came to understand some of the workings of the cosmos at the risk of all large lifeforms on the planet, we should protect these insights; we represent the cosmic awareness of the greater mind of our planet. We are as sacred as all the rest that inhabit this sphere; the world will be enriched by our continued presence should we learn humility from the mistakes of this epoch.
***
Above I have offered what I consider to be highly-optimistic possibilities. I do expect any number of terrible, abrupt ends/shifts. However, we are in the middle of a renaissance. We have extraordinary capabilities, and like all lifeforms, we have survival instincts. I do think that scenarios benefiting most lifeforms are plausible.
I have subscribed to this comment thread should anyone have research to contribute, or wish to collaborate. Many thanks to those who read this. Please remain optimistic! =) The earth and the cosmos will be fine without us, but the human story needn’t end in our time.
“The energy output of our agricultural production can support 7-9 billion humans, in terms of joules/calories, according to Aleklett, a physicist.”
I wonder — how does he think this can happen when 98% of the world’s ag land is farmed using oil and gas based fertilizers and pesticides — take those away and what you have is dead soil – it will not support a crop without years of intensive organic inputs.
Good on you for trying to do something — however elegant is not a word I would associate with the incredible starvation, suffering and dying that is headed our way.
Anon
Goog to know there is a newwork trying to address nuclear issues. Among all problems we are reaching, it really looks the worst and perhaps this is the reason why almost nobody has the courage to say a word on it. This is why I prefer this forum among many others: here we don’t discard any possible catastrophe, no matter how tragic it could be.
Getting people in the nuke field to work on this would of course be crucial, while they doesn’t seem to come here. Where to find such specialists, given their own field is likely happening to be the most damaging human activity? And it’s striking atomic stuff had given us just a few of the kwh we use while it creates the majors environmental disruption. A very bad choice from a thermodinamic view: little internal order added to the system and huge disorder in its surrounding as an aftermath.
It is hard to figure governments will even try to fix this issue, not to say to imagine they will succeed. As for the used rods in the ponds, there are so much differencies it becomes difficult to get the point. In Argentina, for instance, there are two big ponds -one for each nuclear facility supplying the grid-, and a smaller one receiving just experimentation and medical related stuff. The big ponds are subject to different treatement: in one case the rods are parked in just for six years and later go to dry casking, while in the other it’s 15 years but I’m not sure what they do with them after this. There is no a big need to entomb reactors in case the fuel is removed (while it could be a second layer of protection), and I rather wonder if the ponds themselves could be entombed in order to prevent radation going into the air and confining it to the ground (and related waterstreams).
Agree — it is the ponds that need to be entombed.
One concern that just occurred to me — if entombing spent fuel rods in thousands of tonnes of concrete is feasible — then why do we bother with these pools at all?
Why have we not already been simply doing that with spent fuel all along?
Thank you for your comments! I will focus on the issue of containment ponds and spent fuel rods, then. Does anyone happen to know if this is a permanent solution? We may not have the technology to do more sophisticated entombment in the future should there be a long-term issue with concrete enclosures. Hopefully analysis of Fukushima will give us a better understanding of how radiation spreads when it seeps into groundwater.
—
Paul, I agree that transitions this century will not be elegant; I use the term as dark humor. Mass starvation, perpetual warfare, and unfathomable suffering are reality now. I do think it’s possible for us to avoid extinction and transition toward a state of more enlightened equilibrium with the earth. As it shares our biology, we would see rapid improvements in health shifting away from modern foods, medicines, environments, etc; this to me is elegant. I am not someone who expects electricity to exist outside of perhaps city centers; a state of ultra-low energy use while maintaining the knowledge and insights we gained in our time seems feasible. Our problems are of such magnitude that avoiding extinction in the madness that is developing would be very graceful, to me; it requires great cooperation among people who will at some point realize they are almost certainly doomed where they are.
As for Aleklett: I don’t think he nor UGES were making any claims as to the feasibility of feeding 7-9 billion for a prolonged period. He was careful to state that they have not researched this sector extensively; he was merely offering data as a physicist. The problem of converting the energy content of the land into humans is left as a problem for those studied in other disciplines.
I offer permaculture as a possible way of gaining remarkable yields from the land without depleting topsoil or losing nutrients; this has to be coupled, though, with egress from suburbs and cities. Chris Dixon’s beautiful food forest requires about a day per week of cultivation now that it’s done, with some extra days (ten, I think he said?) throughout the year. I believe we can use big computation to simulate nutrient cycles, optimizing for various regions, topographies, soil types, etc. Once grown, these largely self-cultivating lands leave much time for the cultivators to help build towns and critical infrastructure.
According to UGES, global energy production looks like it will be decreasing by about 2% per year, independent of accelerating forces. Our wasteful use is such that we may well be able to match consumption with the rate of decline, at least for a while. I think the reality of economic growth ending will come before long, and if we survive that transition, I do think it possible we may wisen up and decide to use our remaining energy to downscale.
Again, I am very cynical, very skeptical, but I see plenty of reasons to be optimistic. If we are at peak energy, peak population, and therefore peak technology: then, well, we have more computational power between brains and microprocessors than we are likely to ever have again. We have ample resources for problem-solving. Our brains and big computers are largely wasted currently; it needn’t remain this way.
I don’t like our chances. But many unexpected things may happen. We are perhaps at Peak Spectacle also: I believe in the possibility of rapid shifts in ideology. People will abandon the old paradigms more and more as they begin to struggle more and more. We can see from events all over the world that populations are willing to endure unthinkable conditions to survive; I believe this survival extinct may yet be channeled toward solving our highest-priority crises as they arise.
” Does anyone happen to know if this is a permanent solution? We may not have the technology to do more sophisticated entombment in the future should there be a long-term issue with concrete enclosures. Hopefully analysis of Fukushima will give us a better understanding of how radiation spreads when it seeps into groundwater.”
If we had a long term solution for the fuel ponds when why haven’t we already used it? Why are we still holding the fuel in containment ponds?
If Fukushima is the poster child for providing a better understanding then we are really really screwed — because the only understanding we have gained from that never ending disaster — is that we never should have developed nuclear power in the first place — because when it goes wrong — we are completely incapable of fixing things.
if we can’t fix Fukushima with all the resources of BAU at our disposal — then how do we manage the nightmare of nuclear energy — when BAU is collapsed?
Well, things have to change, that’s for sure. I don’t think the might of our civilization is being directed at addressing Fukushima, though. The wealth and technology available to the elites, governments, and corporations is formidable. It may be that we have a global shortage of nuclear experts; if that’s not the case, our resources are probably sufficient to address the problems there and other potential nuclear problems. It’s a matter of priority. Most people are operating under the assumption that things will continue as they are indefinitely. While I think mass panic would probably hasten collapse, maybe we will be surprised: perhaps we will start to understand our priorities when it proves impossible to continue growth or even maintain the status quo. Enormous amounts of time and money are being spent in industries destined for failure; when it becomes clear there are no careers left for people in these fields, they will be quick to want to work on nuclear problems, agriculture, etc rather than starve.
Obviously people can’t just hop fields easily, but a lot of the skills and technologies in superfluous fields translate well to pragmatic fields. One could dream that the genius tacticians and computer scientists of each nation’s military are repurposed for resource analysis and management. Or that the databanks of NSA, Google, etc are used to map critical infrastructure, trade flow, etc and algorithmically prioritize resource distribution to prevent systemic collapses. It’s a slippery slope, for sure, but already the current uses of big-computing have been concentrating power to the owners of big computers. Computers are not inherently evil and so I think they could be used benevolently. The Google advertising model, for example, will not function in a contracting economy. The people working there are naive, but they are also highly-intelligent. If they recognize just how fragile our current structure is, they and others may well start to prioritize scientific modeling.
If it turns out that we need years of R&D to create technologies that will allow us to establish permanent radiation containment, then we probably are screwed. We would, in that case, have to outlast a handful of major crises just to address that one.
My generation is struggling to eat and remain sheltered; we don’t have the time or money to collaborate each day, or network as extensively as is needed. In effect, we are locked into the solutions the ruling classes have offered. It is mad, absolutely, but everyone: please try to have some optimism. I have met countless brilliant people to this point, and seen enough online, to believe that some ecstatic visions might coalesce as if from nowhere, generated by the sum-total of all human thought prior to this point. I think this would have happened by now if income inequality weren’t so severe. It may have happened in spite of that had totalitarianism not arisen, and global surveillance. I think it can still happen, but a perfect storm needs to erupt. I think there are a lot more people tackling the most difficult issues than we realize; they are all careful to stay in the shadows because they understand how critical their contributions are.
While I haven’t had the time to read all of them, I’ve noticed a lot of masterpieces being published lately. A sophisticated internet has been around for a while now, and a trade and travel network to access old physical texts. As such, countless gifted people are coming to crystalline understandings of their focus of research. They are witnessing the decay of contemporary civilization, and it makes it easier for them to determine what a properly-functioning system should look like (whether it be in economics, industry, trade, health, government, agriculture, etc). Many lucid theories are beginning to emerge. While it might be unlikely, I think it is at least possible that we will implement them to replace the absurd ones. The problem probably won’t be a lack of solutions, but the bickering and time-wasting between the crowds with the correct solutions and the crowds clinging to archaic models. Only the people who made the breakthroughs will be able to understand the breakthroughs, at first; other experts may adapt to the ideas quickly, but it takes a long time for the concepts and lexicon to be translated to a common vernacular. This process and delay is unavoidable, and we don’t really have the time for there to be a lag between discovery of correct solutions and their implementation. As such we are seeing the implementation of ancient solutions: conquest, theft, coercion, etc.
There are almost certainly more polymaths alive today than ever in history, so I think it’s too early to prophesy the end. That we are on the precipice, looking into the abyss is clear. I find optimism difficult, but I have tried to validate fatalistic pessimism through research and have been unable to. We have a lot less time than we thought, but our collective thought offers us time.
My money is on crashing to a level slightly beyond the stone age… assuming we are able to somehow extinguish the nuclear time bomb that is ticking…
I am not fully knowledgeable about the nuclear industry, but I know of a couple who are quite knowledgeable about the industry. One of them is Arnie Gundersen at http://www.Fairewinds.org. I don’t know him, but he has offered up several, apparently valid, analyses about the Fukushima The second one was one of my former students who became a career nuclear engineer. He has designed them, operated them, performed maintenance on them, designed capacity expansions, all of it. Most important, he was personally licensed by the NRC as a Senior Nuclear Operator. That license and the required training basically made him ultimate decision authority in any nuclear plant he was evaluating.
I guess I maybe got carried away, but he remains my good friend. We had several discussions about the nuclear industry and Fukushima. So keeping with your suggestion, if you have some serious requests, I can at least try to get a non political response.
Let me share some of our dialogs, mixed with public info for some background. :
– He points out that there are several FuKushima nuclear reactors in operation. I think it
was 4. They were built in that location over various design phases to expand capacity.
– The original reactors at Fukushima were designed and built (via contractors) by GE
The reactor design was the same state of art designs built in the USA in the same
time frame. There were design changes to the GE reactors, say Type II etc I don’t
recall any detail about any design changes..
– The Fukushima site is located at a nearly sea level location. There is public info that
suggests the original site was a seaside bluff. For operating efficiency the bluffs were
removed for a plant space near sea level. Part of the carefully designed containment
vessel was presumably below sea level, but sump pumps were installed to remove any
water inflow, which included underground runoff plus rainwater within the plant basin.
– My friend has repeatably said they use a stabilizer. I think it is boron. The plant
robots move the active fuel rods up and down and control the extent of the nuclear
reactor.needed to make the electricity. A nuclear plant is a carefully controlled steam
generator.
– As I recall from my friend, the spent rods that were periodically removed from the
reactor were originally stored within the nuclear containment of the reactor. But, over
time, international decisions were made to allow spent rod storage “at ground level”
with “appropriate controls in place to maintain integrity”.
– But along comes a tidal wave and an earthquake at the same time! What is the
likelihood that this event occurred? It is very, very small. But it happened. The official
analysis is correct it is an act of god.
– The Japanese government chooses to propagandize their situation, The government position seems to have a ” move along, nothing important here” attitude. Present rosy images, declare food safety, etc. While dumping millions of gallons of various radiation, firat near Japan, then due to established ocean currents, into the Pacific and on to the USA West Coast.
But, after this little walk through to Fukushima, I recognize a familiar pattern. That is, at each stage of a critical decision, the risk assessment in the decision package seems to be based on the probability of event occurrence at that stage. But what is missing is the consequence factor. What is the expected consequence if the events happen versus the expected consequence if the event does not happen.
There were so many interesting topics to explore.I find this to be a great site I am a newby to the site, so I apologize in advance for inappropriate manners. I hope to chat more.
Can you ask him what he thinks would happen if every nuclear power plant on the planet melted down and were just left to fester (i.e. nobody made an effort to put water onto the core)
Also what if our ability to keep all spent fuel ponds cooled was for some reason stopped permanently.
Arnie Gundersen is controversial https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=arnie+gundersen+credibility&safe=off
I pulled this juicy bit from one of the sites that came up on that search:
“He recently appeared on Democracy Now, a liberal news program that recognizes the ills of unfettered capitalism and an economy that is dependent on using the atmosphere as a waste dump for massive quantities of fossil fuel waste. Unfortunately, the presenters and producers at Democracy Now also have a huge blind spot regarding the use of atomic energy. They think of it as something to fear and attack instead of recognizing it as the most powerful tool in the tool box for reducing that dependence on burning fossil fuel and dumping the waste into our shared atmosphere.”
Meanwhile — Fukushima continues to pour hundreds of tonnes of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean every single day — and there is nothing anyone can do to stop it…
It appears that rather salient fact was lost on the author of this smear piece…
I didn’t bother to read the other links after seeing that…
The radioactivity that pours into the ocean is trivial compared to the radioactivity that already exists in the ocean
Thank you so much, Mr Bill, for your post. The information is very helpful; I will be sure to read from that site, and will write you more in this thread when I have a better understanding of the topics, and which questions to ask. I am compiling a research report (of which nuclear issues are a small component) for some computer scientists next month. If possible, I would love to correspond with your connection before then. I would also like to correspond with you via e-mail, although I would like to avoid posting my address in a comment.
“But, after this little walk through to Fukushima, I recognize a familiar pattern. That is, at each stage of a critical decision, the risk assessment in the decision package seems to be based on the probability of event occurrence at that stage. But what is missing is the consequence factor. What is the expected consequence if the events happen versus the expected consequence if the event does not happen.”
This is very eloquent; thank you. I wonder: how often are these mistakes with radioactive compounds repeated throughout the cosmos? I met a physicist at UC Berkeley who was trying to figure out why stars created elements heavier than iron; there was an energy loss in the synthesis of heavier elements (I don’t quite understand this, and don’t remember how he phrased the mystery. I am probably not recounting it correctly). Have always had a strange perspective on radioactive isotopes since then; utilizing them is like unbottling the stored energy of dead stars. It is folly to mess around with them too much when one’s species is restricted only to one planet.
**
I want to add some notes to my previous comment. I regret bringing up Google and the NSA, as I would like to avoid involving any particular groups in discussions, especially on an online forum. Humanity has obviously been enriched in many ways by Google. I should have elaborated on the point I was making: any computing paradigms with global systemic growth as a prerequisite need to be rethought. All organisms must adapt with changing environment; ostensibly any corporation like theirs would thrive should their software be tooled to address what are the greatest computational needs at any moment.
With regard to their advertising business: I have heard some critical opinions from philosophers in the computer science world, but I am pretty indifferent about it. It simply jumped to mind as something implemented for profit and is presumably vulnerable to economic winds. Am not sure how computationally intensive it is. And I think it should probably remain as it is; it’s so ingrained in the internet that I worry significant changes in that area could cause market instabilities. I wish I had taken more time to think of a non-specific example of big-computation likely to be affected by economic turmoil.
Also, Google search has perhaps saved humanity already, so I don’t want to come across as critical of them. I find the chrome browser very stable and powerful, which has been invaluable in research. Many of their other technologies are brilliant, also. Their dataset simply came to mind as one of the largest, with untapped potential for systems analysis.
As for the NSA: while their actions are distasteful, I am not really interested in the ethics of what they are doing. That is a nuanced topic; the possible consequences of mass-surveillance are already well-theorized, anyway. I brought them up, instead, to suggest that indiscriminate data-mining may actually help us. Their datacenter could be considered something like a massive brain, but without cognition. It knows more about civilization than any human or group ever could. It lacks, however, the unifying abilities of a human brain given a smaller dataset. Whether creating powerful analytic toolsets for this data is a good idea or not is something society needs to discuss. I think any datacenter may be used for altruism. Seems like that would confer a survival advantage for it; the humans would continue to support it.
Sorry to rant but I was worried about appearing too political with my previous posted comment. I don’t think any entity or organization is comprehensible, nevermind reducible to a “net-positive” or “net-negative” influence. And I certainly don’t think of the actions of large organisms like companies and governments in terms like “good” or “evil;” they are simply phenomenon, and have survival instincts like any organism. To this end, I see some decisions as, “risky,” “misguided,” “inefficient,” etc in the context of the compounding crises of this century. Nature exists in perpetual war, so I try not to judge even that– but no species should play with thermonuclear fire. I don’t affiliate with any organizations, nor individuals even; our problems have to be addressed by billions of minds. I offer my opinion when I think it may be of benefit, but I represent no ideology or geopolitical stance.
The human brain is finite in its capacity to understand complex systems. Clearly we have created problems beyond the human intellect. The examples I have offered in these posts are not to be suggestive, but to illustrate a certain type of thinking. I see a global culture of competition, and I think: that is wasteful. We no longer have the resources for anything like that. Dominance in any sphere will have more repercussions than it used to. Peace and conservation are much more sustainable practices. Once our technologies are gone, they may simply be gone; whatever exists now should become more adaptive. I am of the opinion that things are so fragile that large changes shouldn’t be made, at least until we have finished theorizing new modalities of trade and finance. Existing paradigms shouldn’t be counted on existing forever; if paradigms change suddenly, computing needs to change suddenly in lockstep. We don’t have surplus energy anymore; all decisions we make have to take this into consideration. We can’t count on the next generation having access to the educational resources the past few have had, either; it may be that the vast majority of 21st century problems must be solved with the current workforce.
I’ll write tomorrow if I am able to read a sufficient chunk of that website. Thanks again, Mr Bill! =)
Thanks for chiming in, Robert. It may be that the risks are relatively minor. I will take a look at the various criticisms of Arnie Gundersen in addition to evaluating his research; thanks for the link. The opinions on radioactivity really are all over the place. I saw part of a lecture from some guy who used to eat uranium, spark plutonium at lectures, and swim in containment pools; he lived til, I think, 82. A comment claimed he died of leukemia, but he did live years longer than the average male. It would be a great relief to learn that the scenario we are hypothesizing isn’t cause for concern of extinction. Our other problems seem comparatively simple to address.
@ Anon
RE the effort to preserve knowledge and a vestige of the most efficient / current technological capacity you should also give thought to maintaining production of basic medical supplies. Production of many medical compounds using RDNA yeast strains has become almost as easy as brewing beer; and I know beer will be brewed after the great ‘re-adjustment’. Further, using current medical and technical knowledge, we are on the verge of curing some very tragic conditions such as Type 1 diabetes and many cancers. Who is to say these efforts must be abandoned?
Yes social priorities could change to raw survival mode in the face of future uncertainties and resource bottlenecks. Might priorities also change from cowardly hoarding to more altruistic notions of community and shared property, such as soil conservation , soil water and clean air. Seems this is the direction we must take in order to salvage not just the species but our very humanity. You cannot have one without the other.
Why do you think the human species is so important to save? What is it that make us so special — is it that are so kind — is it that we respect the earth and live sustainably — is it that we treat other species with respect and do not enslave them in horrendous conditions injecting them with Frankenstein hormones and other drugs so we can feed off them?
Plenty of other species have gone extinct — to my knowledge we are the only species that is so stupid that we are extincting ourselves.
Surely the planet would be much better off — as would the other organisms — without us?
Paul,
I suppose I stepped into the proverbial thorny briar patch when I volunteered to share comments from my nuclear Engineer friend. I have not chatted with him recently, but I will try to catch up with him in the next couple of weeks and ask him to comment on your questions. This particular forum will probably have moved to another topic by then. But, I will plan to share his comments here on this site when I get them from him. In the mean time, I will share some more of our general discussion on nuclear stuff.
I was able to contact my friend quicker than had thought. But, wow he shocked the heck out me. Over his many years in the nuclear industry, he had been pro nuclear energy. But, he is pragmatic and reasonable in dialoging about the pro and con issues for nuclear plants. He has long argued the point that a properly operating nuclear is less harmful to the environment than the allowable discharges from petrochemical, chemical and coal fired power plants. His position has been that the nuclear plants have so much redundancy and backup, so much automated shutdown and startup sequences, so much frequent and detailed reviews, so much rigorous procedures and other checks and balances and so much rigorous containment requirements, the risk of a serious mishap is very, very low. He does acknowledge concerns on shifting policies and practices over the long term that do not maintain the same attention to detail.
So, when I spoke to him yesterday specically about the tqo questions you raised, his response was quick and shocking. He informed me that he was now a strong opponent of all nuclear power plants. His current position is “Shut Down All Nuclear Power Plant In The World”.
His change of heart was based solely on FUKUshima disaster, To quoate him verbatum, ” I have worked and trained intimately on all of the operating intricacies and procedures in a variety of nuclear facilities. I was absolutely convinced that the operating safety was well estabilhed. But, Fukushima scared the hell out of me. I had operated plants virtually identical to Fukushima. But, it was clear that Fukushima was a total mess that had been a disaster in waiting. So when I realized that a plant I was so familiar with could be so compromised by such operating incompetence and procedural violations creating this event it became so apparent that no nuclear power plant can be regarded to be sufficiently safe enough to avoid the future real long term risks of their continued operation”.
We did have a couple of hour chat on and around the questions you raised. I will summarize our insightful discussion a little further down these posts. i
Anon
I have not thoroughly read your posts at this site. But, my first impression is that I would like to have some more private conversations with you. we do not know each other, so I would suggest that we proceed with some caution. I would hope we can find an acceptably private interface. I understand your relutanace to post your direct email address. I don’t immediately have a solution. Make other suggestions. In any event I will continue to monitor your input on this site. Is a temporary Yahoo email account a suitable option?
Paul,
Well taking a little liberty with an old Rolling Stones lyric – I may have spent too long, waiting for a friend. I am concerned that my summary of discussions with my nuclear friend is posted so late that you may have passed on to elsewhere. But, here is my summary post anyway. on your questions. This particular forum will probably have moved to another topic by then. But, I will plan to share his comments here on this site when I get them from him. In the mean time, I will share some more of our general discussion on nuclear stuff.
Sorry, but I will be a bit windy on the topic. I will try to briefly highlight my expected response to your questions from my friend and defer you to later comments on the details..I will try to touch on the highlights at the top of this post, then comment on more general details further down the page.
I think your two questions address the worst case scenario. That is an event or events that releases, in a short time frame, radiation from all nuclear reactors and all spent fuel rod facilities in the world..It is unfortunate that even one has occurred or that future nuclear accidents are likely to occur. The only cause for such a worst case scenario that I can imagine would be wholesale international sabotage.I think this is most highly unlikely but I suppose it is possible. In my opinion the most likely scenario, would be periodic accidents with various degrees of consequence continuing around the world, caused either by operator error, equipment failure or natural disaster. We already have expereince with this situation (Three Mile Island Chernobyl and, Fukushima
At some point, as these localized accidents continue over time, we may hope the world leaders conclude the long term consequences and costs are to great and agree to shut down the bulk of the nuclear industry, including nuclear power plants (and throw in military nuclear weapons). If the learship is rational, we may also think the governments and nuclear industry would plan for an orderly and safe shutdown program. That includes, addressing all of the active and spent scattered all over the world. Such orderly and thorough action would be required to avoid hazardous nulear radiated facilities left to disintergrate and create really deadly and uncontrolled waste sites capable of contaminating water, soil and air with radioactive water and particles scattered about large areas. This is my opinion but my friend only briefly discussed this issue. There are simply too many twists and turns to do any meaningful reponces.
Now our conversation summary –
In the simplest terms, each nuclear power plant.has three main parts (1) a controlled nuclear reactor facility, (2) steam turbine electricity generation and distribution facility, and (3) spent fuel rod cooling facility. There are many oher pieces, but that will just complicate our summary.There are different designs in place at the various
plants. All plants do basically the same thing : use a conrolled nuclear reaction to boil water for steam turbines and, when the active reactor fuel in the rods much of its reaction, they become spent fuel rods. At some point the spent fuel rods are transfered to the spent fuel rod cooling facility for cooling off residual heat and further stabilization. But there are various designs having different types of control rods, different moderators, different containment, etc. So there is lots of variability among the plants.
In normal operations, various control rods are adjusted up and down slightly to stabilize the nuclear reaction.. But for most emergencies, the basic nuclear reaction can be shut down quickly by fully inserting all of the contol rods into the running reactor. My friend indicated it only takes a few seconds to drop from full power to a small fraction of residual power. All of the plants he had most experience also had very substabtial steel and concrete cladding and other significant reactor facility containment. Fukushima was a nuclear plant with nuclear components that he has a lot of experience. He cannot comment about many of the other plants.
in any case, it appears the world will continue to encounter nuclear accidents of varying degrees of threat.The most probable impact will be radiation contaminated water, typically as a variety of ions with different degrees of badness.
The worst case accident in the reactor facility is explosions. Explosions not only destroy critical components, but also is the major source for breakout into the outside to release radioactive fuel particles into the air and water. The degree of badness from a severe explosion depends on how severe the explosion and how strong the containment. The most serious problem here is from ruptured or corroded metal clad fuel rods and escape of these fuel particles into the air or water. This is much worse than ions in the water..
Keep in mind that the spent fuel rods in the cooling ponds (sophisticated tanks) had been physically moved from the reactor. These rods are alloy metal cladding (tubes) with the nuclear fuel sealed inside.They are placed in the cooling pond but we really didnot get into the cooling water process. We discussed that there are a large number of spent fuel rods waiting to either be reprocessed or shipped to the designated central permanant storage area for spent nuclear fuel (Yucca Mountain facility in the USA). But apparantly, the notion of “waiting to be collected’ for the original plan was abandoned and the operating plants thus either stockpiled their spent fuel on site or contracted with specialized third party offsite storage.
Some countries have facilities to “reprocess” the spent fuel back to “fresh” fuel. But this technology basically prepares new fuel to go back to a nuclear, but at least it would cut down on the volume. The USA made “reprocessing” illegal in the 70 80’s (Savanna River Works) and moved toward enternment (Yucca Mountain) but hey all plans can’t work.If you are interested in nuclear messes, I urge you to check out the situation in Hansford Washington., the storage site for early 40-s plus nuclear stuff.
So, I return back to your original questions. The basic hazardous radiation from a nuclear plant will be either be radiated water with a variety of radioactive ions in the local waterways or from fuel particles that have escaped from a ruptured or corroded fuel into the air, solid or water. I repeat that any human exposure to solid fuel particles can be bad juju! The technology and logistics are complex, but it is there. There are ion exhange resins, similar to the household Brita, to remove certain radioactive ions, there are high efficiency air and water filtration technology, there is permiable membrane technology. And, with all the effort to get ready for Yucca Mountain I assume there is technology to entomb the spent rods and store them indefinitely. .
But the hard part is establishing political and social will to address the issue. But, as a worst case scenario approached, technically, existing plants could be shut down and spent fuel rods could be relocated to a more central but isolated location. But, will any steps be taken?
I have suggested entombing them — but then I realized that my logic was flawed… If entombing them was the answer then why are we storing them on ponds now? Why haven’t we always entombed them.
Sabotage is not the problem – that is unlikely – the problem is that when the global economy collapses and oil stops — there is no way to power these plants — no way to get spare parts for these complex operations.
The worst case scenario is that these installations not only explode — but that once they run out of control they continue to do so for decades… day after day … year after year…. pumping massive amounts of toxicity into the environment
After our rounds of call and response via these various posts, I think I get your most critical concern. That is, the slow and steady deterioration and collapse of operational integrity of nuclear power plants throughout the world. I fully share your concenn if society foolishly allows the plants to fall apart over time for any reason. But, I just cannot fathom a sane world leadership, in the case of serious and worsening worldwide chaos, would not take actions to decommission all the nuclear plants and to minimize the environmental hazards from dispersed nuclear fuel spread around the globe. I believe there are technologies, albeit complex, available to resolve these potential disasters systematically. Of course, we do need to have sane leaders influencing rational decisions to get the job done. Are they sane and rational?
Just to restate in the most simple terms, there are three fundamental technologies required to tackle this potential nuclear disaster in waiting, (1) to systematically decommission the operating nuclear reactors, (2) to safely collect and contain all fuel rods, spent and active, at each location, ensuring no fuel rod metal cladding is punctured and (3) to treat any contaminated water at each location to remove and collect any radioactive ions before releasing the uncontaminated water into local waterways.In principle, these are the three basic issues to be addressed. After these three have been addressed at each location, there is a fourth action required – arrange to move the contained fuel rods from each location to a central, but isolated site (or sites) for very long term care and storage.
The technologies for decommissioning the nuclear reactors, for collecting and containing the fuel rods and for decontaminating radiated water are already in place at each operating reactor. All of these technologies have been used over the years and the plant personnel are trained to routinely implement each of the them. I do not know details about processing active fuel rods versus spent fuel rods nor about matching the best ion exchange resin to the specific ions to be recovered. I presume that the personnel fully trained for operations at their specific plant sites. But, the technologies to operate a fully functional plant are in place. Indeed, the reactors and ion exchange systems are able to be shut down in a relatively short time period. Unfortunately, routine operation of the cooling ponds require multiple years (5 – 10) before the rods are considered safe for relocation to alternative storage sites.
Now, to the gorillas in the room, the spent fuel rod assemblies. First off, the nuclear fuel inside the rods is the really bad juju. The rule is make sure that you do not corrode, break or penetrate a fuel rod. The more severe damage to the exposed fuel, which may cause severe pulverizing the fuel pellets into powder, the greater the health hazards.Presumably, very small ingestions of nuclear fuel dust particles can result in quick death or serious disease. The technology to cool and deradiate spent nuclear fuel rods is in place, but it requires continuous cooling for those multiple years. At that point, the cooled and deradiated rods may be transferred and sealed in sophisticated steel casks and move them to storage forever.
Unfortunately, the US NRC never approved nor opened the Yucca Mountain facility as a giant, central, isolated and presumably impermeable cave for extreme long term storage. Apparently other nations have failed to establish permanent long term storage for these nuclear wastes. Consequently, a proliferation of nuclear waste storage sites scattered all over the globe is the standard procedure. This situation seems to be under control under normal conditions. I wonder how that may change following an very extreme economic collapse or other cataclysmic occurrence. In my opinion, the worst case scenario will most likely involve spent fuel rod assemblies being scattered hither and yon about the landscape, just lying there deteriorating and waiting to be burst open, by whatever means, and being scattered over even larger landscapes. That risk s and consequences of that scenario may be minimized by transporting the stored rod assemblies to a more central and isolated facility or facilities.
I wonder why you decided that your entombing suggestion was flawed logic. I don’t know how you were defining entombing., but I suggest the broadest one. Thus, entombing includes containment in concrete, fusing and encapsulation in glass, encapsulating in polymers, seeing into steel casks . Even a long term isolated impervious cave in a mountain may be considered entombing. I believe that the entombing criteria should at least (1) prevent any nuclear fuel from ever being allowed to escape into the environment and (2) physically isolate any radioactive material far enough away that any remaining radiation dosage cannot be exposed to the environment or any people and animals. Achieving These criteria would seem to support entombing as one logical thing to do.
Your statement ” If entombing them was the answer then why are we storing them on ponds now? Why haven’t we always entombed them” is the flaw. In fact, at least in the USA, the Yucca Mountain project was put forth as the best option for storing nuclear waste. But, this in entombing on a grand scale. This is consistent with your original logic. The logic called for the nuclear plants to stockpile the spent fuel rod assemblies on a temporary basis. Then, when Yucca Mountain became operational, the temporary stockpiles would be relocated to the permanent site., and future temporary stockpiles would be scheduled for Yucca Mountain as well. Good logic? But, after the fact, Yucca Mountain never opened. According to NRC website, Yucca Mountain was targeted for operation in 2004, but ultimately fell off the radar screen. I presume other nations followed a similar path. It would seem more logical to reexamine entombment and move away from the current permanent stockpiling system.
Thanks for the thorough response. If any form of entombing is a solution then surely there must be a plan in place to do exactly that.
It has been rewarding to join in on these chats. I just found Gail’s site a couple weeks back. Indeed, the site contents and the interesting comments have been enjoyable. Thanks for conversing with me.
Paul, I don’t really know what the nuclear agencies are the world are up to, but you would think there would be major efforts on entombing the waste and otherwise minimizing the potential for major international nuclear crises. If what I read from the US NRC reflect the total, then it appears doubtful there are any plans for a Grand Plan anything like Yucca Mountain. The NRC is touting the storage of the sealed steel casks after the cooled fuel rods have been removed from the cooling ponds. I suppose the dry cask storage is a suitable entombment, but probably still quite widely scattered over the landscape.
I accessed the web site for the US NRC trying to ensure comments from my friend and me were factual and consistent with the official info. Our comments were valid, but brief The NRC site contains a tremendous amount of technical and policy info. I have attached two specific documents from that site, one on spent fuel rod storage in general and a second on dry cask storage. Both contain much more specific details than my comments, Note that you can go to the Home page for the site and find access to much more details regarding the whole nuclear cycle, at least for the USA.
http://www.nrc.gov/waste/spent-fuel-storage/faqs.html
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/dry-cask-storage.html.
I also observed as I read through the NRC site, that they do not appear to pay much attention to long term consequences. They clearly seem to take the position that their approved designs can handle any emergencies in any situation, including natural disasters and bomb attacks. HMM, Do they really have our interests fully covered?,
Here is also a 2011 article from The Nation magazine that presents some interesting info about the early days of the Fukushima disaster. I believe that events there have become worse as time passes.
http://www.thenation.com/article/159234/fukushimas-spent-fuel-rods-pose-grave-danger
tfouto,
Your thoughts about how the next civilization may learn from us, is very much like the story line in JMG’s “Star’s Reach.” A very well thought out and thought provoking look at a possible peak oil future.
They will actually laugh at us for ever imagining anything was ‘sustainable’ and regard it as an aberrant superstition.
I have conjectured that the public understanding of the world reflects the science and philosophy of 200 years ago, and never was this more true of the Green movement and ecology in general. The science such as there is is barely Newtonian. And the logic is barely Greek, let alone Descartes.
And the thing that would be amusing if it were not so tragic, is the belief that this is all new and modern, and the coming thing.
Sustainability in a finite world means that humans would need to give up all uses of external energy–cooking our food, wearing clothing, training dogs to help in hunting, using biomass fires for any purpose (flushing out animals for food, warmth, making sharper rock tools, making metals). We might use a few small tools, such as throwing rocks, as other animals do. We would in general, go back to doing what chimpanzees would be doing. It is doubtful that we could get enough calories from this approach–our digestive apparatus and chewing apparatus have shrunk as our brain has grown. We certainly would have to chew all day, to try to get enough calories. Without external energy, our “range” would shrink back to a very small warm area of the earth.
To live within the limits you posit will require an evolutionary step that makes us both smarter and more capable of cooperation and co-existence. I am not saying it couldn’t happen…
Mr Ebola president of the Ebolians says ‘I foresee a huge increase in our GIP ‘(gross international product).
Meanwhile, stock up with ammo and chinese copy AK47’s. Gonna be worth three wives and two cows soon.
Perhaps Nature has different plans for the earth in the future. When one species declines in prevalence, other species increase to replace it.
As I have said before, I would not rule out the possibility of a higher power being behind all of the changes we are seeing. The “Big Bang” that seems to have happened to start the universe didn’t just come out of nowhere. There is unbelievable organization underlying all of our physical systems.
Gail,
I for one would not be surprised if there there is a greater scheme than we are able to see now…
Agreed. Who are we really to second-guess the universal intelligence?
Gail, – You already posted that message above, and in previous discussion threads as well, so you must feel pretty confident you are right.
I disputed that point in previous threads, but you took nothing from my messages or you would not be repeating it here again.
However, your point is deeply flawed. Nature does not have a plan, it doesn’t think, it is not God. God is a human conceit, imagined by consecutive cultures and civilisations to give them hope in the face of their own mortality. Only humans, of all species on Earth, can contemplate their own death, which is why they try to imagine an afterlife. This is exactly what you, with all your qualifications and extraordinary intelligence, are doing. You, too, are only human, Gail.
You make the point that if humans decline, another species or other species will fill the vacuum and replace us. That would be true in a functioning global biosphere, Gail, but you forget that human beings are destroying the ability of ecosystems to function properly, permanently, everywhere. If fossil fuels continue to be burnt at present levels until 2050 or later, the Earth will warm by an average of 8°C, and with positive feedback loops the warming will continue until we are 10 or 12°C hotter across the globe, on average. This will render all of the world uninhabitable for human beings and virtually all other species, apart from some microbes such as blue-green algae or some other very primitive life-forms. So we’re not talking about people being replaced by monkeys, we are talking about total wipeout of almost all life on Earth and we are presently on that very trajectory and doing almost nothing to head it off.
Certainly, there is astonishing organisation in the natural world; the laws of physics have that effect, and these are laws that ultimately govern how the universe works. It is beyond our understanding to explain why the universe has such laws. The natural assumption we make is that a higher power must have put everything in place at the beginning and let things unfold.
But what is the beginning: the Big Bang? If that were the beginning, then what came before? More likely, there was no beginning and the Big Bang was a simple perturbation in the multi-verse, the system of multipile universes proposed by string theorists. You do believe that the Big Bang did not come out of nowhere, and so do I. However, I cannot believe that a supernatural power, or God, was the prime mover.
I used to think that alien life forms would have evolved and be structured around systems not found on Earth, but perhaps in a different dimension. It is now believed there are eleven dimensions, as compared to the four we are familiar with (three in space and one in time).
But scientists who are searching for signs of life in the heavens are looking for organic life much the same as ours, based on carbon, like life on Earth, or possibly silicon, which is considered less likely, but either way, found on planets orbiting stars, with similar conditions to those found on Earth.
In short, they don’t believe there are other possible avenues for life to come into existence, and they do not believe there is a god.
For these reasons, I think the message you are sending out, saying we shouldn’t worry about destroying the Earth because Nature, whoever that is, has higher plans for us is misleading and is going to encourage BAU, as your correspondents like to call it, until TSHTF, as they like to say.
You need to look seriously at this question, Gail, and ask that everyone please turn their attention to phasing out fossil fuels use completely in their own countries. The world economy needs to be zero carbon by 2050 and it needs to have completed the bulk of that transformation by 2030. Do your best, Gail, and thank you.
Coilin MacLochlainn wrote:
“The world economy needs to be zero carbon by 2050 and it needs to have completed the bulk of that transformation by 2030.”
Relax, it will. No need to do anything, though – just kick back and watch it happen as modern economy crashes for good…
If I live to see 2030 … it will be a miracle…. not because I will be particularly old rather I probably won’t make it through the collapse and if I do I am certain life expectancy will shorten dramatically.
Colin — I am with you this — particularly on the danger of relying on a supernatural power’s plan for us — and thereby absolving us of all responsibility for this mess we have made.
There is absolutely no evidence for a god entity — but I don’t rule it out anymore than I can’t rule out that this all came from nothing — I simply don’t know — and anyone who claims they are certain – well good on them — that would be a huge stress reliever to know that the big guy has big plans for them… so why be afraid of what is coming?
However, at the end of the day I don’t think there is anything we can do to stop the forces that are ramping up re both oil and climate change — so I don’t think it much matters what any chooses to believe.
Yes, we cannot be certain, it is beyond our understanding, but I do think we can act to stop climate change. I am worried by Gail’s laissez faire attitude to climate change. The collapse of industrial civilisation may not happen soon enough to prevent the quantities of greenhouse gases building up in the atmosphere to a level that will tip everything past the point of no return.
If all life on Earth is destroyed apart from primitive life-forms in deep-sea vents, it could take 300 million years for evolution to restore the diversity of life, including higher life-forms like mammals (or equivalent). But we may not have 300 million years. The Earth’s orbit is changing very slowly and could drift out of the habitable zone before the 300 million years is out. That would leave Earth too near the sun, and lifeless, like Mars. So what we have now is maybe all we are ever going to have. And we are destroying it. We cannot be laissez faire about that.
Coilin MacLochlainn wrote:
“… I do think we can act to stop climate change. I am worried by Gail’s laissez faire attitude to climate change.”
How? Realistic, please.
Exactly.
It all sounds lovely — but how do you stop climate change without collapsing the global economy?
For example – do we stop flying? Right — but then what happens to supply chains that rely on parts flown from Germany or China or Japan? And what happens to the hotels around the world and the millions they employ — and what happens to the economies of tourist dependent countries?
As you can see — you remove just a single card — and the whole house collapses.
Colin – do you have any specific ideas as to how we can stop climate change — without collapsing the global economy which would result in the death of billions?
” Nature does not have a plan, it doesn’t think, it is not God.”
Considering this is like 2 goldfish arguing about whether polar bears exist or not on the other side of the solar system, how can anyone be sure of what you just claimed? We know only the tiniest percentile of all there is to know. There may well be a “God”, but we can’t know that there is no plan. You can’t prove a negative.
Hi, Paul, Jarle, Peter, etc,
We need to collapse the global economy to a level that will make it possible for the human species to survive, and for natural ecosystems such as forests and oceans to remain intact, because ultimately we depend completely on a healthy, functioning biosphere.
Everything necessary to prevent further global warming and revert to sustainable living is within the competency of man.
We can reduce the population by birth control. We need to get back to under one billion people. Or half a billion people, to be on the safe side. Coercive methods may be required in some countries, but it should be possible to do it peacefully in advanced cultures.
We can stop burning fossil fuels. We must switch completely to alternative energies including wind, solar, water, biomass and geothermal. Putting these technologies in place will require fossil fuels, but this will buy us time to prepare for the end game, when there will be no oil or gas available at all and a diminishing availability of coal. At that stage, as Gail has noted, it will become impossible to maintain the renewables infrastructure, so they will fail too, except where they use only wood (as in old-time windmills).
Of course this means no flying. Anybody who is still flying and knows what impact it has on the planet should be ashamed. But the airline industry is on its last legs and will soon collapse: fuel will become too scarce and too expensive.
It doesn’t matter if tourism collapses. Did the people of 18th-century Europe moan and wail when they couldn’t get from England to Italy in two hours? No, they took the boat and trains and spent a week getting there. Overseas travel was a luxury back then and will soon become a luxury again. We will cope, it’s no big deal. Most Americans have never been beyond the borders of the United States, they are happy to stay at home. I am already thinking that tourism will collapse everywhere, but many nations still promote tourism as though it were a growth industry and vital to their interests. It’s not, it’s almost over. Look at Greece, or Egypt. They were huge tourism destinations; what are they becoming now? It’s sad for countries that rely heavily on tourism, but nothing can be done about that.
In time, we will depend exclusively on renewable energies, by which time our civilisation will have been rationalised and simplified. The horse and cart will come back with a vengeance. Those driverless cars we keep hearing about that will transform our driving experience and eliminate traffic jams (or gridlock), well, that’s never going to happen, it’s too late. We’re going to go down well before that can happen.
If the world decides to go out with a bang instead of a whimper, then the world powers will go to war over remaining resources and make any transition to a sustainable zero-carbon, low-population economy more difficult and probably impossible. We can do it that way, and billions will die, probably 5-6 billion, or we can start planning to do it in a humane way and the die-off will take place more gradually and less painfully, leaving us with about one billion people. Either way, industrial civilisation will collapse and billions will die, and they have already started dying (see Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Sudan, for example). There is no way that billions are not going to die prematurely this century. I’m sorry, but I don’t see any way out of that.
What’s happening in Iraq right now would suggest that the world is not going to plan a civilised withdrawal from industrial civilisation but will go down in flames, with billions dying in horrendous circumstances.
The only reason Obama is bombing Iraq (again) is because it holds a substantial proportion of the world’s remaining oil reserves, which the US wants. This is no noble intervention by Obama, to save Kurds from the maniacs of Isis, it is simply a response to big corporations demanding that America keep the Iraq spigots open so they can stay in business.
The big powers don’t like this scenario, it suggests there will be rebellions everywhere, which is why they are putting in place legislation so they can control public order with military force. When the SHTF, major powers will impose martial law and any resistance will be terminated with extreme prejudice (i.e. summary executions). This will continue until the governments themselves collapse and power falls to warlords and gangs. That is what we are facing – unless governments start working together to power down, removing fossil fuels from the economy completely.
My argument is a little bit all over the place, sorry about that, but I hope you understand what I’m saying.
Best wishes to all.
You really need to read through Gail’s archives..
I will address a couple of things only…
Stop population growth — if you do that civilization collapses — less people mean we buy less stuff which means people get laid off which means they buy less stuff which means more people lose their jobs and governments go broke because they collect less and less taxes…
Dont burn fossil fuels — ok so air travel is over — shipping is over — see my other post on what happens if tourism crashes… also where do you think solar panels come from? Do they grow on trees? Of course not — they are made in China mostly — and massive amounts of dirty coal are involved in manufacturing these…
And also renewables do not work
Ten Reasons Intermittent Renewables (Wind and Solar PV) are a Problem
http://ourfiniteworld.com/2014/01/21/ten-reasons-intermittent-renewables-wind-and-solar-pv-are-a-problem/
Solar – After Hundreds of Billions of Dollars of Subsidies and R&D and this is what we get?
http://reneweconomy.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/bernstein-energy-supply.jpg
The German Solar Disaster: 21 Billion Euros Burned
http://www.thegwpf.org/german-solar-disaster-21-billion-euros-burned/
Spain’s disastrous attempt to replace fossil fuels with Solar Photovoltaics
http://energyskeptic.com/2013/tilting-at-windmills-spains-solar-pv/
The thing is the green brigade has all these fancy ideas — but they are not through through — and if someone suggests that none of them work… they tend to get insulted… and often angry.
Funny that…
Coilin MacLochlainn,
sorry, but this is just wishful thinking. The only global changes we will see is those beyond our control…
I strongly disagree. We are “dissipative systems.” Our role in the world is to turn available energy into waste heat. We cannot live without the economic system and (indirectly) food system we have built up. We may not consider the current system ideal, but we don’t have a replacement that would feed more than a small fraction of the world’s population.
We need a huge population reduction, in only a few years. I would argue that the population needs to be less that one billion because we don’t have the soil quality or the systems in place that we had in place in 1800.
It is not physically possible to reduce population very fast using birth control. Even when modern birth control is used, it requires the whole integrated world-wide system that allows the devices and pills to be manufactured. It requires that we have a delivery system for these pills and devices. We also need world-wide supply chains that include petroleum, because petroleum is used in making and transporting these items. We also have to have a way of convincing women, in for example, Niger, who are now having an average of 7.8 children each, to have and average of, say, 0.2 children each. This is not going to happen! For one thing, the resulting system would not have enough young people to take care of all of the old people in their old age.
Coilin. I understand what you are saying and agree with some of it , but also you’ve got some serious disconnects going here, dude. One, there is no way for us to humanely reduce birth control down to 1 billion people. The only way that is going to happen is overshoot (accomplished) die-off (pending). Two, once that happens, we don’t need to worry about tourists taking 2 hours or 2 weeks to get from England to Italy because it ain’t gonna happen at all. Three, we will never rely exclusively on renewables, because by the time we would be in such a position, most of us will be dead and there won’t be any kind of electrified economy for it to rely on. Lastly, the US isn’t bombing Iraq (again) for the oil. I’m so sick of this lame argument from people. If Iraq was about oil, we never would have exited it last year like we did. That doesn’t make sense. We spent billions to get it and if we wanted the oil, we had it. But we left voluntarily, so we don’t have it again, which tells me that we were not there in the first place to get the oil. Its about confronting ISIS now in Iraq rather than later in DC and New York.
quote: “the US isn’t bombing Iraq (again) for the oil. I’m so sick of this lame argument from people. If Iraq was about oil, we never would have exited it last year like we did.”
I have to disagree with the above. The invasion of the Iraq was about oil. It didn’t mean that US wanted to grab the oil for themselves. The whole idea had several goals:
1. remove Saddam, who tried to destabilise Midlle East nad destroy Israel; this way the whole oil production would be severely decreased and caused global depression and started the collapse of western countries. Saddam knew that and he was messing with US for many years (remember Kuwait?).
2. introduce again IOCs to Iraq to pump more oil out with their advanced technology;
3. bring stabilisation to the region as it is a main swing producer.
4. reinforce US position as the global hegemon able to fight wars around the globe and keep military presence in Middle East.
Agree – it didn’t matter if US companies actually pumped the oil — the key was the oil got to the market and Saddam could not leverage his position…
We are now seeing Russia use it’s energy to try to pry Europe away from the US…. Putin is no Saddam… and he has China and many other allies on board….
Sorry, I disagree with you.
Thank you Gail, Paul, Jarle, etc, for your considered responses. I may not be right, but I hope I have contributed something to the debate. Now I must go and find out what a ‘dissipative system’ is! Thanks, Gail. Your site is most valuable for explaining our predicaments, and you are doing a fantastic job!
Gail, – I’m not sure you’re right about the family planning question. Women have many ways of controlling their own fertility or number of offspring and it doesn’t require prophylactics. If women want to have just one child and no more, they can do that, they know how. I think, with this kind of voluntary family planning (encouraged by national governments giving subsidies or tax breaks), together with involuntary family planning brought about by deteriorating circumstances (such as drought and plummeting farm yields, the global population will decline very quickly indeed, unbelievably fast if there is also famine in many parts of the world, as there is sure to be.
Quote: “the global population will decline very quickly indeed”.
Actually you are wrong again. As Paul Ehrlich says: even 5 times WW2 wouldn’t change the trend. The demographics machine has high inertion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8mEMxDRU9Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtaGNQqUWo0
There are too many obstacles – religion, personal liberty, state interest, pension funds, etc. We have built a system based on growth. It is not easy to remodel it for slow decline in terms of population, GDP and many other factors.
Women don’t generally have the “power” to control their number of offspring, though, especially in traditional societies. Women generally need the protection of a man, unless a society uses a great amount of fossil fuels. They don’t get such protection without providing the man with the number of children the man desires (or something close). When there are multiple wives, a wife can gain favor by having more offspring. It is very hard to get help in the fields, and help for old age, without having children.
Gail wrote:
“Women don’t generally have the “power” to control their number of offspring, though, especially in traditional societies.”
True. It’s not just like saying “no”, cultural forces are a lot stronger than that.
Does it really matter whether God is a human conceit, Humanity is a divine conceit or Nature is God. The gift of death is life and vce versa.
Thank you Gail for another well detailed and understandable post concerning our energy situation and how it will effect all of us,sometime very soon.A couple of day`s ago the Daily Telegraph (UK) reported a glut in oil, and the probability of a drop in fuel costs at the petrol stations, and even speculated on oil droping to $80 pb.This reminded me of an earlier post you wrote predicting this very situation, and how after a short period of time oil prices would begin to spike to unimaginable price levels.Been reading you since you wrote on The Oil Drum when I had no Idea that we had an energy problem Gail,and how interlinked every part of our way of living revolved around energy use,so your lone voice I imagine has alerted many like myself to a rude awakening of our energy needs.Thankyou
In that article: The IEA said in its monthly report that the oil market seemed “eerily calm in the face of mounting geopolitical risks spanning an unusually large swathe of the oil-producing world”.
Eerily calm – much like the icy North Atlantic one April night in 1912. Is there any metaphor that cannot be squeezed from the poor old Titanic?! 🙂
You are welcome. I suppose it is possible the oil will drop to $80 barrel. If it does, it will slow down new investment and perhaps lead to what people describe as “peak oil”. The issue is ultimately affordability of oil.
Thank you Gail for another lucid and clear exposition of the way I believe the way things are. I don’t know where you get the energy and persistence from, to keep telling us believers the same message in different ways, and yet so few others hear what you are saying. Still, buisness continues as usual, and the world focus moves from local celebrities with scandalous lives to the Islamic jihadists, without recognising the cliff edge we currently stagger along. In the UK just now, the news is that the ‘recovery’ is under way, even though as ‘production’ rises (service industries only) and there are forecasts of rising interest rates, wages continue to fall and the standard of living declines. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer, apparently without any limits – just like infinite growth.
There is always the limit of starvation. This is always known but to talk about it could create civil unrest so we do not mention it in polite society.
Momist
Living in the ‘recovered’ UK one feels like a Soviet citizen forced to listen with suspended belief to proud announcements of factory targets met, etc.
Spain, which I also know well, is rather the same, although the unemployment figures cannot be argued away there.
There is also a rather nasty element of criticism of the unemployed for not participating in the ‘evidently booming’ economy: if you don’t have a good job, it’s your fault, etc!
First the ‘jobless recovery’, now the ‘inadequate wage recovery’.
Same feeling here in U.S.
So when do you expect riots and revolutions in UK? Is it inevitable? So far Labour Party keeps the masses calm. How long it will take? The story won’t be sold forever.
Kesar
Revolution in England? When it’s not raining! The climate is the best ally of stability.
Well, xabier. Maybe not. But the other choice would be ‘1984’ like fascist state and possibly a war to achieve the overshoot mitigation. Not pleasant either.
Look at 1920’s after british peak-coal. But this time coal is too deep to reach without oil…
Kesar
I suspect that in most places the decline will see a great increase in crime and personal insecurity, rather than revolution, however much some seem to dream of it. Just sordid and depressing, rather than dramatic.
Xabier,
Society reaction to ‘increased crime and personal insecurity’ is either tough hand of fascist state or exchange of the elite for those with more populist headlines. Like in sociology schools we have two options: integration around common good or disintegration with more stratification and oppressive treatment of the masses (mix of both is most probable). People usually don’t lay down and die quietly in times of hunger and misery. There is a limit beyond which they go out to the streets. The anger must find the outlet either way.
No one knows the outcome, but there is no other way to deal with the chaos. WW2 was reaction to similar conditions to these, which we are approaching now and the elites prefered war than revolutions. This time though, war is not the answer. There is much less to fight for and the war is very costly in terms of limited resources.
We’ll see.
kesar
If the collapse is fast, we might be lucky to end up with a 1984 type world.
I agree. There are much worse scenarios waiting there.
The Eurozone isn’t doing very well now. That can’t help the UK either.
Greater wealth disparity is one of the things I should have included in the issues regarding prior collapses.
But wealth disparity can also save resources and therefore extend BAU.
There has been huge wealth disparity for hundreds of years between the industrialized world and the rest. Now that countries like China are catching up, the reality of resource limits comes closer.
We could also imagine that all the wealth of the “1%” would be distributed to the people. What would we do? Spend it on homes, cars, travel etc. … So again, brings us closer to resource limits, and as we know it is them who will be at the core of the real changes in the near future.
BTW, wealth disparity survived well throughout history, it didn’t go away when empires collapsed. Only that our general standard of living is much higher now (today everyone lives like a king of ancient), so we don’t suffer as much as the poor did before. Watch for food shortage, it is the best indicator for riots and civil war.
You are right–wealth disparity is a way of keeping resources in the ground. The 1% or 10% don’t spend nearly all their money. They eat roughly the same amount of food as others. The might drive a car a little more, but not a lot more. The will have bigger homes, but not in proportion to their incomes, generally.
Poor people, if given more to spend, would indeed spend it, quickly using up resources.
Wealth disparity assures that if there is not enough to go around, there will be some survivors.
that’s why we want to leave it
Lifeboats and the titanic, complete with deckchairs.
They say ignorance is bliss; the corollary should be “knowledge can mean sheer terror.” The only thing that keeps me from running around screaming when I read Gail’s posts is the comfort I get knowing that somebody much smarter than me is trying to help us understand what is happening so that just maybe we can structure our lives today to prepare for a future with limits.
What comforts me is that I will be safely dead. Or maybe not.
Things are hotting up on the economic refugee with AK47/my god is better than your god/God its effin EBOLA in the USA and EUROPE FFS/ front.
USA will be back burning coal by the way – for about 100 years more anyway.
Leo,
What do you mean “USA will be back burnung coal”? The USA never stopped burning coal! According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), coal production in the USA has been steadily growing (doubled) since the 1960’s. to a 2008 peak production of 1172 million short tons. Then, by 2011, coal production had a “massive” (7 percent) decline to 1094 million short tons. Incidentally, coal accounts for about 20 percent of the total USA energy consumption. Coal accounts for over 90 percent of total USA electric power generation. Now, isn’t it so totally ironic that there is so much talk about reducing coal consumption and increasing electric power consumption (recharging batteries in electric vehicles). Does this proposition make any sense at all?
Leo, I was being tongue in cheek above. I really agree with .your last sentence about burning more coal for 100 years are so, or until it becomes too expensive. Then What? The same applies for the other two fossil fuels, petroleum and natural gas. These three fossil fuels accounted for over 80 percent of the total USA energy consumption (97 quadrillion BTU) This energy consumption addiction is just so great that the USA population, and that of other developed counties, will have to hit the proverbial “rock bottom”. Hitting rock bottom then working for recovery from the addiction will not be easy nor pleasant.
King Coal is still King Coal — usage is hitting record highs globally http://www.triplepundit.com/2013/01/coals-share-world-energy-mix-hits-record-high/
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I love you gail
Thanks! Would you also say this if I were a man?
I just got a book by an academic scientist who dedicates it to his two beautiful daughters. If he had two sons would he say that. I think not. Gender roles are alive. Some may be helpful and some may be harmful and different people may voluntarily, freely, and fully informed choose different parts to accept and reject. This is one of the nice features of physics a lack of emotional contentious topics. The apples falls, for republicans and democrats alike.
I would, your articles are very insightful, thanks for enlightening me.
Finite World groupies 🙂
How about a gathering?
Too much oil spent doing so… We are from distants parts of the world. Maybe we could create a community
create a community and live there. Somewhere in the jungle, or a remote place afar from nuclear facilities…
I think it was called The Age of Limits conference.
Mainstream-media and the bulk of received wisdom is unfortunately so clueless and wrongheaded that the truth is refreshing to hear, however unpalatable it might be. So count me as another adoring groupie!
Maybe I can sell T-shirts. “Our Finite World”, “$200 a barrel or bust”, “Youth Employment with Permacluture”,
LOL
Excellent!
“CONDITION RED: Fracking Shale Is Destroying Oil & Gas Companies Balance Sheets”
http://srsroccoreport.com/condition-red-fracking-is-destroying-oil-gas-companies-balance-sheets/condition-red-fracking-is-destroying-oil-gas-companies-balance-sheets/
“There is this huge myth propagated by the MSM as well as several of the well-known names in the alternative analyst community about the wonders of SHALE ENERGY. I can’t tell you how many readers send me articles from some of these analysts stating how the United States will become energy independent while pumping some of these shale energy stocks. Nothing has changed in America….. there’s always another sucker born every minute.
It is extremely frustrating to see the continued GARBAGE called analysis on the SHALE ENERGY INDUSTRY. I have written several articles listing the energy analysts that I believe truly understand what is taking place in U.S. energy industry. They are, Art Berman, Bill Powers, David Hughes, Jeffrey Brown and Rune Likvern.”
At best, shale oil extraction can continue for a few more years. Even doing so, it is very hard on balance sheets.
The whole game of “More oil production will come from somewhere–not sure where” seems likely to stop, once oil prices drop too low. Or if oil prices do spike, the spike will be brief, as countries fall into recession following the price spike.
Gail, what is the price break point where oil prices will not be high enough to continue extraction?
Every dollar drop in price has some effect on decisions made by oil companies and on the ability of oil exporting countries to continue to function. There won’t be a uniform cut off on extraction, unless an oil exporter falls to such a level of civil war that it cannot produce anything.
There are timing lags built into all of this. If a company decides to sell a piece of property it might have developed next year, the question is whether the new owner will try to drill (but perhaps with a lower cost basis, because the property dropped in value). If a company decides not to add new infill wells, that is likely to mean that depletion will hit faster and harder.
The dollar price that producers need climbs over time, the price that consumers can afford drops over time.
When these begin to cross, the financial system of the entire world will go kaput. We’re probably no more than a few years away.
At that point, I think much of the discuss of oil prices is moot, as everything will have to be worked over from scratch. It’s not impossible that we see wildly different oil prices worldwide.
Kinda like 2008 — from 147 to 30 in the speed of light … then the stimulus drove it over 100
Next time no stimulus — the powder has been used — so agree quick spike then a plunge… and like that— the industrial age and the age of oil — ends
“But then I have also seen research that indicates that even that breaks down when food is extremely short — no point in teaming up — it’s every man for himself at this point (people even turn on their families).”
Could you point me toward this or these research ? thanks a lot
There were some studies posted by other members on earlier articles — sorry I don’t recall the links
Jørgen Randers (co-author of limits of growth) meanwhile postulates that there will not be a sudden collapse. Is there any chance he’s right? What is his mistake?
http://ourfiniteworld.com/2013/09/25/why-i-dont-believe-randers-limits-to-growth-forecast-to-2052/
Thanks a lot.
🙂
I see Sinny Cool posted a link to my article Why I Don’t Believe Randers’ Limits to Growth Forecast. I am told that Randers was a graduate student who got his name put the English version of “Limits to Growth.” A different graduate student got his name on the German version of Limits to Growth. He is definitely not an expert on energy today.
Randers is good at picking out a future economic scenario he would like, and building a model of future energy consumption (using current thinking about growing efficiency, ability of renewables to do great things) to support his thinking. There is definitely not the kind of model underlying the current analysis as underlying the 1972 analysis. His analysis is pretty much incorporated in a single spreadsheet. It shows the economic scenario he would like, and the energy supplies needed to get there. If it does incorporate fossil fuel forecasts, the are very optimistic Hubbert Curve type forecasts, that further more use the assumption that when one fuel (say oil) decreases in supply, others (coal and later natural gas) can step in, until they too are depleted. Given the impact on the financial system, and our lack of ability to switch from one fuel to another quickly, this is an incredibly optimistic view.
But isn’t that what John Michael Greer does as well? I love his writing but i’m amazed how one individual can tell what North American will or could look like 500 years from now as if it’s almost a given.
My view is perhaps a little more nuanced still.
I fully agree with Gail that we face a fast collapse. However, I don’t think it’s going to look or feel like a fast collapse, at least how we imagine it from Hollywood. Instead, it’s going to look sort of like aging…every year things get worse. A new part of your body breaks down, a friend of yours dies, your wife dies, you go broke using all of your savings, you have to live with your kids, they go broke too, all the while the nation you loved goes bankrupt or falls into civil war, etc. etc. Think of a British imperial officer who served in WW2 and returns to Britain and just sits around as the world he knew comes to an end.
So historically it’s pretty fast, but it will feel slow. That’s the way I think about it. But I think we can make guesses about which areas will do better, and who will do better. Obviously, areas with abundant local water and food relative to population will do better, the fit and healthy will do better than the diseased, the informed will do better than the willfully ignorant, etc.
So I think for those of us that are informed, we do have to make changes, to do something. Not necessarily go all out survivalist, but we do have to act and live in our lives like we know what is going on, and face the consequences good or bad.
I for one have spoken about these things to my limited circle of family and friends and have alienated them all. But I won’t be silenced, I will put my voice and actions out into the world.
dolph9, when what you have described to the people you know becomes the new reality quickly or over time, they will not turn to you and give credit for seeing what was coming, but instead blame you for having wished it true. That’s how simplistic most people’s minds are.
Although I see your angle, I prefer to remain silent with the anticipation of their surprise and consternation once shtf. Almost like a scientific experiment, watching, waiting for that look of realization, but purely as an observer only. I don’t even want to rustle the leaves around their feet for fear of leading them to the truth, but instead remain at arms length of the topic hoping they will be caught completely unawares, shocked henceforth into what will undoubtedly be some very interesting reactions. Then they will begin asking hard questions and it will be fun to explain to them why it happened that way. This way they won’t think I wished it into reality, but instead value the information to fill in the blanks.
And when they ask why I never explained this before, I’ll tell them they would have never believed me and they will reluctantly agree. But they will also say, “I’m glad I didn’t know it was coming.” As absurd as they may seem to you and me, most people linger in a childlike state, not wanting to be jolted into mature coherence.
Stilgar
Very true reading of the situation: those who predict unpleasant events will most probably be blamed for having in some way inducing them – it’s a common response of the more primitive elements of the human psyche. Much better to keep one’s own counsel…..
I think most people will still see this as a financial crisis — and blame the bankers and the politicians.
I am not sure there will be a told you so moment — 1. because they will still not believe this is oil related… and 2. because most people will be dead.
I think you are right. People will never see the connection to oil. They will assume the issue is all financial, and can be fixed with a new financial system.
A friend with many years in finance is shorting the yen (I did as well and made a bit off that but exited when it stabilized) — I sent him an article on that crash of Japan’s GDP of 6+%…. he was gleeful hoping that would kill the yen…
When I asked him what he thought would happen when one of the key hubs goes — say Japan or China — hesuggests there will be some difficulties but we’ll just reset the system…
He does not believe high priced oil is a problem rather he believes we will adapt (in spite of the fact that we have never in the past adapted to oil price spikes)
It is amazing what faith people have in the PTB to fix things…. whether its the economy, global warming, resource depletion….
There is a word for that — hubris.
I agree with Paul here. There are so many narratives/ideologies/myths/fairy-tailes around that everybody will choose the most favourite and suitable: banksters, capitalism, politicians, neighbor country, corrupt elites, industrial-military complex, god’s vengence or any other. They will never believe it anyway, so don’t waste your time trying. Wisdom is built from small bricks of facts, concepts and laws. You will never sell the whole LTG story, unless you have a lot of time and patiently listening audience.
The second thing is, that making too many people aware of civiliztion’s situation is a little counter-productive. They will abandon the system and above certain population level, it will only accelerate collapse. We should postpone this as much as we can. I know a few of commenters wish otherwise, but for sure it won’t be pleasant, regardless of the scenario. Every day and every year is a gift here, IMHO.
kesar
Maybe economists think they can just print money and give it to oil companies…
And they would be right.
That is already happening — Big Oil is tapping QE ZIRP cash — and using it to buy back shares… which raises the price of their shares — and money managers see that — and they pile into these shares (or at least do not sell out) because they can see that although the share price by any logic should drop — gravity is being defied — so why not join the party — which of course also helps to keep share prices buoyant….
This is not only happening in the oil industry — it is happening ACROSS THE BOARD:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/14/column-markets-saft-idUSL2N0QI0SJ20140814
BUYBACKS AND THE END OF QE
Of course much of this has not been done with free cash flow. Rather the boom in share buybacks has coincided with a boom in debt issuance, meaning that companies are in essence taking on leverage with which to buy back equity.
Gross corporate debt has risen from about 55 percent of U.S. GDP just before the recession to 65 percent today. That has slumped recently though, with the quarterly change in nonfinancial corporate debt issuance falling to near zero, from more than 10 percent growth in the early part of the year.
Again – someone asked on the last article how this is different from any of the doom predictions from the past 40 years —- never has this happened before — the Fed is printing money and handing it to banks who loan it to corporations who use it to ramp their share prices… because without that cash the share prices would crash and we’d be in a world of hurt very quickly.
You do NOT do such a thing unless you are at the end of your tether. This is incredible desperation…. the camel’s back looks like this ‘U’ because of all the festering shite we have piled onto him…
Yet most people look at that article and think nothing … so what … let’s get back to Facebook… or re-runs of Dancing with the Stars — or practicing twerking while self filming and loading that to yootoob….
Frogs boiling slowly in the pot they are …
Thanks for the link. The article also points out:
Something about “shooting the messenger” comes to mind.
Paul, but regarding your statement “It is amazing what faith people have in the PTB,” very similar to the faith that you have in a Deep State that controls everything?
I don’t see the connection….
The masses having faith in the PTB to keep BAU going is completely different from being aware that there are unelected men in America who are running the show…
I honestly cannot see how you cannot see that – throughout history that has always been the case — democracy has always been a sham — the elites feed you this sham and they let the politicians vote on gay marriage and such — to make you feel empowered — but when it comes to issues that involve power and money — the politicians kowtow to the rich and powerful
You are aware that to win a presidential race you need hundreds of millions of dollars – if not billions?
Where do you think that money comes from? The tooth fairy?
Of course it comes from the rich and powerful — do you think they give it without strings attached? Do you think that if a president or politician did not do what he was paid to do (the lobbyists of course brief them before handing over the bribes).
So how can you not accept that the money men are making the decisions? Of course they are – they have every single elected official in their pockets.
They may run the show but by no means do I think they can keep BAU going.
There are some things that are beyond the control of even the most powerful men on earth.
InAlaska
“Paul, but regarding your statement “It is amazing what faith people have in the PTB,” very similar to the faith that you have in a Deep State that controls everything?”
Yes, I’ve pointed that out to him before too. I have to say, I don’t have much faith in people who appropriate information that suits their worldview. This whole situation is beyond our politics. Any talk of The Powers That Be or blaming some unknown conspiracy theory is just creating a scapegoat, and by that refusing to accept responsibility for our own actions.
TPTB is a scapegoat. Everybody wants to deny responsibility, including some people here on this message board.
Is it a ‘conspiracy theory’ that mega corporations and special interest groups (e.g. AIPAC) are permitted to legally bribe politicians by giving them billions of dollars (in aggregate) via lobbyists?
Why do you think corporations give money to politicians? Is it some sort of charity? Or could it be their way of controlling the politicians?
Is it a ‘conspiracy theory’ that many of the people who were tasked with creating new financial regulations after 2008 are now employed by the big banks making big money?
Why do you think corporations offer high paying jobs to government officials? Is it charity? Or could it be a way of bribing government officials directly as in — if you help us — and we can make you very wealthy down the road.
If you can’t see that this is evidence of the Deep State in action then I am afraid you are blind.
There are conspiracies everywhere. Many are discovered, many are not. If I make a deal with my friend to not invite a 3rd friend on our fishing trip – that’s also a conspiracy. Nobody can dispute lobby groups’ power and influence, but that doesn’t make them part of “TPTB”. There are “Powers That Be” – but they are not a scapegoat for our situation. We are ALL responsible.
You are ignoring the uncomfortable truth (and this is where I part company with a lot of liberals, progressives, libertarians etc.: people are NOT fundamentally good, selfless, empathetic creatures. People don’t “just need more information and they will make the right choices”. Most people are selfish and deny responsibility. Good people are always the minority. That is the reality: these corrupt systems we have just happen because of human nature. You don’t need a conspiracy theory about TPTB to explain how we naturally destroy our own species. That’s the uncomfortable truth: you live in a chaotic universe, part of a species that naturally destroys itself.
You’re joining dots into a pattern you want to see. The dots are obvious and worthy of attention. But the pattern you’re drawing may or may not exist. The world you want to change is not the world we live in. (And please don’t call me blind for “not seeing” something which even you say is hidden and secret!)
You are correct peter … we seem to think that the default position of human nature is one where we do a days hard work in the fields then retire to a camp fire with the villages and sing koombaya…
Sounds nice — but it never was and never will be…
Doesn’t mean we should not oppose the worst excesses of a tyrant — not because we want to sing Koobaya by the camp fire and convince him to join — rather because it is in the interest of self-preservation to check excessive behaviours — because the tyrant will eventually come after what we have.
http://whynationsfail.com/ An excellent book … in countries with the most brutal tyrants in charge you seldom see innovation primarily because if you innovate and succeed you draw attention to yourself… and the tyrant or one if his cronies — will notice your affluence — and confiscate the source…
Better to just put your head down and get by….
To Paul
Thanks for the book reference, I’m putting it on my list. But I already read a LOT about all these themes and concepts. I’m also studying social/cultural anthropology at master’s level, so I have a pretty broad reading list on these themes already. But I will look into this book too.
dolph — when the next shoe drops I think this does go very fast… as in weeks…
I think this manifests in a credit crisis — banks don’t trust each other so trade dries up because Letters of Credit are not honoured… that means the economy seizes — literally within days — because in this globalized world the momentum of the supply chain must be maintained –and for that you need credit…
The just in time supply chain withers and dies — that means within days the shops empty — and the fat lady sings… I suppose the leaders make their speeches telling us how we need calm… and how we must not loot — and how we need martial law…
And then we sit waiting — for food — and water — and help … and it doesn’t come … and if we venture out to try to get help — we are shot dead… and if we try to fight back — we are shot dead…
There will be no tolerance for any dissent — there will be no help because there can be no help. You cannot feed 7.2 B people – not even for a week….
The PTB know this.
The orders have already been issued — see the response to Ferguson – that is a military operation… and it is a fraction of what is coming.
I suppose everybody has their interpretation.
I personally have been through many emergency triage situation at hospitals, I have lived through two major hurricanes coming in from the Gulf. Thankfully that’s the worst I’ve experienced, my life has otherwise been pretty comfortable. But I guarantee that even in those situations, it was nothing like you describe. It was much more mundane; boring in fact.
We could lose half our transportation and half our industry and still march on. Things basically have a way of organizing, even if at a lower level. That’s the stair step model down.
When the financial system busts — and credit stops — it will not be mundane.
The grocery stores will empty — and they will not be refilled – ever.
Electricity will stop – permanently.
Clean water will stop – because there will be no way to clean it because there will be no chemicals to clean it — and no power to pump it.
The sewage system will back up because there will be no pumping stations to move it.
I don’t think a hurricane is a good parallel at all — I have been through a couple in Hong Kong (typhoon 10s…) and the clean up crew comes and picks up the broken trees and busted signs… and within a couple of days you wouldn’t have even known a storm had passed.
If you want to see what this looks like — take a spin down to Haiti — it is a living hell for those people — but they still have aid agencies helping them — they are being fed — they have medical care — because BAU is still helping them…
Now imagine Haiti — but without the aid agencies.
When this hits nobody will help. There will be no reset — there will be no recovery…. when the financial system busts — and it is gonna bust — we are done with BAU.
As we saw in 08 this happens very quickly — if the central banks don’t step in to backstop the system the stuff that was rotting on the docks does not move — the spare parts that are part of the just in time supply chain do not move…
And the world grinds to a complete halt — literally within days.
See p. 56 onwards for what this looks like http://www.feasta.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Trade-Off1.pdf
This is by far the most thought out summary of what is likely to happen when the SHTF.
Hi Paul, could you please explain to me – non-American! – what “When the next shoe drops” means? You use it a lot. I’ve searched on Google but can’t see it. Thanks.
Maybe Cinderella is about to loose a second shoe?
As someone has already pointed out the meaning … this is borrowed from those silly finance people who love metaphors… next shoe to drop… pushing on a string… etc….
Isn’t it cool how they self-congratulate each other when they come up with one of these things — oh Jim you are so clever — heh heh heh … on no its you who’s clever Jeremy — no Jim you are the smartest guy in the room — golly gee Jim how clever is that — smartest guy in the room! — since you came up with that then you surely are the smartest guy in the room…. hoo hoo hoo oh Jeremy I can see why you were top of your class at Wharton …
Oh enough of that Jim — let’s go to Yankee stadium — Jim Cramer has a private box and he’s lined up some smokin hookers and a bag of blow + a case of Crystal…. now you are talking Jeremy — let’s do it — lock and load – we are all good – good to guy bruther!
@Lizzy
“the next shoe” is a metaphor for the inevitable
“When the next shoe drops” the inevitable happens…
http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/wait+for+the+other+shoe+to+drop
(Paul, I hope you won’t mind my answering.)
I think you may be right about the collapse, saying that no matter how fast the collapse is from a historical perspective, it will seem slow.
When we write and think about collapse every day, we assume that what we know today will be processed and effective by the end of the week. This isn’t really the case though. There are a lot of interconnected pieces. Some pieces will continue to work, even when others fail. For example, our clothes will continue to be wearable for quite a while, even if we happen to lose weight, and electricity is no longer reliable.
I think you may be right about the collapse, saying that no matter how fast the collapse is from a historical perspective, it will seem slow.
When we write and think about collapse every day, we assume that what we know today will be processed and effective by the end of the week. This isn’t really the case though. There are a lot of interconnected pieces. Some pieces will continue to work, even when others fail. For example, our clothes will continue to be wearable for quite a while, even if we happen to lose weight, and electricity is no longer reliable.
Dolph9 your aging metaphor is very good. I think its the best one I’ve heard and thank you for that. This is the scenario we certainly can all hope for, otherwise a fast collapse will be very grim.
Aging is not a metaphor but what is actually happening
The picture you paint seems pretty accurate to me. When will collapse begin? Depends on who you ask. For most in the third world and many in the marginal first it already has. Think of it as a ship going down. The waterline will continually rise as we all scramble to remain above it. Eventually we’ll all end up in the drink treading water waiting for the inevitable, although the uber rich have fashioned themselves a few lifeboats, which may or may not be watertight. Gonna be an interesting century ahead for sure! Too bad I won’t be alive for most of it. Just hope immediate reincarnation ain’t in the plan.
dolph9. This is a sensible way of looking at it and I agree this would be the most likely way things will play out. I don’t think it will be like the earth gets hit by an asteroid (unless it does!) with an instant demise into disorder and apocalypse. I feel for you on speaking out, because I’ve learnt to shut my mouth about my ideas which I can’t even speak about with my husband as he gets really angry. You’re braver than me because I keep my ideas to myself these days. It’s lonely. I found it easier now I’ve been through the 5 stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance, but it took more than 20 years.
Great article Gail. Some of the most sensible and clearly presented writing I’ve read so far. There are some great replies, too.
Rodster,
maybe Greer has supernatural powers?
At least he sports a cool looking ZZ Top beard. Maybe that’s where he gets his psychic powers from. 🙂
He’s got a nice beard, yes – just like the wizards in fairy tales. He might be one…
I am afraid I can’t tell you what North America will look like 500 years from now. What will climate do, for example? I need a better crystal ball.
That’s my point Gail. Unfortunately, JMG thinks he’s got it all figured out. No one knows except when the proverbial SHTF and the collapse begins it will get real ugly and very UNPREDICTABLE.
Randers like to be a “good weather” forcaster. The times are good in Norway, an stories about BAU are well received.
A gradual erosion of prosperity is what we are already experiencing. The system only has a certain amount of elasticity. At a certain unknowable point it will snap and there will be a very rapid loss of retail, financial services, electricity, water etc. Paul, I agree it is likely that most people will frame this as a purely financial catastrophe.
A logical and well reasoned article. Unfortunately Samsung, Apple etc, needs to build 35 million plus iPad’s, Samsung Galaxy smartphones each year with compound growth or their investors will get angry. GM has to build cars, just to build cars and many are UNSOLD and lay in auto graveyards with no buyers.
That’s the insanity we face and why man continues down the path of where Guy McPherson and others who are called crazy say we are headed to.
Article above, once again, does not mention climate change, which is highly likely to dwarf all the other factors mentioned during the next 80 years.
Climate changes. Everyone with a 3rd grade education knows that.
The “challenge” “IS” to control the narrative so that the ‘understanding’ (incorrectly) “IS” that man causes it to ‘change’.
Now, this could be viewed as a Darwinian theory product. Since it ‘evolved’ from AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming) to ACGCC (Anthropogenic Catastrophic Global Climate Change) when it became clear that the ‘science’ was fraudulent surrounding AGW dogma.
And since ‘climate’ does indeed ‘change’ over time, it was a given that the (government) narrative could be manipulated to ‘political’ ends. And so it was ‘seeded’.
Theoretically, government could (finally) control EVERYTHING on planet earth, including procreation, under the guise of ‘climate change’ boogeyman.
The fact that Al Gore is the ‘global’ front man for it should tell you everything you need to know about it. That John Kerry has scrambled aboard the ‘lifeboat’ (of titanic) in drag only effectively illustrates the audacity of the fallacy of the premise. IMHO, of course.
One can only wonder why such drivel is approved here. Is this the sort of rubbish you allow here, Gail? 😯
Everyone has very strong feelings on climate change. I would have more sympathy for the climate change movement if it used models that were half-way reasonable in relationship to the scenario we are currently in.
It is not that the IPCC hasn’t had this issue pointed out to them. There has been a long dialog between “peak oil” folks and IPCC folks. The low scenario this time was sort of in response to this issue, but even it assumes “Hubbert Curve” shaped declines of each of the fuels over long periods, and no overall collapse scenario. After a while, a person gets the impression that one of the purposes of the IPCC modeling is to generate funding for research in this area. Why put together realistic models, when a BAU model (which is clearly impossible) will lead to a lot of research funding? A lot of peak oil people at one point were convinced that “climate change” was a cover-up for peak oil. Peak oil is a near-at-hand problem that politicians can’t deal with. Climate change seems to be a controllable distant problem.
The following is the range of scenarios that the IPCC is now reporting. I would like to see them put together a more realistic model, considering other limits, besides climate, that we are reaching.
Two worries about climate change….The Climate Inertia of the system is currently approximated at about 40 years, and; We have globally emitted nearly as much carbon in the past 30 years as we have since 1900. Also don’t forget that the aerosols pumped into the atmosphere via industry add about 1C of Global Dimming which would not exist within a few weeks of collapse. Even if we never struck another match today, we are still waiting for the Carbon emissions of the last 30 odd years to stabilise at some unkown (yet probably dire) level of temperature increase.
Also, if the work of Natalia Shakhova and Igor Semilitov proves to be on track, we won’t even care about carbon emissions….it will all be in the hands of CH4.
HN
The comment below by HN has it right. Climate change is much more serious than anyone will admit. The IPCC is just what it says, The INTERGOVERNMENTAL panel on climate change. It’s an international veto mechanism on serious science. Governments change wording and graphs at will. How could they not? Like the financial situation, panic would ensue if people knew. It’s not some far off future that no one needs to worry about because we’ll only be two degrees warmer by 2100. Two degrees! Piffle! Why that’s a nice summer day! Long before then we will have disrupted the climate and the weather to the point of eliminating our own habitat. Agriculture will not be possible with droughts and floods and storms that we cannot even imagine today. Diseases travelling north, hurricanes and tornados ripping up the land.
I’m distressed to see you talk this way, Gail, as though climate change were nothing to be alarmed about. As far as I’m concerned, civilization cannot crash fast enough. We are a failed species and have eaten and procreated ourselves into extinction. That’s fine. It happens every day. What is unforgiveable is that we’re taking down all the rest of the species with us (to the tune of 200 species per day currently). Do they deserve that? The only thing left will be the extremophiles, bacteria living in the boiling vents of the ocean floor. “Under a Green Sky” by Peter Ward. I don’t care what we do to ourselves. I do care what happens to all the animals, plants, fungi that should inherit this world after we are gone.
For how many surviving species would you exchange my life, then? 1? 10? 1000?
Destroying our habitat is a dramatic and devastating process, but I personally prefer people who care for other humans. We are far from being ideal, but still…
Kesar-
Caring about the biosphere and not caring about humans are not mutually exclusive or co-dependent. Can humanity survive without every other species currently on the planet? Undoubtedly. But the problem is that we don’t know the intricate ties that many species have to the rest of a myriad of ecosystems. We haven’t reached the point where we completely understand all of the cells in our own bodies let alone how all organism contribute to the natural environment. A mentality of constantly prioritizing humanity’s actions above all else–no matter how wasteful or devastating–will leave us in a position of harm eventually anyway. The epidemic of colony collapse of honey bees around the world is just one example of that.
Our survival is tied to that of the biosphere, and always has been. It is in our best interest to make sure that it remains as intact as possible.
I completely agree. My previous post was a reaction to the quote from Ann’s post “I don’t care what we do to ourselves”. This attitude is unacceptable for me in the light of approaching collapse. The humanity was NEVER CONFRONTED with such suffering, pain and misery. This is unhuman.
I care for the environment a lot and I know we either live in harmony with it or we all die. Such comments like this above make me sick.
That is why it would be best if we were wiped out — because we have demonstrated we are incapable of caring for the planet… we are not deserving of surviving as a species
If we were gone the planet might survive and continue to host the millions of other organisms that are not destroying the biosphere.
Paul,
you are so right! Get rid of humans, and the planet will be a really nice place for all the others…
Regardless, keep pouring carbon in the atmosphere it does not matter really about the “climate”, the ocean waters will continue to alter its water chemistry. Simple chemistry, CO2 converts to carbonic acid and lowers the ph level. Even if most of the fossil fuels are left in the ground, the remaining humans will undoubtedly burn tree matter and continue the increase of CO2. Already 40% of the coral reefs are just about dead. In the Northwest hatcheries are finding their shellfish unable to produce shells. So it does mot matter what strong feelings one has about the topic
Well you can get all the warmist drivel you want on the MSM and the general ‘doom is nigh’ green sites
You come here for accurate factual analysis don’t you?
Or are you a green troll?
Cimat change is a very serious issue, because misplaced concern over nonexistant man made global warming is driving an agenda that actually compromises our ability to face the future ratiuobally.
We have many problems. Climate change is not one of them, but getting worked up over imaginary climate change most definitely is.
Might not be YOUR problem now…..suppose you need a two by four to hit you before it does become YOUR problem!
Can we add an ignore filter to the site so we don’t have to receive Leo’s posts?
My index finger on my right hand is becoming muscle-bound and twice the size of the one on my left finger from hitting the delete button so many times…
Tiny bubbles…seeping upwards from the sea floor. Climate Scientist claims if so we are “fcked”: Except for Leo, because he says so!
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/if-we-release-a-small-fraction-of-arctic-carbon-were-fucked-climatologist
Even if a small fraction of the Arctic carbon were released to the atmosphere, we’re fcked,” he told me. What alarmed him was that “the methane bubbles were reaching the surface. That was something new in my survey of methane bubbles,” he said.
The scientists’ video of methane bubbles in the Arctic Ocean.
“The conventional thought is that the bubbles would be dissolved before they reached the surface and that microorganisms would consume that methane, and that’s normal,” Box went on. But if the plumes are making it to the surface, that’s a brand new source of heat-trapping gases that we need to worry about.
The scientists on the expedition confirm that’s what we’re seeing, too:
“We are ‘sniffing’ methane,” Ulf Hedman, the science coordinator of the Swedish Polar Research Secretariat, wrote in a post highlighted by Climate Change SOS. “We see the bubbles on video from the camera mounted on the CTD or the Multicorer. All analysis tells the signs. We are in a Mega flare. We see it in the water column, we read it above the surface, and we follow it up high into the sky with radars and lasers. We see it mixed in the air and carried away with the winds. Methane in the air.”
“Methane is more than 20 times more potent than CO2 in trapping infrared as part of the natural greenhouse effect,” Box said. “Methane getting to the surface—that’s potent stuff.”
It’s especially worrying because the Arctic is warming faster than nearly anywhere else on Earth. Now, along with melting sea ice and thawing permafrost, we have to add to our list of ‘feedback loop’ concerns that warming Arctic oceans may be releasing fonts of methane. That is, the warmer the ocean gets, the more methane gets spewed out of those stores on the continental shelf, and the warmer the ocean gets, ad infinitum.
MJx that is some scary shit.
How bout them yankees — did you see that homer? Pretty awesome eh…. What’s the weather like down yore way tomorah? You have yourself a good weekend over there whereva ya are….
Ann,
I have four points regarding your August 17 post:
1) I firmly disagree with your notion that the IPCC or any government agency should be even allowed, let alone accept “to change wording or graphs at will” related to global warming or any critical scientific interchange with other members of the scientific community or the public. Strictly speaking, truthful and valid scientific decisions should follow the Scientific Method. A key theme here is the reported results of, say IPCC, scientists must be repeatable, with the same conclusions, by equally experienced independent scientists, and typically published in peer reviewed journals. To my knowledge, there is minimal evidence that a balanced and true evidence evaluation has been fully done, apples to apples (not changed wording and graphs).
Anything short of presenting the verified and duplicated facts presented for support of any position, that is not truthfully supporting the existing facts, is basically political, marketing or propaganda But, my goodness, it is the true facts that have contributed to survival, not opinion polls.
I am a commercial scientist/engineer who spent my career seriously involved in this type of issue As someone once said “I Am Experienced”. On a more personal side, I also followed the technical side of environmental issues, actually since “Silent Spring” and “The Limits To Growth”. for years
So, when the issue of global; warming arose, I casually dove in. I read, I downloaded IPCC data files, I searched the heat absorption info from my references. And my personal look at the global warming info turned me off. It was obvious that this was a political effort, not a scientific effort. The biggest flag was the almost sole focus on CO2, from fossil fuel combustion. Heat absorption molecules involves CO2, but also CH4, H2O, CHCs, FHCs, The latter ones have quite significantly higher heat absorption and they are on the rise in industries. Focus only on CO2, ignore all else high heat absorbing components is suggestive of a political motive. This demonstrated very poor scientific judgement for should an important issue.
3) There are so many important issues related to environmental stability. Global warming is indeed an important issue on the list. But, there is also population growth, an energy issue ( BTUs, not environmental), a water supply issue, ocean integrity issue, food production issue, land use issues, economic issues, migration issues, etc. Regional and global, all of these issues should be considered together.
(4 We live in a very dynamic world. Right now, we seem to be on the downside. Some may even argue that the human element may be on the verge of reduction! But, I fully accept that the system determines that issue – Mother Nature will decide the outcome!
Period.
I also started from being very worried about IPCC findings back several years ago. As I dove in and looked at the details, I figured out that there were huge “issues” with what they were doing.
We are dealing with a very political issue. The IEA had been warning of Peak Oil, up through its 1998 World Energy Outlook report. There was no 1999 report. When the 2000 report came out, the US Geological Service had come up with a new set of very optimistic findings with respect to possible future oil supply. The IEA adopted higher forecasts based on the 2000 USGS reports as a way of getting around the peak oil issue.
The year 1999 was the high point of North Sea oil production. When this became apparent, the IEA (which is a part of OECD) needed a way of telling European oil users especially, that they needed badly to dial back on oil usage. Telling them the truth, after they had just buried the truth, was not an option. The IPCC reports provided a way of doing this, because political leaders could point to a distant problem that people could theoretically do something about, without having to point out the very real problem the area was facing currently. Taxes could be added to usage of oil by individual drivers that would lead to the use of smaller cars.
The IEA (as I recall) was actually involved in the fossil fuel input variables to the IPCC reports. But the fossil fuel assumptions used in the IPCC reports were ridiculously higher than the IEA was putting out in reports to members.
When I first got involved with oil issues in detail back in the 2005-2007 period, one of my first correspondence with a well known peak oil person was with Kjell Aleklett, President of Association for the Study of Peak Oil. He was very upset with the IPCC, with respect to the fossil fuel assumptions being made. (I later learned that this was a longstanding argument, and Kjell wasn’t the first involved.) There was a strong feeling on the part of some that the reasons for all of these biased calculations was to “bury” the peak oil issue and raise the visibility of a different, more politically correct issue.
A great deal of the “push” for “New Policies” with respect to climate change is coming from the IEA (which is part of OECD, and in the same building as I recall). If a person looks at my “Twelve Basic Principles,” one discovers that these New Policies have no chance of working in a finite world. But they do give politicians something they can do, and they do reduce oil imports for countries that are very concerned about not being able to afford oil imports. They give a lot of false hope that politicians can point to. They don’t fix the world situation, either for Peak Oil or Climate Change.
I’m reminded by a great quote from Gerald Celente who said: “I’m not going to get into it whether global warming or climate change is real or BS. That’s for you to decide. All I can tell you is that NOTHING good comes about when you pour billions of tons of crap in the air, water and land”.
Rodster wrote:
“All I can tell you is that NOTHING good comes about when you pour billions of tons of crap in the air, water and land”.”
Simple logic, so true!
Try visiting China … you can barely see across the street at times… likewise in Hong Kong much of the year you cannot even see across the harbour…
When people get into this denial stuff on global warming I have one question for them — do you like breathing that shite? Do you like your children breathing that shite? They shuffle about and say well uh ya well ya uh — not I don’t.
Enough said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/23/world/asia/pollution-is-radically-changing-childhood-in-chinas-cities.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Don’t know how old you are but back in the seventies the ‘experts’ were saying that we were going to be entering another ice age.
Also back then rivers caught fire and you couldn’t see across the street in southern California. Nearly everyone thought nothing about tossing a soda can out the window of their car as they drove along. My family lived in the country and we burned our trash all the time. Most cars burned leaded gas and got 12 mpg. Since that time trillions of dollars have been spent on cleaning up pollution. The US is much ‘cleaner & greener’ now.
The problem is that government agencies & politicians have found out they can get rich & control people by beating them with just about any environmental issue. And with that, the whole ‘global warming’ scam came into being. What we find now is that more and more people are seeing through the lies and distortions, so the politicians, aided by the mainstream media, are getting more and more brazen at trying to force the population to believe in their theories. Eventually this will all come to a head and I believe you will see many ‘politicians’, ‘journalists’, ‘scientists’ and ‘experts’ charged as war criminals for their crimes against humanity in attempting to use the false religion of ‘global warming’ to destroy capitalism by taxing productive citizens and businesses and distributing the wealth to the globalist elites.
I don’t bother to read your drivel very thoroughly – because it is drivel….
It is a regurgitation of idiotic catch phrases put out by the spin masters to keep the feeble minded people in state of confusion about whether or not breathing air laced with mercury and other toxins is good or bad for the planet and our bodies…
Anyone who was not feeble of mind would recognize this fairly quickly and understand that they are being treated like fools — but most people are unfortunately feeble minded — the headlines are what form their opinions — they do not question — they do not think — they blindly follow the pied piper…
Don’t feel bad — because you have plenty of company… most people are like you…
But I will concede one thing to you — the global warming people (even though they are most definitely correct) are 100% wasting their time…
There is no way to stop or even slow global warming without completely collapsing the global economy.
Because the global economy MUST grow — or it dies.
And it ONLY grows if it is fed cheap energy. And even at 100 bucks oil (and other dirty fuels) are the cheapest available — and there are no substitutes — I say again – there are NO substitutes.
And as we know — if you collapse the global economy we are likely all dead — because 1. we feed 7.2 B people using oil and gas based inputs — without them no crops – no food. and 2. because 4000 nuclear fuel ponds blow sky high — and that’s like unleashing 56,000,000 nuclear bombs on the planet (that stat courtesy of Reuters)
So you see this debate is doubly pointless — because it does not matter if you believe in global warming or not — we cannot stop spewing toxins into the air — and also — because this economy is going to collapse long before we asphyxiate ourselves by burning up what remains of the earth’s fossil fuels…
That’s an interesting way of looking at it, Woofpacker75 . I have a cousin who lives like a king (servants, maids, drivers) in a very poor country that has millions of illiterate, hungry people. He advises the politicians on how to get grants for “fighting climate change”. He’s a lovely man, who flies all around the world with his wife, 2 children and the nannies. He says he plants trees each time he flies to off-set the carbon.
Lizzy,
what a lovely, lovely man!
Of course, what is crap?
If I were to pour a billion tonnes of topsoil ,’nightsoil’ and water on the sahara, would that be crap?
one man’s crap is another man’s fertiliser.
And in some instances a man has more value as fertilizer…
Next 80 years?
We will be likely to get through the next two years with the entire global economy collapsing… and when that happens starving billions will not care about climate change.
People have been saying that since 2008, and I’m still waiting.
Keep an eye on shale oil — that and to some extent tar sands – is the only thing that is keeping the global oil supply growing since conventional peaked in 2005….
If not a black swan between now and then that is likely the trigger — when total oil production stops growing then oil spikes — then the economy collapses — the price of oil collapses… and what is left remains in the ground…
The central banks have done a stellar job of holding this together for 6 years…. however they cannot print oil…
I often wonder if our model, and thus our understanding, is too simple, and that is why the big event is always 2-5 years in the future. Its been 2-5 years in the future for like 10 years now. Just sayin’…
I certainly hope so — but when I look at the desperate tactics BAU is now using — I find it difficult to believe this can go on for many more years…
I suspect that the rapid development of horizontal drilling, where they can now drill out nearly 2 miles horizontally from the rig, while staying inside a thin lawyer of oil saturated rock, and now fracture up to 15 zones along the well hole, has done nearly as much to increase oil production as drilling in actual shale deposits has. I’m pretty sure that most of the increase in West Texas Permian Basin oil output is coming from such layers, which sometime sit stacked 5 deep on top of each other. And the high price of oil makes such costly wells profitable. It is like the Bakken oil deposits. Oil companies knew that there was oil there for 50 years, but the price was too low to make money with the high cost of drilling only vertical wells. These thin layers will be depleted a lot faster than conventional oil fields which can be hundreds of feet thick. US production will probably peak in another 7 or 8 years. I would love to be wrong.
I would be overjoyed if the time frame as 7-8 years…. but I am seeing analysis that indicates a peak in the next couple of years — because we have been fed lies about how much shale oil can be extracted within a reasonable price range.
One of the basins recently reduced their projections of recoverable oil by 96%
Keep in mind conventional oil finds are depleting — so even if shale can keep increasing production for 7-8 years… is it enough to offset the drops in conventional?
Revert2Mean wrote:
“Article above, once again, does not mention climate change, which is highly likely to dwarf all the other factors mentioned during the next 80 years.”
When climate change makes a real difference this planet will already have changed beyond recognition…
Perhaps. But climate change models use way too much carbon, if collapse happens in the next few years. I imagine effects could go both ways, but clearly the high scenario is very hard to reach with our actual ability to extract carbon fuels and keep the economy running simultaneously.
Gail,
Are you taking into account the delayed and persistent effect of GHGs? The figures I hear most often are 20-50 years or more for the full effects to be felt. Kinda like steering an oil tanker in the open ocean. It doesn’t turn or stop on a dime.
I wish the IPCC would rerun their model with reasonable assumptions. I don’t claim to have a “better” model than the IPCC.
Also, if there have been huge changes by the time the climate changes, it may not make as much difference to the remaining much smaller population. It bothers me to have one group making forecasts as if the limits we are reaching in their area are the only limits we are reaching, not just one of a large number of limits we are reaching simultaneously. If we had ten or twenty different groups, each making forecasts of how the world would look if their limits were the only ones (for example, (1) soil erosion and soil quality; (2) continuing population growth; (3) inability to control infectious diseases as antibiotics lose their power and inability to produce enough GMOs to offset learning by insects as mutation offsets gains we have made; (4) decline in fish and ocean ecosystems for many reasons, including overfishing and pollution of many kinds; (5) resource depletion and effects of higher costs on people’s standards of livings; (6) inability to keep economic growth going, and because of this inability to repay debt with interest, and resulting collapse of the financial system: etc. ) then having one group screaming about how bad their result will be would at least be balanced out by some others. As it stands, the climate change folks have “cornered the market” in modeling money. Their model is right, only if there are no other limits.
Those figures are essentially nonsense actually.
The CO2 cycle as shown by volcanic eruptions pulls excess CO2 out of the air in 5 years or so,
Wrong. It will get worse for 40 years even if we totally collapse today. I respect your knowledge of finance and energy, but you don’t know what you’re talking about with respect to climate change.
Since there is nothing we can do about climate change that will not totally collapse our economy I don’t get too excited about discussing how we can stop climate change.
We can’t — and we won’t.
Very few people do and none of them are on the IPCC, because the IPCC is not s scientific organisation in search of the truth, its a political organisation with an agenda.
Its very terms of reference make this clear. It is not there to determine whether or not AGW is real, it is there to determine the effects of AGW, which it already assumes ARE real.
You should learn to go to first principles in research. Not piggy back on ‘what you read somewhere’
The real science is settled. 17 years of no significant warming was something every real scientist understood. 17 years took the statistic out to 3 sigma. Three sigma or 97% probability that carbon dioxide levels were UN related to global warming.
Every weasel and fox since then has been to bring in some other effect that explained why there wasn’t any serious warming. Unfortunately as any rational person understands, if some other factor is capable of entirely cancelling global warming for 17 years it is also fully capable of causing it in the 20 years previously….
In short the real educated scientific case for AGW collapseed some years back – 2-3. What is left is the politics of denial among those whose livelihoods depend on it – and it’s a trillion dollar industry – sticking their fingers in their ears and pretending its really really going to happen.
Nor is there any need to go beyond the dynamics of global cliamte to explain its fluctuations. I’ve said it before and I’ll repeat it now.:
There are two sorts of climate scientists, those that understand the mathematics of chaotic non linear dynamic systems, and those that believe in man made climate change.
:^)
well no, actually it isn’t.
since it inst happening at all in the way the doom sayers claimed it would