Recently, a Spanish group called “Ecologists in Action” asked me to give them a presentation on what kind of financial crisis we should expect. They wanted to know when it would be and how it would take place.
The answer I had for the group is that we should expect financial collapse quite soon–perhaps as soon as the next few months. Our problem is energy related, but not in the way that most Peak Oil groups describe the problem. It is much more related to the election of President Trump and to the Brexit vote.
I have talked about this subject in various forms before, but not since 2016 energy production and consumption data became available. Most of the slides in this presentation use new BP data, through 2016. A copy of the presentation can be found at this link: The Next Financial Crisis.1
Slide 1
Most people don’t understand how interconnected the world economy is. All they understand is the simple connections that economists make in their models.
Slide 2
Energy is essential to the economy, because energy is what makes objects move, and what provides heat for cooking food and for industrial processes. Energy comes in many forms, including sunlight, human energy, animal energy, and fossil fuels. In today’s world, energy in the form of electricity or petroleum makes possible the many things we think of as technology.
In Slide 2, I illustrate the economy as hollow because we keep adding new layers of the economy on top of the old layers. As new layers (including new products, laws, and consumers) are added, old ones are removed. This is why we can’t necessarily use a prior energy approach. For example, if cars can no longer be used, it would be difficult to transition back to horses. This happens partly because there are few horses today. Also, we do not have the facilities in cities to “park” the horses and to handle the manure, if everyone were to commute using horses. We would have a stinky mess!
Slide 3
In the past, many local civilizations have grown for a while, and then collapsed. In general, after a group finds a way to produce more food (for example, cuts down trees so that citizens have more area to farm) or finds another way to otherwise increase productivity (such as adding irrigation), growth at first continues for a number of generations–until the population reaches the new carrying capacity of the land. Often resources start to degrade as well–for example, soil erosion may become a problem.
At this point, growth flattens out, and wage disparity and growing debt become greater problems. Eventually, unless the group can find a way of increasing the amount of food and other needed goods produced each year (such as finding a way to get food and other materials from territories in other parts of the world, or conquering another local civilization and taking their land), the civilization is headed for collapse. We recently have tried globalization, with exports from China, India, and other Asian nations fueling world economic growth.
At some point, the efforts to keep growing the economy to match rising population become unsuccessful, and collapse sets in. One of the reasons for collapse is that the government cannot collect enough taxes. This happens because with growing wage disparity, many of the workers cannot afford to pay much in taxes. Another problem is greater susceptibility to epidemics, because after-tax income of many workers is not sufficient to afford an adequate diet.
Slide 4
A recent partial collapse of a local civilization was the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. When this happened, the government of the Soviet Union disappeared, but the governments of the individual states within the Soviet Union remained. The reason I call this a partial collapse is because the rest of the world was still functioning, so nearly all of the population remained, and the cutback in fuel consumption was just partial. Eventually, the individual member countries were able to function on their own.
Notice that after the Soviet Union collapsed, the consumption of coal, oil and gas collapsed at the same time, over a period of years. Oil and coal use have not come back to anywhere near their earlier level. While the Soviet Union had been a major manufacturer and a leader in space technology, it lost those roles and never regained them. Many types of relatively high-paying jobs have been lost, leading to lower energy consumption.
Slide 5
As nearly as I can tell, one of the major contributing factors to the collapse of the Soviet Union was low oil prices. The Soviet Union was an oil exporter. As oil prices fell, the government could not collect sufficient taxes. This was a major contributing factor to collapse. The collapse from low oil prices did not happen immediately–it took several years after the drop in oil prices. There was a 10-year gap between the highest oil price (1981) and collapse (1991), and a 5-year gap after oil prices dropped to the low 1986 price level.
Slide 6
Venezuela is often in the news because of its inability to afford to import enough food for its population. Slide 3 shows that on an inflation-adjusted basis, world oil prices hit a high point first in 2008, and again in 2011. Since 2011, oil prices slid slowly for a while, then began to slide more quickly in 2014. It is now nine years since the 2008 peak. It is six years since the 2011 peak, and about three years since the big drop in prices began.
One of the reasons for Venezuela’s problems is that with low oil prices, the country has been unable to collect sufficient tax revenue. Also, the value of the currency has dropped, making it difficult for Venezuela to afford food and other products on international markets.
Note that in both Slides 4 and 6, I am showing the amount of energy consumed in the countries shown. The amount consumed represents the amount of energy products that individual citizens, plus businesses, plus the government, can afford. This is why, in both Slides 4 and 6, the quantity of all types of energy products tends to decline at the same time. Affordability affects many types of energy products at once.
Slide 7
Oil importing countries can have troubles when oil prices rise, similar to the problems that oil exporting countries have when oil prices fall. Greece’s energy consumption peaked in 2007. One of Greece’s major products is tourism, and the cost of tourism depends on the price of oil. When the price of oil was high, it adversely affected tourism. Exported goods also became expensive in the world market. Once oil prices dropped (as they have done, especially since 2014), tourism tended to rebound and the financial situation became less dire. But total energy consumption has still tended to decline (top “stacked” chart on Slide 7), indicating that the country is not yet doing well.
Slide 8
Spain follows a pattern similar to Greece’s. By the mid-2000s, high oil prices made Spain less competitive in the world market, leading to falling job opportunities and less energy consumption. Since 2014, very low oil prices have allowed tourism to rebound. Oil consumption has also rebounded a bit. But Spain is still far below its peak in energy consumption in 2007 (top chart on Slide 8), indicating that job opportunities and spending by its citizens are still low.
Slide 9
We hear much about rising manufacturing in the Far East. This has been made possible by the availability of both inexpensive coal supplies and inexpensive labor. India is an example of a country where manufacturing has risen in recent years. Slide 9 shows how rapidly energy consumption–especially coal–has risen in India.
Slide 10
China’s energy consumption grew very rapidly after it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. In 2013, however, China’s coal consumption hit a peak and began to decline. One major contributor was the fact that the cheap-to-consume coal that was available nearby had already been extracted. The severe problems that China has had with pollution from coal may also have played a role.
It might be noted that the charts I am showing (from Mazamascience) do not include renewable energy (including wind and solar, plus burned garbage and other “renewables”) used to produce electricity. (The charts do include ethanol and other biofuels within the “oil” category, however.) The omission of wind and solar does not appear to make a material difference, however. Figure 1 shows a chart I made for China, comparing three totals:
(1) Opt. total (Optimistic total) – Totals on the basis BP computes wind and solar. Intermittent wind and solar electricity is assumed to be equivalent to high quality electricity, available 24/7/365, produced by fossil fuel electricity-generating stations.
(2) Likely totals – Wind and solar are assumed to replace only the fuel that creates high quality electricity. The amount of backup generating capacity required is virtually unchanged. More long distance transmission is needed; other enhancements are also needed to bring the electricity up to grid-quality. The credits given for wind and solar are only 38% as much as those given in the BP methodology.
(3) From chart – Mazamascience totals, omitting renewable sources of electricity, other than hydroelectric.
Figure 1. China energy consumption based on BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2017.
It is clear from Figure 1 that adding electricity from renewables (primarily wind and solar) does not make much difference for China, no matter how wind and solar are counted. If they are counted in a realistic manner, they truly add little to China’s energy use. This is also true for the world in total.
Slide 11
If we look at the major parts of world energy consumption, we see that oil (including biofuels) is the largest. Recently, it seems to be growing slightly more quickly than other energy consumption, perhaps because of the low oil price. World coal consumption has been declining since 2014. If coal is historically the least expensive fuel, this is likely a problem. I have not shown a chart with total world energy consumption. It is still growing, but it is growing less rapidly than world population.
Slide 12 – Note: Energy growth includes all types of energy. This includes wind and solar, using wind and solar counted using the optimistic BP approach.
Economists have given the false idea that amount of energy consumption is unimportant. It is true that individual countries can experience lower consumption of energy products, if they begin outsourcing major manufacturing to other countries as they did after the Kyoto Protocol was signed in 1997. But it doesn’t change the world’s need for growing energy consumption, if the world economy is to grow. The growth in world energy consumption (blue line) tends to be a little lower than the growth in GDP (red line), because of efficiency gains over time.
If we look closely at Slide 12, we can see that drops in energy consumption tend to precede drops in world GDP; rises in energy consumption tend to precede rises in world GDP. This order of events strongly suggests that rising energy consumption is a major cause of world GDP growth.
We don’t have very good evaluations of GDP amounts for 2015 and 2016. For example, recent world GDP estimates seem to accept without question the very high estimates of economic growth given by China, even though their growth in energy consumption is very much lower in 2014 through 2017. Thus, world economic growth may already be lower than reported amounts.
Slide 13
Most people are not aware of the extreme “power” given by energy products. For example, it is possible for a human to deliver a package, by walking and carrying the package in his hands. Another approach would be to deliver the package using a truck, operated by some form of petroleum. One estimate is that a single gallon of gasoline is equivalent to 500 hours of human labor.
“Energy consumption per capita” is calculated as world energy consumption divided by world population. If this amount is growing, an economy is in some sense becoming more capable of producing goods and services, and thus is becoming wealthier. Workers are likely becoming more productive, because the additional energy per capita allows the use of more and larger machines (including computers) to leverage human labor. The additional productivity allows wages to rise.
With higher incomes, workers can afford to buy an increasing amount of goods and services. Businesses can expand to serve the growing population, and the increasingly wealthy customers. Taxes can rise, so it is possible for governments to provide the services that citizens desire, such as healthcare and pensions. When energy consumption per capita turns negative–even slightly so–these abilities start to disappear. This is the problem we are starting to encounter.
Slide 14 – Note: Energy percentage increases include all energy sources shown by BP. Wind and solar are included using BP’s optimistic approach for counting intermittent renewables, so growth rates for recent years are slightly overstated.
We can look back over the years and see when energy consumption rose and fell. The earliest period shown, 1968 to 1972, had the highest annual growth in energy consumption–over 3% per year–back when oil prices were under $20 per barrel, and thus were quite affordable. (See Slide 5 for a history of inflation-adjusted price levels.) Once prices spiked in the 1973-1974 period, much of the world entered recession, and energy consumption per capita barely rose.
A second drop in consumption (and recession) occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when easy-to-adopt changes were made to cut oil usage and increase efficiency. These included
(a) Closing many electricity-generating plants using oil, and replacing them with other generation.
(b) Replacing many home heating systems operating with oil with systems using other fuels, often more efficiently.
(c) Changing many industrial processes to be powered by electricity instead of burning oil.
(d) Making cars smaller and more fuel-efficient.
Another big drop in world per capita energy consumption occurred with the partial collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. This was a somewhat local drop in energy consumption, allowing the rest of the world to continue to grow in its use of energy.
The Asian Financial Crisis in 1997 was, in some sense, another localized crisis that allowed energy consumption to continue to grow in the rest of the world.
Most people remember the Great Recession in the 2007-2009 period, when world per capita growth in energy consumption briefly became negative. Recent data suggests that we are almost in the same adverse situation now, in terms of growth in world per capita energy consumption, as we were then.
Slide 15
What happens when growth in world per capita energy consumption slows and starts to fall? I have listed some of the problems in Slide 15. We start seeing problems with low wages, particularly for people with low-skilled jobs, and the type of political problems we have been experiencing recently.
Part of the problem is that countries with a high-priced mix of energy products start to find their goods and services uncompetitive in the world marketplace. Thus, demand for goods and services from these countries starts to fall. Greece and Spain are examples of countries using a lot of oil in their energy mix. As a result, they became less competitive in the world market when oil prices rose. China and India were favored because they had a less-expensive energy mix, favoring coal.
Slide 16
Slide 16 shows the kinds of comments we have been hearing in recent years, as prices have recently bounced up and down. It is becoming increasingly clear that no price of oil is now satisfactory for all participants in the economy. Prices are either too high for consumers, or too low for the producers. In fact, prices can be unsatisfactory for both consumers and producers at the same time.
On Slide 16, oil prices show considerable volatility. This happens because it is difficult to keep supply and demand exactly balanced; there are many factors determining needed price level, including both the amount consumers can afford and the costs of producers. The bouncing of prices up and down on Slide 16 is to a significant extent in response to interest rate changes, and resulting changes in currency relativities and debt growth.
We are now reaching a point where no interest rate works for all members of the economy. If interest rates are low, pension plans cannot meet their obligations. If interest rates are high, monthly payments for homes and cars become unaffordable for customers. Also, high interest rates tend to raise needed tax levels for governments.
Slide 17
All of these problems are fairly evident already.
Slide 18
The low level of energy consumption growth is of considerable concern. It is this low growth in energy consumption that we would expect to lead to low wage growth worldwide, especially for the non-elite workers. Our economy needs more rapid growth in energy consumption to provide enough tax revenue for all of our governments and intergovernmental organizations, and to keep the world economy growing quickly enough to prevent large debt defaults.
Slide 19
Economists have confused matters for a long time by their belief that energy prices can and will rise arbitrarily high in inflation-adjusted terms–for example $300 per barrel for oil. If such high prices were really possible, we could extract all of the oil that we have the technical capacity to extract. High-cost renewables would become economically feasible as well.
In fact, affordability is the key issue. When the world economy is stimulated by more debt, only a small part of this additional debt makes its way back to the wages of non-elite workers. With greater global competition in wages, the wages of these workers tend to stay low. The limited demand of these workers tends to keep commodity prices, especially oil prices, from rising very high, for very long.
It is affordability that limits our ability to grow endlessly. While it is possible to argue that more debt might help raise the wages of non-elite workers in a particular country, if one country adds more debt, other currencies around the world can be expected to rebalance. As a result, there would be no real benefit, unless all countries together could add more debt. Even this would be of questionable value, because the whole effort relates to getting oil and other commodity prices to rise to an adequate level for producers; we have already seen that there is no price level that is satisfactory for both producers and consumers.
Slide 20
These symptoms seem to be already beginning to happen.
Note:
[1] This presentation is a little different from the original. The presentation I am showing here is entirely in English. The original presentation included some charts in Spanish from Energy Export Data Browser by Mazama Science. With this database, a person can quickly prepare energy charts for any country in a choice of seven languages. I encourage readers to “look up” their own country, in their preferred language.
In this write-up, I include more discussion than in my original talk. I also added Slides 13 and 14, plus Figure 1.
You’ve been ranting about peak oil forever. We have more oil than we know what to do with. Old oil wells that were tapped dry are now full again. Ever heard of the abiotic oil theory?
I read a research paper on the soviet collapse and it said it was because their production fell drastically. Also, can you even prove that oil comes from the ground? I’m serious, I’ve never seen anyone pumping black crude from the earth. If you know where I can go to see oil coming from the ground, let me know. I want to see it with my own eyes. I hope you don’t actually believe in “peak oil” and are simply a government shill trying to scare us.
You don’t come here often, do you? 🙂
The only “ranting” Gail does about “peak oil” is to warn everyone that our dilemma is much more nuanced than that.
https://images.angelpub.com/2016/35/39692/oldgusher.jpg
A photo. Looks like mud water. I just want to see it with my own eyes. That’s why I asked the all wise oil expert, Gail. She should be able to tell me where I can go to see it with my own eyes.
I think if you went to one of the Baaken wildcatters with some $10,000,000, they would be happy to show you, with your own eyes, oil coming out of the ground.
As for the 1901 gusher in the photo, they don’t do that any more. We’ve harvested all the low-hanging fruit. The last time anyone saw a gusher was when Saddam Hussein set the Kuwait fields ablaze. You probably couldn’t have gotten close enough to satisfy your desire to tell it from “mud water.” Except “mud water” doesn’t burn.
https://media.giphy.com/media/Pg6W0wu2nkenC/giphy.gif
I’m sure an oil company would let you see t if it’s real, for free. I can take a tour of the White house for less than $10,000,000, why would they charge me $10,000,000 just to see it?
Nice CGI there!
Must be! It couldn’t possibly be real video of real events that haven’t been proven to have existed.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CYIe8VYWwAE0PgA.jpg
Wanting actual PROOF is not renouncing the use of reason. It’s actually using reason.
Proof of what? That infinite growth in a finite world is impossible? That is obvious.
Proof that black crude oil comes from the ground. If you’ve never seen it with your own eyes, then you just believe it. Need proof. And why are oil wells that were sucked dry a long time ago, now full again?
I’ve never seen the whole earth with my own eyes! 😂😂😂
💩🤢👀
None of us have seen you “with our own eyes.” As far as I am concerned, you don’t exist. Need proof.
You now get to join some OurFiniteWorld regulars in my “ignore” list. Bye!
I want proof that Thomas Paine actually said that.
Actually, that’s an abbreviated quotation.
What Tom Paine ostensibly actually wrote (in The American Crisis) was:
To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture.
However, I am unable to prove he actually wrote this. He could of stolen it from Ben Franklin or John Hancock.
Actually, I am kind of enjoying corresponding with Dynomite. He clearly wants to know what is really happening. I can explain some basic things that the “regulars” already know.
“You’ve been ranting about peak oil forever.” – you are gonna get roasted saying that on here.
I don’t talk about peak oil, however.
Peak debt, maybe.
Dynomite, let’s start of beginning. How do you know that anything exists?
https://youtu.be/29pPZQ77cmI
Earth is flat. There is no oil. Oil is a lie.
Go to los angeles, CA. Find Wilshire blvd. Head west to la brea. There you will find a nice park with tar pits. You can see the bubbling crude coming up from the depths. Careful not to go wading out, or you might end up as a museum specimen, along with the sabre tooth cats and mammoths nearby.
EXCELLENT!
I had forgotten about the tar pits, and I lived just a few miles from there for a while!
I have been on a number of excursions sponsored by the American Petroleum Institute, so I have seen oil being pumped and natural gas being extracted. I have also seen oil extraction in China, on a trip sponsored by China Petroleum University, related to their research with respect to oil extraction.
You may have to sign up for appropriate university courses to see oil extracted for yourself.
So oil and gas are real things then….
Right. I have talked to real employees, and seen the huge number of computer screens they use to monitor production. They are constantly trying to figure out ways to keep the energy they use in the process down to a minimum. The energy used is often part of the energy produced right on site, if there is a way of using some of the natural gas that is naturally extracted with the oil, but is not worth much if it is sold in the marketplace. The cost of this energy is already built into the extraction cost. The EROI folks miss this point.
FE, I was happy to read your story about the Indian family. Jolly good FE.
Must really assuage the guilt of bringing the end quicker through gratuitous globe-trotting.
How difficult is this to understand:
BAU either grows — or it collapses completely
So my use of jet fuel is a good thing.
And those spent fuel ponds in Japan — start to spew death in your direction
Things have not ended badly for the Groundling after all — the airline has responded and is attempting to tell me what I saw was not racist behaviour — many excuses but nothing to do with racism….
Their attempts to convince me that what I saw was not what I saw — their attempts to tell me that other passengers who also saw what I saw — was not what they saw … their attempts to tell me that other passengers who heard what I said to the Groundling and told me they supported what I said was also not correct —- all smacks of 1+1 = 4.
One might even think they think I and the other passengers are idiots. Or liars….
This didn’t work – I was already shifting to other carriers because I heard they burn more fuel — so this was the death knell for my CX frequent flyer card…. as I have informed them.
Too bad Cathay Pacific can’t make a loss = a profit… 1+1 apparently does not = 4….
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/transport/4971919/Cathay-Pacific-reports-first-annual-loss-in-10-years.html
Must be all those awesome management decisions….
FE is performing the greatest public service possible today. Which reminds me, time to book my ticket to Greece…
http://cdn1.bloguin.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/94/2011/05/machoobama.png
I am waiting for the coal industry to recognize my contributions …. with unlimited free use of a private jet….
I was mentioning to Madame Fast that these long haul flights are rather exhausting … but I go along because I know deep down that I am keeping BAU alive by burning more fuel … I am sacrificing … for the children … the billions of children across the planet…..
The private jet sponsored by Big Coal would keep me motivated to continue with my Save The Planet project…
It appears they are not so pleased with my promise to burn my jet fuel elsewhere and blaspheme them — there will be additional follow up …
One of my demands will be that the Vile Groundster greet me at the gate IF I am to burn more jet fuel with CX…. and polish my shoes. Then I want her to pull me on a rickshaw from the airport to Central… I may ask that she sacrifice one of her children to appease me… but I will waive that if I am given an upgrade on my next flight….
I reckon that people who demean other people (unless of course they are from DelusiSTAN – then demean to your heart’s content — and I will applaud) — need to experience the same thing…. it builds empathy.
I also want to have options on 8 flight attendants of my choosing … for the harem….
Now imagine if I were to put all of this into a follow up email with the subject line : Meet My Demands Or Else!
I saw this comment on wolfstreet:
“We live in interesting times gentlemen. We are all just biding our time, waiting for that one spinning plate to quit spinning and wipe out the clown’s entire show.”
Pretty apt, no?
“We live in interesting times gentlemen. We are all just biding our time, waiting for that one spinning plate to quit spinning and wipe out the clown’s entire show.”
Pretty apt, no?
Brilliant way of putting it IMO
Global Energy Crunch: How Different Parts of the World Would React to a Peak Oil Scenario
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/46496493_Global_Energy_Crunch_How_Different_Parts_of_the_World_Would_React_to_a_Peak_Oil_Scenario
Socioeconomic adaptation would be more difficult for people in Western countries, where individualism, industrialism and mass consumerism have held sway for such a long time that a smooth regression is hard to imagine
The Oil Age may come to an end for a shortage of oil.
-Former Saudi Oil Minister Sheikh Yamani,
Not really correct, however. “The oil age may come to end, because of low oil prices,” would be a much more correct statement.
“a smooth regression is hard to imagine”
What’s that saying? The higher they climb the harder they fall?
The author is back to the “soaring oil prices” scenario–clearly someone who follows “peak oil” theory.
He does show three different situations with cutbacks in oil supply (two of them related to the collapse of the Soviet Union) and differing responses to them.
“Saudi Arabia plans to cut its August crude oil exports by 600,000 bpd, according to an industry source from the Kingdom who spoke to Reuters.”
https://www.rt.com/business/396121-saudi-arabia-production-cut/
What are they trying to tell us?
That we better ram more straws into the shale shake… because Ghawar has peaked….
Not sure. Can’t pump more? Hope to raise prices? Trying to offset rise in Libyan oil production?
I ran into another article that may relate to this:
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/The-Technical-Failure-That-Could-Clear-The-Oil-Glut-In-A-Matter-Of-Weeks.html
Apparently Saudi Arabia is having difficulty in its Manifa field (normally 900,000 barrels per day), and needs to cut back production for repairs. This may be contributing to the cutback as well.
‘having difficulty in its Manifa field’ = the Manifa field has peaked so production is now dropping?
Fortunately I resisted the urgings of a good mate to buy buy buy these a month back…
http://wolfstreet.com/2017/07/11/what-is-going-on-with-crypto-currencies-collapse/
good call…
Ponzi schemes like “digital currencies” only pay when a person gets in early…
has there ever been a greater waste of computing power than the “mining” of Bitcoins?
“has there ever been a greater waste of
computingpower than the “mining” of Bitcoins?”It does seem perverse.
Good point!
Whole world economy exists to waste energy. Using energy to mine bitcoins isn’t different than using energy to produce food. If there is demand for energy, then the purpose isn’t important.
headbanging interlude here I think
it feels soooooo goooooood when i stop
You are correct. The Carbon Liberation Army.
These have been a bit harder to resist…
https://images.cdn.stuff.tv/sites/stuff.tv/files/brands/StuffSingapore/fidget-spinner-tri-spinning-stress-reducer-02.jpg
I am thinking that this gadget could be turned into a mini casino — I am thinking merging the roulette wheel concept with this thing…. it just needs and arrow and a bit of colour….
Halliburton Says Oil Will Spike in 2020 After $2 Trillion in Industry Cuts
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-12/halliburton-sees-2020-oil-spike-after-industry-cuts-2-trillion
Perhaps, there could be a price spike. More likely, we will have a serious financial problem even before then.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-07-12/news-content-free
http://www.oftwominds.com/photos2016/media-concentration2.jpg
http://tapnewswire.com/2015/10/six-je———-wish-companies-control-96-of-the-worlds-media/
New versions of old stories do indeed keep recycling.
I wouldn’t rule out another financial crisis, says IMF’s Lagarde
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/12/imf-lagarde-financial-crisis-janet-yellen.html
Either Yellen is right or Lagarde is right; wonder which one?
Either the way, they will still be under the belief that it can/will be saved, no matter how dire the situation, until the very end. That’s the human condition…
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5464/imageroot/2014/06/All%20Hands%20On%20Deck%20-%20Clean.jpg
Lagarde is at least sensible.
I’m surprised you remember that post, kulmthestatusquo! What you, worldofhanumanotg, and myself are doing is try to analyze what is actually happening, rather than what we wish to happen, or what we thought would happen.
What is actually happening is the reintroduction of feudalism before our very eyes. Makes sense, right? With a large supply of labor, reduced energy (at any price), and limited land, the system can’t grow, so instead what it is doing is locking in the gains for a few, and distributing the losses to everyone. There’s nothing you can do. The losses are continual. Even if you take a big hit now, further ones await down the line, 10, 20 years, etc.
That may well be true, if you’ve always been a cubicle-dwelling wage-slave, counting on an imminent retirement plan.
On the other hand, if you have some liquid assets, or are young and strong and not afraid of work, there are ways to collaborate with others to establish your own domain, which looks like a “fiefdom” from the outside, but which can be much more collaborative on the inside.
(Name-calling from derisive nay-sayers will be ignored.)
Actually, people use the term ‘feudalism’ too freely.
An important element in the European feudal structure was reciprocity, and also traditionally-held rights. Obviously these accumulated at the top, but they were distributed.
Rebellion generally ensued in the Middle Ages when those rights were deemed to have been ignored, or the rights of the lord exacted without regard to circumstances – ie extortionate taxes in times of famine, non-traditional taxes, etc.
droit de seigneur always seemed a good idea too
provided you were the seigneur of course
Droit de seigneur was balanced by noblesse obilge, as long as the nobles were obliging of course.
But on a serious note, European feudalism bound the lord of the manor and the village squire just as much as the servants and tenants and peasant farmers. It was harder at that time for a master to dismiss an unwanted worker than it is in these days in age of the pink slip.
Feudalism survived in parts of Central Europe as late as 1945 when the Soviets cleaned the landowners up.
However, after communism fell, some landowners reclaimed their lands. While they are not that harsh against their tenants for now, since the latter still have memories of communism, when the time comes the feudal landowners will show their true colors.
First person to present a plan that blocks out the radiation from Japan gets a paid internship at Jan’s Koombaya Permie Retreat.
I wonder if most of the spent fuel pools in Japan no longer require water to be circulated. I think only 4 plants have reopened since Fukushima, so supposing no new spent fuel rods have been added to most pools in the meantime, sufficient time may have passed for all the rods in those pools to be cool enough already.
Of course, a fire in even one pool would be the worst disaster in recorded history.
After a period of 5 years or so you can dry cask spent fuel… otherwise you need to keep it submerged in water at a specific temperature.
It cannot just be left in a pond without cooling.
For whatever reason most fuel is not being dry casked — perhaps the costs are astronomical?
Perhaps it’s also because it is understood that there is no way to keep BAU alive and shut down all nuclear plants — wait the 5 years – then dry cask it all… we need to keep shoveling in new fuel…
Quite the monster we have created —- sort of like the QE monster — insatiable….
I know of people–one working within the Admin on plant safety–who focus on decommissioning plants. I tell them it makes more sense to manage the plants much better than they are managed now, and to come up with a long term management plan even for when conditions get worse. But you’ve got to use what you’ve got (and not build more of the same).My contact was also quite taken with “cultivating” tardigrades to ensure some form of life after we’re all gone. I’ve never been able to figure out why.
Uhm… because they’re cute?
Spent fuel ponds cannot be decommissioned – I assume you are referring to nuclear power plants – you can decommission them — by moving the fuel rods to a spent fuel pond
Ah, tardigrades. Amazing little creatures! They should definitely survive us.
I have seen it coming from at least 15 years ago, but had mixed thoughts about it. I only became convinced after reading greyenlightenment’s blog (he is a bit more optimistic than me btw).
Something has to give. Given the history of Korea (and North Korea), where things just got worse and worse without improving, but the landowners always ending up ahead, I have lost hope on humanity.
Norman and Jan, I think we go with chamber pot.
Urine is the “low hanging fruit.” For genders with the more easily directed plumbing, it is dead simple to collect. Then mix it 1:9 with water and apply directly to growing plants, which need a lot of nitrogen.
If you heat with wood, you can save your ash! Make a slurry, stir well, filter through a bedsheet and add the resulting liquid with your urine and water in a 1:1:8 ratio for a nicely balanced 1:1:1 (N:P:K) liquid organic fertilizer. This could really save your ash if you can’t buy fertilizer any more.
Faeces is a bit more of a challenge. There are cheap and simple ways, and expensive high-tech ways. You can purchase “composting toilets” that do all the work for you, even using electric heat and microprocessors to optimally reduce your waste to soil. (Meh.)
Or, you can do it with two 20 litre (5 gallon) pails. Fill one with sawdust and put an old mug in it. Make the other wet inside so sawdust will stick, and “dust” the inside all over with sawdust, like you’d do with flour in a cake pan, and for the same reasons. Stick a toilet seat on top. After each use, hide the evidence with sawdust. Before it gets too full, take it out back and dump it into a box made of pallets. You’ll need two, because when you fill one, you need it to “work” for a year before putting it around your plants. That’s adequate to kill any pathogens.
Joe Jenkins has generously made The Humanure Handbook available to read for free, online, but if you’re into the topic, consider buying a paper copy to support him. It’s information-rich and humorous, too!
Talk talk talk…
Turn off the power and park the tractor — and do.
Then you are most welcome to come back and tell us about the experience of living without BAU.
I am — in all serious – interested to hear from someone who has done it.
http://womenonthefence.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Untitled-2.png
I know numerous people that compost their toilet activities here in NSW Australia. it is not hard.
A toilet over a wheelie bin. Once full replace with another wheelie bin and let the other compost for a year. You may need three bins which cost about $80 AUD each.
My partner uses a rotorbin composting toilet which does the same thing with six chambers in situ. Wormfarm toilets are even better as the worms break down the feces in days and the worm castings filter water flowing through the system. I am going to build one for myself as you can use them with flushing systems.
When I first came to dwell in Satoyama, many local people were still following the time-honored practice of scooping out the contents of the loo and spreading it — pong!. pathogens and all — around their tea bushes. This type of latrine is known as kumitori shiki : “the scooping up method.
And some people used it to make compost. There was an enzyme product available from the garden center that people would poor into the mix to speed up the conversion.
These days, we pay a company to vacuum up the smelly stuff and dispose of it, and then we pay again for nice clean fertilizer in plastic bags. It’s an incredible waste of resources that I doubt can continue much longer.
But I prefer the traditional Irish method of keeping a bucket of wood ash in the bog and sprinkling a shovel full on top after taking a dump, and later using the resulting slurry to enrich the soil of the veggie patch. I wonder if that practice had anything to do with causing the potato famine?
I doubt it. The potato famine was caused by a fungus called Phytophthera infestans, or “late blight,” which is commonplace, but requires fairly specific conditions to thrive: prolonged cool and damp in later summer when plants are mature.
It only attacks Solanaceae: potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant, etc. Our outdoor tomatoes were all destroyed by it last year, but the ones in the greenhouse had not a trace.
Tony Blair has owned up to causing the potato famine, although he still insists “we did the right thing in removing Saddam.” But I’m sure your right that the cool damp summer weather was a major factor.
https://mises.org/library/what-caused-irish-potato-famine
Incidentally, we had a cool and damp September and October in Japan last year, and since I rely on the sun to dry the rice, I lost 10% of the crop. The same thing happened in 1997, so my guess is that it’s linked to El Nino conditions.
Tim-
How much rice do you grow? Does it taste much better than the store bought stuff? There is actually a permaculture guy in the mountains of Vermont that grows rice.
Gail,
Do you have a sense for when renewable projects may become saturated or could be slowed by policy changes in the U.S.? In other words, a collapse in demand for renewable occurs because of the issues you have raised related to the grid, lack of tax revenues from utilities etc…? It is clear that companies like Google and Amazon are building infrastructure that makes them direct offtakers of wind/solar and tying it to the grid and the utility has to be losing revenue in the process, though I guess they still charge for transmission etc…It seems like once again, the U.S. consumer is going to be left paying all the bills as the cost has to be shifted to the remaining customers of the utility, correct?
Thanks for all you do!
Ryan
Since CBs are providing the financial lift and cover, so why should not the US enjoy electricity price spikes as well like some euro renewable countries, was it 2-3x in few yrs time ?
/sarc off
PS seriously it might indeed happen but only in some peculiar states like Cali
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here are after effects of demonetisation
1.5 million jobs lost in first four months of 2017
https://www.cmie.com/kommon/bin/sr.php?kall=warticle&dt=2017-07-11%2011:07:31&msec=46
https://www.cmie.com/kommon/bin/sr.php?kall=warticle&dt=2017-07-11%2011:07:31&msec=463
I can believe that. It is not the right thing to do.
so gail how brutal will be demonetisation for Indian economy
I don’t know. The whole world is encountering problems. They are more hidden in the USA than some other places. The problems of the rest of the world lead to a lack of market for exports of India’s products. Ultimately, all of these problems could lead to a worldwide collapse.
India’s government adopted the crazy plan because they thought that they could get more tax revenue. In fact, their taxation adds a new drain on the economy. It is thus part of the problem leading to contraction,
Other countries are looking in the same direction. I have even seen the idea suggested that a similar approach be used in the USA.
Those poor Indians thrown out of work are the guinea-pigs for the project, are they not?
now after new taxation system
decline of indian economy will even be faster
here one example
https://thewire.in/156627/surat-textile-traders-protest-gst/
‘Surge in renewable energy stalls world greenhouse gas emissions
Falling coal use in China and the US and a shift towards renewable energy globally saw energy emissions level for the second year running, says IEA
Wind power installations raced ahead in 2015, accounting for more than half of all new electricity generation worldwide.
Wind power installations raced ahead in 2015, accounting for more than half of all new electricity generation worldwide. Photograph: Bryn Lennon/Getty Images
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John Vidal
Thursday 17 March 2016 03.48 AEDT Last modified on Saturday 24 June 2017 07.13 AEST
Falling coal use in China and the US and a worldwide shift towards renewable energy have kept greenhouse gas emissions level for a second year running, one of the world’s leading energy analysts has said.
Preliminary data for 2015 from the International Energy Agency (IEA) showed that carbon dioxide emissions from the energy sector have levelled off at 32.1bn tonnes even as the global economy grew over 3% .
Electricity generated by renewable sources played a critical role, having accounted for around 90% of new electricity generation in 2015. Wind power produced more than half of all new electricity generation, said the IEA.
The figures are significant because they prove to traditionally sceptical treasuries that it is possible to grow economies without increasing climate emissions.
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“The new figures confirm last year’s surprising but welcome news: we now have seen two straight years of greenhouse gas emissions decoupling’ frohttps://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/16/surge-in-renewable-energy-stalls-world-greenhouse-gas-emissionsm economic growth. After reading this article from one year ago it provides evidence for the fast collapse scenario unless the alleged elites can pull another rabbit out of their hat. According to the article and the accompanying graph in the article for two years emissions have not grown this leads me to ascertain that the world’s peak energy output has arrived and we are not far from E.L.E
Mauna Loa data is showing and will continue to show that CO2 concentrations are NOT stabilizing. https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
They had better go back to their drawing (BS) board, because all they are proving is that wind and solar power are continuing to increase atmospheric CO2 concentrations.
I let this climate change comment through, because this is an important point. People compute estimates of how the amount of new CO2 being added is stabilizing, but this calculation is only a small piece of the total. Land use and emissions by animals are part of the problem, and of course new emissions pile up on top of old emissions.
What we are doing at this point is not enough to make any perceptible change in actual CO2 buildup.
I think it’s unfair to blame animals (apart from man) for increases in CO2 in the atmosphere.
Cow eats grass -> Methane is released into atmosphere as byproduct of digestion -> Methane oxidises into CO2 (half life 7 years) -> More grass grows absorbing CO2 as it does so
The process is cyclic, with the duration of the cycle being many orders of magnitude less than that involving the burning of fossil fuels.
“Land use and emissions by animals are part of the problem”
But these are overwhelmingly from animals we’ve domesticated, that wouldn’t exist in such numbers in the wild.
Right. We should be cutting way back on meat consumption.
Right. The root cause is overpopulation. Secondary causes result from supporting and growing the 7.5 billion humans, that’s includes the burning of FF,s deforestation and all supporting domestic animals and “renewable” power devices…..plus of course much more.
This one deserves letting through – always?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2011/07/27/new-nasa-data-blow-gaping-hold-in-global-warming-alarmism/#51e8931a5f23
Paging Van Kents Survivalist School,
bärplockare or by hand? Maybe depends on amount of berries, not too rich at the moment.
What is the level (liters and hours) for beginner, intermediate and thai pro?
Children make the best berry pickers. Their hands are the right size for it.
I take it that you favour picking by hand over using contraptions.
You mean contraceptives?
If you use only contraptions you don’t need contraceptives!
🙂
Yes, for blueberries and brambles you have totally ripe berries in the same cluster as hard green berries. For cranberry, currants, gooseberry and lingonberry it may be good idea. Still its best to leave the picking to children if you are fortunate enough to have them.
Thank you. Blueberries and lingon berries for me. Son shows promise becoming a berry picker.
Never leave children unattended post BAU…. they make good eating…
Price of material goods decline, but the prices of rents, education, health care, insurance, licenses and fees, taxes, and other intangible goods rise.
Basically, the landowners can name their rent now, and there are plenty of buyers from overseas who will pay exorbitant prices for houses where they won’t reside.
It doesn’t matter whether prices decline subsequently. No government is going to allow a general collapse of real estate prices, so they will be propped up with public money.
The bifurcation of economy is complete. More and more properties of the poorer people will go to the rich owners of capital, who will reintroduce feudalism.
The Game of Thrones will look like a vision of paradise to those who might survive the crunch.
kulmthestatusquo ,
I hope you’ll stick with this awhile. Nobody at all understands that land-as-real estate, and how it is configured, planned and zoned determines the state of civilization. Your post seems more to the point than I’m aware of seeing elsewhere.
I’m still not quite clear how or why the price of material goods decline, and how or why the government props up real estate prices. Can you go over it a bit more slowly?
Prices of assets (like real estate and shares of stock, bonds that have been issued) tend to be affected by interest rates. The lowered the interest rate, the higher the asset price.
The price of commodities, including energy prices, tend to be affected be the wages of non-elite workers–in other words, the wages of the 90%. Once theses fall too low, much of the population has trouble affording homes and cars. These are things that require the use of commodities to make and run. So these prices tend to fall. These low prices will ultimately lead to huge problems.
Not quite, the problem Kulm is perhaps aiming at is well known from recent or more distant history. Namely, the landowner or in general the systemic global ownership might prefer large parts of the real estate remain to be vacant, and actually even eat the losses on non existent maintenance, i.e. rather let it rot then allow affordable rent level seekers to win this battle..
Sorry, we are from the humanoid planet after all, in the final analysis this is not logical or mathematical inquiry, this “is about winning” at all cost, be it completely empty and futile exercise in the end, as we know humanoids are absolutely psychotic in terms of urge to control and power over their own.
If you went to Las Vegas long time ago, there were quite a lot of empty slots in prime real estates. They were the land Howard Hughes owned, which he just let it sit during his lifetime.
https://www.reviewjournal.com/business/las-vegas-boulevard-parcels-left-out-of-land-buying-boom/
Even now some lands in Las Vegas Blvd (“The Strip” are empty. And there are quite a few unfinished hotels there. The Cosmopolitan Hotel was taken by Deutsche bank, which became the casino’s owner. The Bank sold it to Blackstone, one of the worst landowners out there.
Sorry, too much money is running around, and they are going after real estate in any decent location. And the owners of such properties do not have to worry about carrying costs which they can pay with profits from their other holdings.
There is also something called Supply and Demand. Supply of real estate in prime locations will always be limited.
The price of commodities can be affected by the wages of non-elite workers, but the price of intangibles won’t be. As long as there is someone who can pay, the prices won’t be lowered.
The links I gave to Artleads above will help. The prices of real estate and intangibles (insurance, govt fees, education,health care, etc) have been completely divorced from commodities.
Too much money ,trillions of dollars released during the QEs and others, are held by a few people who will keep the prices up beyond the reach of ordinary people, who will be reduced to the level of peons. Nothing can stop it unless their money is revoked, and fat chance of that happening.
See these
http://greyenlightenment.com/bifurcated-inflation-gains-traction/
http://greyenlightenment.com/the-collapse-of-capitalism-can-wait/
Material good prices decline because there are so much of it and cost of production gets lower, and also by demand destruction by Gail’s argument.
However, real estate prices can be propped up by zoning. A very good example is the English state/shire/whatever of Kent, next door to London. Its landowners were adamantly opposed against building cheaper housing because it would depress property values there, and because it is around the region of Dover (the port to the Continent), the landowners tended to be some of England’s oldest, most influential families with heavy Norman concentration. The landowners won, and many of London’s residents now live in appalling conditions as seen in the recent Grenfell Tower fire.
Also, prices can’t fall as long as no one sells it. Dolph once said about the price of stocks – it is like an antique which has a price tag of $1 million in a store with mostly cheaper items, which will never sell but will always be part of the asset of the store. Bankers and others who have interest on real estate prices not falling will buy distressed properties for cash, and real estate prices stay high.
Like the bankers being bailed out, owners of real estates who will take a hit will lobby the congress and local govts, who will enact measures to protect them. Such largesse won’t extend to small holders, whose properties will be gobbled up by well-financed buyers who will never sell them for loss, and will raze the houses rather than realize the loss.
There is no way to check the landowners, who will get feudal power. No matter how much tech can develop, they can’t make land so the landowners will have the last laugh.
Perhaps. But a lot of land goes to growing crops. When crop prices drop (persistently, for many types of crops), their drop affects the price of agricultural land.
And when retail sales start going to Amazon, the number of stores that need space in malls is reduced. So the rent that the malls can charge falls. Eventually, the resale price of malls falls.
And if commodity prices are low enough, new buildings can be built on the outskirts of towns where old buildings are located. Because oil is one of the cheap commodities, some people will choose to move to the new cheap buildings. This tends to bring prices of older buildings down. So eventually, things even out, probably in the direction of low prices.
Who owns the lands growing crops? Huge , huge agricorps which can , and will, be bailed out by the govt if they have it too badly.
The malls will be bought by investors, who will convert them to profitable ways, or just will let it sit dormantly. Eventually somebody will want the spot.
The chief point is “Who owns that land”. Sorry, if no landowner is willing to sell the land in the outskirts, nothing gets built, just as what I described to above regarding the land situation in Kent, England.
And, last, it is like the Great Depression, where the price of an apple was, say 3 cents but most people could not afford even a cent. Even if the prices decline, which I judge is unlikely, it will be out of what most people can afford.
I don’t know if this will hold up, but the thought occurred to me today–Chairman Mao: “There’s no thinking that isn’t class thinking.” To which I added, “There is no class thinking that isn’t land use thinking.” I note that land distribution is part of every leftist revolution. There’s one small enclave of Mao’s system still left in China. Housing and food are free.
I wasn’t aware of that — what’s it called – Utopia?
Where is it?
Haven’t seen all (or any other of) the episodes, and saw the Mao enclave story toward the end of the one I saw on PBS last evening. I saw it in passing. Not sure what episode it was. it wasn’t presented as being utopia. The presenter had little sympathy for Mao.
https://search.aol.com/aol/video?q=James+Woods%2C+the+story+of+china&s_it=video-ans&sfVid=true&videoId=07F86D621777F46235BC07F86D621777F46235BC&v_t=webmail-hawaii1-basicaol
My wife was recently in China on business and a person in her group was pestering one of the main persons from China to help them obtain a traditional Chinese cap like they had seen in old movies for a souvenir. A few days later one of the Chinese dignitaries obtained one of these hats and gave it to the American requesting it, but specified that they must not wear in while in China. Later Chinese Translator they had brought with them for the states explained that this traditional hat they wanted was considered a “Landlord Hat” in China and had very bad historical connotations because every few generations the Landlords tried to take advantage of the people and the people had to rise up and kill all the Landlords.
And, the people were in turn killed by the landlords’ private armies. The one time that did not happen was 1949, but some landlords did flee to Taiwan and HK where they still live very well.
Interesting!
“As long as wages remain sticky and physical goods get cheaper, the necessary spending to cover the shortfall will have to come from services. In the smartist era, tuition and preschool will keep going up as parents look for anyway to give their children an edge in today’s hyper-competitive economic environment.”
The subject is too unfamiliar for me to understand it well. A shame, since one is very limited without such understanding. I guess I’ll have to continue making blind leaps and guesses and hope some of it gets close to the mark. Some areas where I think an emerging new core of TPTB might support could include:
– social order
– focus on the homeless and the poor
– very strategic and nuanced limits on privilege
– support for women
– land use reform
There might be a much smarter list, but I start with those (giving a couple examples) since they’re staying with me despite the ongoing learning curve OFW demands. To have social order, you tend to need the other four issues dealt with.
Focusing on the homeless and the poor seems like a way to turn a liability into an asset. The poor need to get money to spend, and they spend it far more readily than the rich. Maybe it’s my inner Mao surfacing, but I find it hard to like all the light pretty clothing in the mall, with their infinite variations in design. Relative to the vast inventory, few shoppers visit. Online shopping also is at odds with this model of business. But the homeless and the poor can’t buy the frilly pretty stuff or buy online. They seem more suited to a program of triage. I can imagine stores developing a program–like those Macy’s bargain basements of old combined with those travelling salesman jobs of even longer ago.
– Assure the homeless have shelter and enough money to buy a line of basic, no-frills goods that stores set aside for the program. They can visit the store or a store contract rep can visit them with catalogs for them to order from.
– As Gail implies, the poor are stuck where they are, with no transportation, so work needs to happen where they live and where their mobility is limited.
– Their work will feed back into the system that hosts and sells to them. Hosts as in malls reconfiguring exterior walls with long rows of shelter.
The other issues could tend to be consistent with the above.
The Romans tried focusing ‘homeless and the poor’. Which was called “bread and circus”. The invading Germans promptly put an end to it, since these people did not help the Germans to rule. Pop of Rome fell to 50k, which did not recover until Mussolini.
I think that something akin to the Irish famine of 1847 or the Bengal famine of 1943, a blatant ‘cleanup’ of the poorer people by pricing them out of sustenance.
Sorry, resources are limited, and something have to give.
I’m leaning on Gail’s point that the raising of the income of the poor helps to promote demand. I thought this would be on the half of the spectrum that extended BAU rather than on the half that brought it down.. My understanding of it is that if you kill off the poor, you lose their potential to spend.
“Sorry, resources are limited, and something have to give.:
Again, Gail repeats that it’s not so much the scarcity of resources that is the problem, but that they are too costly to extract. But if you raise the ability to buy through higher remuneration, you make the needed extraction more affordable to effect.
If there aren’t enough resources to go around, there are really two ways the problem can be solved:
(1) Some subgroup (the poor) is discriminated against, and the well to do can continue, despite the shortage of resources.
(2) Resources can be shared equally. This might allow demand to rise and more resources to be extracted, for a while. Ultimately, though, the problem will be that there is still not enough to go around. If the inadequate amount is shared equally, everyone will die off.
Nature’s approach is (1). It is “Survival of the best-adapted.” Parts of the world keep going through bottlenecks of some type or other. The only solution, other than complete die-off, is survival of the best-adapted.
It’s called Primark: dirt cheap clothes from China.
That’s the only reason the British unemployed and lower-tier workers aren’t in rags and barefoot as some of them were 100 years ago (or even more recently).
The top-tier clothiers are discounting frantically at the moment: I can, for instance, buy a £500 tailored wool jacket for £195, and this is not just end-of-season/line discounting.
This says something about the British upper-middle-class economy which isn’t very encouraging!
I’ve noticed offers becoming ever-more frequent and generous over the last year or two. Of course, one has to be on the regular mailing list.
“It’s called Primark: dirt cheap clothes from China.”
But isn’t it also that locally made clothes that cost more are not affordable to people who are being paid too little? it also seems to be a chicken and egg situation. Gail has also hinted that there is productive debt as opposed to destructive. Wouldn’t incurring debt to pay people more so they can buy higher priced items (and thus enable production) not be in the annals of productive debt?
In some sense, all debt is productive, because it enables our whole chain of goods and services buying and selling to continue.
Part of debt makes its way into wages. If all of the debt made its way back into wages (particularly of the 90%), we would be a whole lot better off. But to get debt back to the wages of the 90%, we would have to get rid of making capital goods. This would turn the idea of productive debt on its head. Most people think of productive debt as “the making of capital goods.” Productive debt is really debt to start coal mines and to gather wood from forests with nothing but the simplest tools and lots of human labor (if we could really add a lot of cheap to extract energy resources this way).
“Productive debt is really debt to start coal mines and to gather wood from forests with nothing but the simplest tools and lots of human labor (if we could really add a lot of cheap to extract energy resources this way)”
I tend not to see these things as problems, although I have a fathoms-deep deficit of realism in my thinking. So whatever i say is mostly theory and hypothesis. Things don’t happen according to my simplistic projections.
Coal Mining:
Without making a major focus in life, requiring me to learn things I don’t want to learn, I’m hoping to stumble onto a simple way to extract and burn coal. If there is (a growing) segment of population that is discarded from BAU, and no money to buy complex technology to scale up and industrialize coal production, then there’s the option for “nothing but the simplest tools and lots of human labor” to be used in the process.
That means you scrounge around for some heavy metal vessel that I guess you put coal in and light a wood fire under to burn the coal. I understand that this could produce steam that is used to created desired forms of movement. With strategic thinking, getting a lot of pick axes and shovels to dig up low-quality, near-surface coal shouldn’t be that hard. Coal like that might be usable for blacksmithing or producing a spotty supply of electricity for a small village. .Then reality will step in and take over from there.
Gathering Wood:
My village is located in a narrow valley sandwiched by “mesa” hillsides. The hills are overcrowded with small conifers owing to the stoppage of traditional cattle grazing there in previous times. That overgrowth, apparently, poses a fire danger to the village. Many years worth of fire wood is to be had through lots of people routinely harvesting wood from those trees. And while not all settled places are ideal for growing wood-to-be-harvested, some that are could trade what they grow for something that they need. There is endless area–like along freeways and rail right of ways, etc. to grow harvestable wood. In theory, it should be possible to create a rational system of wood production using the simplest of tools with lots of human labor. In actuality–politically, socially, culturally, psychologically, ecologically–it’s beyond difficult.
Dig a hole 1 metre deep in your backyard — wait a day or so ….
Coal mines flood… there will be no coal available post BAU….
Support for Women
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/7/14/new_gop_healthcare_bill_still_a
– Since women comprise the largest demographic block they could use the ruined but still functioning mechanism of voting to make a desired change.
– I have an opinion as to what the single strategic women’s issue to create a desired change should be.
– The “noise” and confusion in our system provide too many distractions and demands for enabling a clear and strategic single-issue focus to be achieved (it seems).
– The single issue I’m considering makes a difference whether we increase or decrease order and stability within BAU.
– Achieving that issue goal would seem to make no difference to the million other pressing crises in society, but I think that is deceptive. If you try to get everything, you end up getting nothing. if you can get just one win that is strategic, you tend to have the opposite result owing to an inevitable domino effect).
– The strategic issue that a movement or a voting campaign might best single mindedly focus on is the full restoration of abortion rights in all places where they have been removed or compromised, and in keeping with the spirit and legal requirement of Roe v Wade SCOTUS ruling of 1973.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade.
A Female Approach to Commercial Revitalization
“The bottom line is that we need our economic development approaches to focus more on cultivation, or adding to what is already there, and less on replacement. There are many reasons why. The wholesale displacement approach to commercial revitalization depresses local wealth creation because it calls for out-of-town developers, big money, and national chains. (On a side note, I am not sure why communities encourage outside development so heavily, because out-of-town owners are consistently listed as a primary obstacle to renewal in cities and towns of all sizes.) On the other hand, fertilizing what exists is affordable, it encourages local ownership, helps foster local wealth creation, and creates opportunity for a wider assortment of entrepreneurs through incremental improvements. As you can imagine, I am a big fan of the “improve what you have” approach, even if it seems messier, and requires a new toolkit, and doesn’t always come with a deal plaque!”
\https://www.planetizen.com/node/93722/female-approach-commercial-revitalization
It sounds so… koombaya!
http://www.abc.net.au/news/image/3980674-3×4-700×933.jpg
“It sounds so… koombaya!”
It is. The article is also ambiguous. a) It identifies an approach to business development (linked to land use planning) that I think actually improves on the business model of current BAU and could extend BAU, b) It talks about a glowing “koombaya” future that doesn’t get at anything like radiation, scarcity, pandemic or war. So these people are still living in another world, which is to be expected. How would you suggest they be educated? But most of the world is also in wonderland where it comes to female anything. It’s still a completely man’s world. Margaret Thatcher, Barack Obama: what do they have to do with anything? More is happening in the worlds of planning and business development.
Thank you for this, very enlightening.
Bad News for Automakers: The Average US Household Can’t Afford a New Car
https://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2017/06/28/Bad-News-Automakers-Average-US-Household-Cant-Afford-New-Car
but can’t they afford electric bikes?
though I love my car… a fine stereo system on wheels…
great heat in the winter and AC in the summer…
and just think…
future generations will never get to experience “new car smell”…
Cars are the most amazing machines. If we could only keep them going long term (very big IF) that could solve many pressing problems.
Cars are not worth much without a destination: grocery store, work, dinner, stores. It isn’t just cars by themselves that do much. You have to have the whole system running to make cars a worthwhile purchase.
Roads will be unusable soon after BAU goes down
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/10/10/article-2452333-18A6B7B600000578-777_634x510.jpg
Alas we will not be around to see this — due to the famine and radiation double whammy
no no no…
cars are great IF they are easily affordable…
not so easy for many persons…
but really…
turn up the volume on Yes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fUudna1Xuw
and drive anywhere…
just be careful not to press down too hard on the gas pedal…!!!!!!!
The DelusiSTANIS must be in breeding season … we need to order more rat poison
the journey burns energy
the destination is the means by which that energy is —hopefully–replenished.
if it isn’t then the journey has been one of recreation and nothing more
which–if you think about it is why interplanetary travel is ultimately pointless
Recall the Singapore Air campaign – The JOURNEY is the Destination …
http://newnation.sg/wp-content/uploads/sq-girls.jpg
they look as if they are part of your personal retinue
I am working on a follow up campaign — trying to work in the term harem….
Speaking of airlines…. I had a minor run in with the groundling supervisor of my usual airline the other day — had to do with not allowing a family of Indian people to pre board with their granny who needed help (humiliating them) — then allowing a family of 4 whiteys with a baby to pre board as a group no questions asked and with big smiles all around … (policy is one member of a family is allowed to assist)
Being the way I am I had to beckon the groundling over and calmly ask her to explain her behaviour…
The groundling had the temerity to insist that she had been consistent (and not racist) and argue the point with me — I told her that I would not bother to waste medicine on her and would instead deal with her by sending a few targeted emails when I landed.
I do burn a fair bit of fuel with this airline and they understand that I am doing my part to keep BAU alive — so I expect they will be sensitive to my complaint ….
I doubt this will end well for this vile groundling…
Imagine what this sort of situation looks like post BAU when the veneer of civilization is scraped off…. stay close to your tribe.
Publix follows the rule on returns of items–the customer is always right. No receipt is needed. It seems like airlines could come up with a similar plan to help families obviously needing assistance.
Even without a destination, cars are the “the most amazing machines!” I was responding to what David F said about AC and heat. Cars anywhere that have those things and working motors and a source of petrol. I can see there not being destinations for the cars, or roads to travel on. I don’t expect to see new cars being sold ultimately. But heating, cooling and Norm’s rotary motion in existing cars ought to be good for something. Petrol, spare parts and maintenance would be huge challenges, though. As always, not something for after BAU. I understand that there is no after BAU.
I’m more partial to automatic watches, myself. I have one I haven’t would (nor put a battery in, of course) for years.
Especially anything built since the 90s, which likely has a computer controlling everything. I can rebuild a carburetor or even an injection pump, but a computerized injection control board is landfill material when it quits, and the replacement (if it can be had) is $600 to $1,000.
A seed is an amazing thing. A car, not so much.
“A seed is an amazing thing. A car, not so much.”
Greg, you’re showing me up. I’m far more attached to things–especially things built through civilization–than I am to anything natural. Confession of a shut-in. I don’t oppose nature or try to destroy it; it’s just somewhat alien, and seems to get along quite well without me.
Me too! Confessions of a technohaulic.
But I fight it daily, knowing deep within that a couple hundred years of fossil-sunlight-fueled technological advancement is nowhere near as wondrous as the 3,500,000,000 years of development that has gone on in nature.
Mainly, I fight it by being in nature, rather than watching it on TV or YouselessTube or out the window, even. I feel more wonder while listening to birds sing while milking a goat than I do at the complexity of a car or a wristwatch. I get more of a sense of profound wonder seeing seedlings pop out of the ground than I do seeing “likes” pop up on FacePlant. I get more delight picking a fresh goldenberry than I do picking out a new tek toy on Shamazon.
Yet, I did buy a new camera this year. But it was the first in over a decade. Forgive me mother, for I have sinned… 🙂
You do understand that farming is not a natural state of living any more than working in an office tower is?
I suspect that you don’t — and never will.
I can imagine the hunter gatherers cursing their associates who settled down in one place and planted seeds….
I bet they called them pansies…
But the joke was on them as societies based on farming eventually overwhelmed them…
Just as industrial societies overwhelmed agrarian ones in more recent years.
I’m more partial to automatic watches, myself.
I would have thought you preferred a sundial.
Or one of these:
https://previews.123rf.com/images/dimol/dimol1103/dimol110300038/9091580-Hourglass-isolated-on-white-background-Stock-Photo-hourglass-clock-sand.jpg
They don’t seem to fit my wrist as well as my 35 jewel Invicta Automatic Chronograph.
I just read that Illinois is not repairing any roads except toll roads…
that bankrupt state can’t afford to do repairs…
that sure isn’t BAU…
I’m sure they don’t realize how lucky they are.
“future generations will never get to experience “new car smell”…” – ahh but future generations will be able to see a lot more stars in the sky without all the light pollution.
Yeah, what’s left of them after the crash.
MALTHUS WAS AN OPTIMIST
A person making a minimum wage has a very hard time finding affordable transportation to work. THere is little public transport in the United States. Even a used car is likely to be unaffordable. Bicycles work in a few places, bit not in many others. I expect that this is a bid part of the problem filling jobs.
https://gfycat.com/UntidyNauticalCockerspaniel
Cliffhanger-
Personally, I think I’d be able to react faster to the bear than the floppy boobs.
In the Daily Express today. Clearly it is normal people with a normal “morality” that are doing untold damage to the planet. Ironically the Express on the same day did an article about nationalists with “SCUM” in the headline, but are they wiping out most species? Laughably the Express attributes this destruction to “especially the rich” as if it is not humans qua humans who are over-breeding and wiping out the planet. There seems to be a lot of denial going on here, even as they state the bare facts.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/nature/827266/Mass-extinction-events-Earth-sixth-human-population-endangered-species
Sixth MASS EXTINCTION warning: HUMANS threatening near total wipe out of Earth’s creatures
LIFE ON EARTH is facing mass extinction – and this time it is humans rather than asteroids threatening near total wipe out of the planet’s creatures.
Mankind’s unbridled population growth and ever increasing demand for resources has already begun the countdown for the type of biological annihilation that saw the dinosaurs vanish 65 million years ago.
Five times over the past 540 million years, Earth has experienced destructive forces that have seen so-called biotic crises with a huge kill off of living creatures and plants.
A new report published today warns that “biological annihilation” is already underway with as many as half the number of individual animals that once shared the planet lost.
It also warns that we have 20 years to save the world.
The frightening spectre of the end of life as we know it is revealed in a new study published in the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences journal and follows the work of experts at Stanford and Mexico City universities.
Headlines about the impending loss of the planet’s megafauna break on a daily basis with the wholesale slaughter of elephants, rhinos and giraffes for the illegal wildlife trade, but the overview for huge numbers of living things is equally dismal.
Over the last two million years, an average of two species every 100 years would extinct.
Today, two species are vanishing every year.
By studying the population declines of 27,600 land vertebrates and, in particular 177 mammal species, the scientists say they can show the “extremely high degree of population decay in vertebrates, even in common species of low concern”.
The report emphasises the so-called anthropogenic – man-made – damage suffered by the creatures, explaining: “In the last few decades, habitat loss, overexploitation, invasive organisms, pollution, toxification, and more recently climate disruption, as well as the interactions among these factors, have led to the catastrophic declines in both the numbers and sizes of populations of both common and rare vertebrate species.”
But it later adds: “Much less frequently mentioned are, however, the ultimate drivers of those immediate causes of biotic destruction, namely, human overpopulation and continued population growth, and overconsumption, especially by the rich.”
To highlight the plight of vanishing creatures, the scientists point to the dwindling numbers of iconic creatures, revealing how there are now only 7,000 cheetahs and 97,000 giraffes left and that the African lion population has crashed by 43 per cent.
I’m afraid that may have been true in the 70s, but no longer.
Besides, it is not our job to “save the world.” It will go on without us. There may be new and wonderful adaptations post-extinction!
Perhaps Jan but there will never again be a big brained ape to wonder and ponder, pillage and plunder, blunder and founder. Because of the looming near total destruction of life and ecosystems, a self aware, intelligent (that’s debatable) species will almost certainly turn to have been a one shot roll.
And I read on NBL, however true or false, that the planet, before the sun consumes it, doesn’t have the evolutionary time to repeat that miracle. I doubt that the world will go on without us. It could instead easily “go Venus,” to use Guy McPherson’s term.
I’m not so sure. We have at least a couple billion years before the Sun starts its terminal expansion. Modern humans evolved in the past 200,000 years, proto-humans over a few million years.
There are candidate species that will never have a chance, as long as we are around. Think bonobos, cetaceans, canids. In the case of cetaceans (at least) we don’t even have a way of telling how “self aware, intelligent” they may be. How do you know there aren’t orcas that have memorized the stars for navigation, that imagine other worlds circling those stars, that “wonder and ponder” at the beauty of it all, much as we do?
Plus, any proto-sentient species that may be out there has us as a warning signal. Perhaps the remains of our bronze statuary — around for millions of years, according to Alan Weisman — will inspire future sentients to slow down and take it easy. Humans have done stupid things just because they could.
The Sun is halfway through its evolution. For the first couple of billion years it was uninhabitable and due to its gradual brightening, higher forms of life have up to half a billion years of inhabitable planet remaining. In the past the Sun was much cooler and in the future it will be much hotter. The Earth got lucky by occupying the sweet spot within the narrow habitable zone. As the Sun brightens it gets moved out of it.
If conditions of our own making send over 7.5B humans to extinction, there is absolutely no chance a happy group of bonobos (or any higher life form) will remain to evolve into a new kind of us. Jan there will be practically nothing left alive if all humans go extinct, including the oceans which will likely turn anoxic. Time will no longer be on the side of life on Earth. There are quite a few books to read on the subject and none of them are optimistic in regards to long term evolution.
I try not to use words like “absolutely.” They generally come back to bite me in the butt.
I don’t believe the science is sound enough to make absolutist statements about future evolution. I’m almost certain, though, that if there were sentient dinosaurs 65,000,000 years ago, they would not have predicted our evolution!
Making predictions is hard, especially about the future. — Yogi Berra
4000+ spent fuel ponds = 56M Hiroshimas worth of radiation ….
Hard to imagine anything surviving that.
Humans… hmmmph….
At this time of year, my back garden and the surrounding countryside is full of lizards, frogs, snakes and land crabs. I have be careful where I walk to avoid stepping on them.
I don’t see many mammals because most are nocturnal. But there are mice, moles, rabbits, stoats, badgers, raccoon dogs, deer, boar and the occasional roving fox and black bear in the nearby woods and a troop of macaques just a few kilometers down the road.
Not all of these creatures are in balance with their environment all the time, but they are well adapted and fit into the whole scheme very well, so they have what it takes to survive. The take and pass the Fast Eddy test on an everyday basis.
If humans are interested in sticking around long term, they will need to pass the Fast Eddy test too. Our current lifestyles in the developed world are so completely incompatible with sustainable living that when we are forced to sit the test, most of us will receive an “Epic Fail” grade and the only prizes we are likely to get will be Darwin Awards. I suspect we will go down to extinction fairly soon and take our close cousins the chimps and gorillas and orangs with us, but the macaques and the baboons and the lemurs will carry on the primate line long after we’re gone.
i want to ask ofw
what is economic situation of the elders favourite country called Israel
http://imgur.com/a/ySRdK
Third World Person…
simple….
https://youtu.be/zG42VMJdaTU
Enjoy The Trump Show While Wall Street Pillages The Country
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/07/lee-camp-enjoy-trump-show-wall-street-pillages-country.html
“Trump put Goldman Sachs in charge of the economy, just like Obama did,” among other things.
that why i say trump is same as Obama and bush
Wow, I love it when this happens! We are saved! It was so obvious…nuclear power will magically fix all wrongs like it did last time it was ballyhooed….remember power too cheap to meter….the ‘they’ people have arrived at last as in ‘they will think of something’!
Free-market economy is a misnomer…its a free-for-all economy and like the yeast that we are, it was always going to end thus!
Cynicism is the mark of the intellectually incoherent. Nuclear power has saved literally millions of lives and cost probably less than 100 lives in all the nuclear accidents combined.
Yes “they” will think of something. Do you believe that no technological progress has ever been achieved?
Actually the socialist model is the “free for all”, capitalism and freedom require energy, initiative, innovation, responsibility, ambition and work. You will find very little of that in your economy’s based on “wealth redistribution “.
As for yeast, speak for yourself.
Don’t look in the rear vision mirror, the consequences of past fixes are gaining fast. Nuclear power, antibiotics, zero interest rates, fracking, etc.. all predicated on short term thinking. Nature grinds slowly, but ever so finely. We are about to be ground out, you included.
If you come here to comment then at least have the intelligence to review what has already been covered. Your shallow comment deserves no respect, and will get none here. Go back to your techno-fantasy world while you still can.
“Cynicism is the mark of the intellectually incoherent.”
Not true, but I’m pretty sure idealism is the mark of the perpetually clueless!
Actually I envy him his certainty…those were the days huh!
If I recall correctly, there are 50 countries with temporary storage of nuclear waste all waiting for the fix.
The truth is, in the end nuclear power will cost us the planet. That’s some progress from slash and burn huh. Must be great living in a silo.
According to George Carlin, “Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist.”
I think there’s something in that. Also, inside every idealistic person, there is an embryonic cynic just waiting for an appointment with disappointment.
According to Lily Tomlin, “No matter how cynical you get, you just can’t keep up.”
both good quotes 🙂
Well, thanks for the comedy factor supplement. Since, the only state in the world operating commercial grade next gen nuclear reactor (not thorium but mox fuel based) was socialist, they just refined it and make it bigger under quasi capitalism delays..
That depends a whole lot on who is doing the counting, no?
By studying infant mortality rates before and after, and during 10 half-lives of I-131, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine Professor of Epidemiology Dr. Ernest Sternglass claims that 400 “excess infant deaths” occurred during Three Mile Island. A report released by the stodgy New York Academy of Science claims that, over a 50-year period, 900,000 “excess” deaths will have occurred due to Chernobyl.
I’m not saying they’re right and you’re wrong, but I do suspect that you and these scientists are probably the far outliers, and the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
This is really cool — it is a simulation of the spread of radiation released by Fukushima — which did not involve spent fuel ponds
Now imagine what 50+ fuel ponds and reactors going critical would look like….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=109&v=j7UQXfN-J4E
This is the airborne version
http://en.es-static.us/upl/2014/02/fukushima-plume-2.jpg
Really sucks to be in the direct path of ocean currents and the jet stream coming from Japan…
http://www.naturalhealth365.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/danger-radiation-sign.jpg
Yep, fisheries from that quadrant have been on the sale for some time, go figure.
You ain’t see nothing… bbbbb baby …..
Fookasheeema alone has multiple fuel ponds — all remain intact….. when BAU goes.. the ponds fail … as do all ponds in Japan…
The fish arriving in BC will be glowing with radiation within days…..
Some of the pools did let go. They even admit it now.
Congrats on the 180 on your climetard POV
Can you point me to a reference for this…
This is the closest they came to letting go…
Japan’s chief cabinet secretary called it “the devil’s scenario.”
Two weeks after the 11 March 2011 earthquake and tsunami devastated the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, causing three nuclear reactors to melt down and release radioactive plumes, officials were bracing for even worse.
They feared that spent fuel stored in the reactor halls would catch fire and send radioactive smoke across a much wider swath of eastern Japan, including Tokyo.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/05/burning-reactor-fuel-could-have-worsened-fukushima-disaster
rogerbeesley
There are so many here that say it better than me but try and think about everything you do from an energy perspective. Now think about trying to provide it yourself.
Get your head around that and all the “isms” and “ists” start looking pretty ridiculous.
Discounting nuclear It is not cynicism – it is being realistic and having reasonable expectations.
Estimates of the number of deaths of Soviet personnel as a result of trying to seal up Chernoble are as high as 6000. Your number of only 100 deaths is silly.
https://pics.onsizzle.com/to-argue-with-a-person-who-has-renounced-the-use-4809203.png
My prediction is that nuclear power will be expanded beginning in the 2020s for a second bash at trying to reduce our FF dependency, and I also expect that IF thorium-based nuclear is feasible, it is bound to be deployed, even though it doesn’t solve our liquid fuel problems.
This may work out wonderfully well or on the other hand it may cost us the earth. But when our backs are up against the wall of net energy decline, renewables are proving themselves to be not up to the job,and the economically disenfranchised are rioting in the streets, we won’t hesitate to test the more obvious available options. We will grasp for anything that looks like a potential lifeline.
Whatever it takes!
In most of western countries the industry has been decimation mode for some time already. Who is going to staff the supposed turn around starting 2020s ?? The subcontractors (VVER1200 design) from Finland, Hungary? Maybe the South Koreans or Chinese with their own technology.. ? What currency or trade deals will be utilized? Apart from gen3+, will also the breeders (burning reprocessed old fuel) become eventually exportable item as well, running currently upto .8MWe, in the works above 1GWe.
Given the international geopolitical climate I rather doubt it, simply expect grid reliability getting much poorer in many western countries.
I read that the cost of constructing one nuclear plant, much less many, was prohibitive.
Yes, whatever it takes. Any ray of hope will be tried.
They’ll have to build 50 nuclear plants per year, for 50 years, just to replace 1 years supply of oil.
https://www.wired.com/images_blogs/photos/uncategorized/ncmo01_1.gif
https://cdn.meme.am/cache/instances/folder87/42890087.jpg
Ms. Tyverberg doesn’t mention nuclear power once in the entire article. This omission essentially renders her whole presentation meaningless. Fission energy based on thorium ( see THORIUM, Energy Cheaper than Coal; Robert Hargraves) could provide abundant cheap energy indefinitely, leaving carbon based fossil fuels available for manufacture of carbon based products.
She also seems to dismiss entirely the effects of political incompetence and corruption which is endemic in the non-western world and is increasingly becoming the norm even in the advanced nations. This corruption has a profound effect on economic outcomes.
In a functioning free market economy with limited (NOT powerless) govt., solutions will be found to even the most intractable problems.
What’s the net energy on that, Beesley? Thorium isn’t fissile, so I am getting pretty low for the whole system of extracting thorium for electricity. Is thorium going to power the trucks, too?
Read the book Barrows, although I warn you it is a lot of the course material used for Dr. Hargraves undergraduate course at Dartmouth College so you will need more than a 30 second attention span.
We do not need a complex nuclear solution. We need a drop in replacement for liquid fuels. You know the kind you can just light on fire and burn. If you have to take college courses just to understand how this new technology works, it is already a failure because it will not substitute for liquid fuels. Again, more complexity is the opposite of what we need.
I can agree with your first sentence. But I think what we “need” is an 80% reduction in energy use.
We might be able to stage this over some years, and it would have implications for infant mortality, longevity, and general welfare — which is why it will never happen. But that would be the only chance we’d have for all 7.5 billion of us to get through the coming bottleneck. Anything else is going to be really bad for a lot of people.
Agreed!
Reducing our energy use by 80% would mean living 40 years or so in the past, technology-wise. We’d all be typing at the Internet with Apple II computers! Wait, what? Internet?
Again, not gonna happen. Tainter taught us that civilizations have always addressed crises with increasing complexity, which then exacerbates the crisis.
But then, maybe just this once, things could be different? 🙂
Reducing our energy use by 80% would mean living 40 years or so in the past, technology-wise. We’d all be typing at the Internet with Apple II computers!
Actually, my current Mac Mini uses a lot less juice than the old Apple II did. And although the Internet is a huge consumer of electricity, how else would we able to instantaneously communicate with each other around the world about the need to reduce electricity consumption?
By the way, Mr. Heinberg is at it again! You think an 80% cut in energy use is radical. He’s pushing for a 90% “in the interests of a sustainable happy future”.
Our core realization was that scale is the biggest transition hurdle. This has implications that both Jacobson et al., and Clack et al. largely ignore. Jacobson’s plan, for example, envisions building 100,000 times more hydrogen production capacity than exists today. And the plan’s assumed hydro expansion would require 100 times the flow of the Mississippi River. If, instead, the United States were to aim for an energy system, say, a tenth the size of its current one, then the transition would be far easier to fund and design.
When we start our transition planning by assuming that future Americans will use as much energy as we do now (or even more of it in the case of economic growth), then we have set up conditions that are nearly impossible to design for. And crucially, that conclusion still holds if we add nuclear power (which is expensive and risky) or fossil fuels (which are rapidly depleting) to the mix. The only realistic energy future that David Fridley and I were able to envision is one in which people in currently industrialized countries use far less energy per capita, use it much more efficiently, and use it when it’s available rather than demanding 24/7/365 energy services. That would mean not doing a lot of things we are currently doing (e.g., traveling in commercial aircraft), doing them on a much smaller scale (e.g., getting used to living in smaller spaces and buying fewer consumer products—and ones built to be endlessly repaired), or doing them very differently (e.g., constructing buildings and roads with local natural materials).
If powerdown—that is, focusing at least as much on the demand side of the energy equation as on the supply side—were combined with a deliberate and humanely guided policy of population decline, there would be abundant beneficial side effects. The climate change crisis would be far easier to tackle, as would ongoing loss of biodiversity and the depletion of resources such as fresh water, topsoil, and minerals.
http://www.postcarbon.org/controversy-explodes-over-renewable-energy/
I don’t disagree that the Internet is wunnerful, but it is a significant “complexity,” in the Tainterian sense.
Likewise, a Mac Mini is wunnerful. (This is coming to you from three of them from 2008 and 2011, which run my DNS, email, and website, all running on wind power.) But can they be manufactured in a 1980s civilization?
No civilization has ever tried to “step back” before. It’s always been forced on us. Could we do it piece-wise, deciding which bits to keep and which bits to jettison? Tainter notes that, after the Maya collapse, invaders tried to maintain their technology, but re-assembled complicated time-piece sculpture wrong, or even upside-down, probably thinking their operation was mystical or spiritual, rather than understanding the complex engineering. The Maya were master time-trackers, yet their expertise was unmatched until the 19th century!
I’m skeptical we can keep today’s high-tech going, but that doesn’t keep me from working toward being part of the solution, rather than throwing up my hands and remaining part of the problem. But anyone seeing this is embedded in The System enough that escape is difficult. I avoid modern technology as much as possible, but no more than necessary to participate in modern civilization. Hiding in a cave, wearing animal skins, isn’t really helping anyone else out, any more than living it up and poking fun at those who are striving is.
i will not willingly step back to the living standards of my grandfather, or of his grandfather.
history is a hobby of mine—i know how those guys lived (barely). Though to be fair, that was their ”normality”
but that is what ”stepping back” means—it isn’t possible to pick and choose—yes i accept 18th c lifestyle–but i still insist on a warm home, a full larder and a flushing toilet. Somehow the downsizers gloss over those details.
And imagining that our lives in such an environment would still have purpose is anothe fallacy—(there would be no ”purpose” in typing anything on anything.)
sorry—but that just isn’t going to be
I’ve found that “insisting” on something generally isn’t enough. If you don’t take action toward such “goals” — action that does not involve bits of paper with dead presidents on them — you may well not have these things. They are “goals” you have to work at, not human rights that you can “insist” upon.
I think some of us may be able to maintain the first two, but the “flushing toilet” is one of the downfalls of civilization, in my opinion. We’re not there yet (could get there quickly), but there may come a day when recycling your own waste will mean the difference between having a “full larder” or not, no matter what you “insist.”
… said one yeast cell to another, as they consumed the last sugar molecule and died in their own excrement. You seem to forget the title of this blog.
By using the first person singular, I was attempting to give voice to the vast majority of the population of the industrial world.
Not just “me” in isolation. I thought that was obvious—but maybe not
The flushing toilet might be a blight on civilisation, but ‘civilisation’ has lost the means and inclination to remove its own wastes.
Then we cheer its imminent demise! 🙂
and your own no doubt
Finally a point that I can agree upon (sort of) with Delusional Jan.
We should all be cheering for the end of BAU because it means our vile presence is likely to be wiped off the face of the earth.
Is that what you meant by ‘cheer its imminent demise’ Jan?
I am two minds on this … as I am not so keen to cheer my imminent demise… in fact I would hope the CBs can keep this going for at least a few more years —- minimum another 6 weeks as I start my ski trip in 10 days….
Jan has referred to this as The Great Adventure — he has mentioned being excited for it to get started.
If it is to be looked forward to then I wonder why Jan still uses a tractor and electricity.
I do tire of this Great Adventure Permie Tough Guy Bullshit Talk Talk Talk.
It reminds me of the guys in their basements who sit fondling their guns and ammo who can’t wait for the end of days so that they can really start living….
It’s the same delusional mentality at play…
Come on Jan — ditch the tractor and turn off the power — buy nothing — come back and tell us how it went in a few months — assuming we are still hear
You remind me of one of my neighbours —- they pride themselves in their ‘self-sustainable’ lifestyle — but whenever the job is too tough — in comes the digger or the tractor or some other BAU solution.. they also use electricity and petrol and they buy stuff at Bunnings
On one hand you diss BAU — and wish she were gone — but then you hope that certain parts of BAU will still be around
What a joke!
Just reading that makes me feel good — more positive!!!
“But I think what we “need” is an 80% reduction in energy use.”
I would even go for 90%, but them i’m completely unrealistic. What I wonder though is how you come to that estimate, and what economic (or other species-saving) effect would you see it having?
What we are going to get is a nearly 100% reduction in energy use in the very near future… (a bit of foam cushion and wood burning — just prior to the radiation nightmare)
That’s the problem with BAU Lite — it is not possible.
It is either MOAR — or Nothing.
SWAG (Scientific Wild-Assed Guess).
You’re probably right, that it would take more like a 90% reduction in energy use. But the good news is that people who would survive an 80% reduction would probably survive a 90%
reduction, too.
It would be totally devastating to the economy. It would push us back to barter.
This would be at least an Orlov-2 Collapse (collapse of finance and credit, but survival of government, non-governmental organizations and social mores and norms). But more likely, an Orlov-3 Collapse, which has already happened to the former Soviet Union.
I could see nations like the US, China, and India enduring an Orlov-3 collapse by breaking into segments. California is an obvious proto-nation, just as Russia was during the breakup of the fSU. This may go through stair-steps, with California (for example) further breaking into southern and northern segments. I’d like to see Callenbach’s Ecotopia Emerging, with Northern California, western Washington and Oregon and BC confederating, but that’s probably a long shot.
As for “species-saving” effects, who knows? It looks like we’ve really cooked our goose, no matter what we do today. The best we’d do in a 90% energy reduction scenario would be to stop the increase in carnage.
But unlike others, who will inevitably post silly pictures or call me or what I do derisive names, I admit I have to perfect crystal ball.
Sit up. Look around. What direction looks best for all concerned? Take a step in that direction. Lather, rinse, repeat. That’s all any of us can hope to accomplish. Unless they’ve cynically taken the cowardice route, and decided to party and live it up to the bitter end.
‘What direction looks best for all concerned?’
Any direction not downstream and downwind of spent fuel ponds….
Could Elon be making light of this with his Mars colony?
He knows that is impossible but perhaps this is an inside joke …
One guy says ‘When BAU goes best to get away from the radiation’
The other guys says ‘Ya we need to move to Mars’
Ba dum dum
Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3,1 testing.
I wrote a rather long, involved response, but it says it is “awaiting moderation.”
Just wanted to let you know I wasn’t ignoring you.
While you are waiting — maybe you could address my comments about radiation that will soon be headed your way…
I am very concerned about you and the rest of the Koombayaists out there in BC and just want to make sure you have a plan in place.
I let it out. Sorry for the delay. I a not sure why it was in moderation.
Thanks! You gave me the key to the club house some time back, but I’m loathe to use it on my own postings.
Either and 80% or 90% reduction in energy leads to collapse, however. Painting the situation as “Degrowth” gives a much more benign situation than will actually take place.
You and Amory Lovins should get together. It is too late for either of these proposed solutions, if they would actually work. Power comes from tax revenue. None of the types of energy discussed (nuclear, wind or solar) provides current tax revenue to governments. This is one of their major deficiencies. Thorium isn’t ready yet, either.
With all due respect you are not making sense, if a 20% VAT is applied to your electrical utility bill then the govt. will receive plenty.
As for Thorium fission, it does require some technical development, meanwhile there are many Uranium fission reactor designs that are safe, reliable and cheap.
There, there Roger…. be a good fellow and go back into the attic where you belong … you’ve had your fun for the year
What an incredibly juvenile response.
Wait until you ignore him! Then the puerile yapping really cranks up!
I suspect that, at one time — perhaps on Vancouver Island — he tried to “walk the talk,” and found out it was really, really hard, and so now has nothing but scorn toward those who are still trying to walk the talk. We all criticize in others what we despise about our selves.
Don’t worry. When the excrement hits the ventilator, he’ll be fragged by his hired help. They know where he keeps his guns, and how to pre-load them with blanks.
Gotta go work on the new greenhouse. I just exceeded my time budget for discussing puerile yappers.
Not quite Jan — one of the first signals that surviving BAU came when the power went off for a day in Bali — the food in the freezer started to melt — and I thought — now imagine if the power did not go on and the shops closed — and all I had to eat was what we were growing in our substantial garden…
Then I remembered that all of the nearby villagers were growing rice using urea — and that they would soon be at my gate desperately hungry and demanding I feed them.
That was the first crack in the wall of delusion that I had built…
It appears that you have a thicker wall — a much thicker wall that is impervious to logic and facts
About those spent fuel ponds in Japan … when do you explain how you deal with the radiation?
The level of the juvenility of my responses is directly proportionate to the lack of logic fact evidence and common sense in the corresponding post.
If you want a mature response from me — post something that does not involve regurgitated of MSM garbage.
You would benefit from reading the past 2 years of Gail’s articles before posting again — it will hopefully help you from making a fool of yourself
If, after a 20% VAT tax, electricity produced by Thorium fission can be produced for about 2 or 3 cents per kWh, it will be helpful. If, on an after-tax basis, it costs much more than this, it is a problem.
The characteristic of a fuel producing an “energy surplus” is more or less equivalent to the fuel being so inexpensive that even with a high tax, it can produce a high profit for producers. With this high profit, producers can ramp up other locations, and thus lead to rapidly increasing total energy supply. With the high taxes for governments, the government can ramp up needed supporting services. All of this allows the economy to grow again.
A high-priced type of energy creates a huge problem for the economy, because it cuts off economic growth. An intermittent type of energy also creates a huge problem for the economy, regardless of its price, because it destroys the pricing system. A dangerous type of energy, regardless of the price, will not be accepted by citizens. At this point, we cannot find any suitable energy types.
Reactors are useless unless they get huge subsidies and that is not going to happen any more in the US… cough cough wonder what the Hanford bill will be. France is also getting out of the game.
Thorium is a pipe dream unless you think we have 50 years.
It is hard to beat a cubic mile of oil.
Fusion energy pushed back beyond 2050
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-40558758
In 1978 my college chemistry teacher said fusion electricity was just 20 years away.
But wait, there’s this-
https://qz.com/1024520/renewable-energy-is-becoming-so-cheap-the-us-will-meet-paris-commitments-even-if-trump-withdraws/
Solar is like a drug that has such bad side effects that it kills the economy. It is cheap, but does that really matter? Would you take a cheap prescription that kills you, as a side effect? Solar kills the pricing system for fossil fuels and for electricity, because of its intermittency. This is a detail that most people never think about. I expect to write a post on this issue in the near future.
“fission energy could provide…”
There’s that word “could” again. I could save the world, given the appropriate circumstances. We “could” colonize the Andromeda galaxy if we had enough cheap energy. Empty rhetoric my friend. Show me something concrete that shows this can be done, not just hand waving.
“She also seems to dismiss entirely the effects of political incompetence and corruption which is endemic in the non-western world”
The western world has plenty of political incompetence and corruption. I assume you mean (by non0western) developing countries? Are they supposed to do all the heavy lifting?
If thorium is the answer, why isn’t investment money overflowing towards this solution? If I had a lot of capital I would be insane to not invest it in the next big thing.
If thorium is the answer, why isn’t investment money overflowing towards this solution?
Because investors have been bribed by corrupt incompetent politicos to direct their investments towards clean, green wind and sun power?
More pie-in-the-sky nuclear fantasies. It is way too late in the game to try to build out a new infrastructure based on solar, wind, nuclear or what have you….TOO LATE the energy to build the infrastructure is all accounted for in maintaining BAU.
Show us a single Thorium reactor that’s in commercial service…
http://cdn3.meme.am/cache/instances/folder799/500x/62988799/advice-yoda-gives-the-sound-of-crickets-i-hear.jpg
Saudi Aramco Chief Predicts Oil Shortage as Investment Falters
https://www.wsj.com/articles/saudi-aramco-chief-predicts-oil-shortage-as-investment-falters-1499680622
great red Cliff—thanks—on second thoughts it’s a bloody awful read, but no more that I’ve been forecasting for years—just so obvious.
But I suggest reading it here because WSJ is behind a paywall
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-aramco-oil-idUSKBN19V0KR
I like this part: “a lack of fresh conventional discoveries” – you can’t discover the un-discoverable. You know at some point there will be no more conventional discoveries. That is just a simple fact.
I think we’ve about reached this point…
https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/icbkDFACM4iA/v2/800x-1.png
“There Is A Dark Side To Our Species” This Is What People Fear The Most In A Societal Collapse…
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-07-10/there-dark-side-our-species-what-people-fear-most-societal-collapse
And THAT is exactly why I’m not sticking around…and BTW for those that are ready to kill to survive, let’s say they are good at it..they have bought themselves what…a whole day? Big deal…
They fear people turning on them but; “…there are countless examples of people being altruistic and coming together during disasters; perhaps even more so than examples of people turning on each other.”
A basic tenet of ecology is that high-energy biomes tend to favour competition, whereas low-energy biomes tend to favour cooperation.
For example, five different raptors may be feeding on several dozen small animal species in the tropics, but in the arctic, two raptors feed on five or six small animals — and even those raptors “cooperate” by dividing up the hunting temporally, with the Red Tailed Hawk hunting by day, and the Snowy Owl hunting by night.
I am not so sure that carries over to civilizations, though. I’m currently reading about the Maya in Tainter, and it appears that as their trophic energy declined, their raiding and internecine warfare increased, causing the “complexity” of increased monument building and art, in an effort to convince others that one group was more powerful than the others. Many of these monuments and flat art depicted prisoners being slaughtered and tortured.
It does seem to be the case in “uncivilized” societies, though, and Tainter, Ingalls, et. al., point out that while small tribal societies did have skirmishes, they were generally settled without all-out warfare.
(As usual, failure to respond to name-calling and abusive comments should not be taken as acquiescence. I have better things to do than respond to someone with no visible means of support, accusing me of being “terrified” of him.)
I take you have dismissed the spent fuel ponds in Japan then?
It is fascinating to watch cognitive dissonance in action.
How does it feel when Mr CG shuts off the danger receptors allowing you to read my comments about spent fuel ponds — is it like taking a mega dose of Valium — you just go numb?
The well of goodness in human beings can seem almost unlimited, and I suspect that the majority of normal people are generally biased to co-operation and reasonableness within the group, and at the same time ruthlessness towards those outside the group (necessary to survive).
On the other hand, life in a commercialised -or Totalitarian – society does tend to erode human decency. We have many professional criminal gangs which are predatory by nature, (and this is exacerbated by racial and religious differences); and the totalitarian religions such as Christianity and Islam have shown no difficulty in approving the elimination of non-believers (we can also see the growth of a militant Hinduism allied to nationalism ). We are also, in the West, balkanising our societies with massive immigration, and class divisions are becoming very profound once more. Not a pretty picture.
In respect of collapse situations, the appalling behaviour of members of ‘peacekeeping ‘ forces and NGO’s towards the vulnerable in their power is a salutory reminder of the terrible penalties awaiting those who are weak.
It will all come down to ‘Location, location, location!’…….
UN peacekeepers accused of thousands of cases of abuse, AP finds
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/un-peacekeepers-accused-thousands-cases-abuse-ap-finds/
There is no “safe” location, although some have a greater probability of being safer than others.
Run to the light, not away from the dark!
(As usual, I will not be replying to the mindless cynics and name-callers. I’ll try to reply to those who employ civil discourse.)
Run from the radiation — you might live a few weeks longer…
http://nuclearinfo.net/twiki/pub/Nuclearpower/CurrentReactors/world_map.png
This is not a disaster that we are facing
It is not an earthquake or a tsunami or a war. Those events are short-lived — someone always rides to the rescue — so people are less likely to rape pillage and murder — because they have expectations that they will be punished if they do.
This is different. Nobody rides to the rescue – Feed the Children will not arrive with food. This will be an apocalypse. Your neighbour will kill you for a cucumber if you don’t share it.
Think of a world without police — I was walking through the airport in NZ yesterday — and I saw this gang banger looking white guy — full of tattoos and piercings — now he may have been a very nice fellow — or maybe he had just been let out of prison — but I was thinking of all the vile pricks in the general population who will be on the loose post BAU —- with nothing to restrain their behaviour…..
In the period before the radiation arrives — if a stranger or group of strangers arrives at the gate — you immediately turn them away with a bullet — no questions asked … their intentions will not be to join hands and sing Koombaya around a fire….
This time is different
FE, have you received your NZ Stats Agricultural Production Survey yet? Every farmer, including lifestylers (small block holders) is being “sampled” this year – a first. Interesting – huh?
The local Post Shop did not open at 9:00am today due to systemic failure according to a staff member who would not open the doors. It opened within an hour but it raises a ?
Haven’t seen anything….
Well, you are legally bound to report on your meagre production or the authorities will get very upset.
I eagerly await the form….
visit http://www.stats.govt.nz/surveyhelp
call 0800 333 104
We have the internet you know.
I’ll get right on that….
It will be worse this time around, we won’t recover. Fracking was our last hope, and the party was short lived, unconventional oil seems to have peaked in 2015/16, consistent with it’s projected peak output of 10 years (after conventional peaked in 2005).
We have nothing more, the next major recession will decimate the economy permanently, as there are no more fossil fuels with good enough returns to sustain current western society because we need a ratio of 30:1. We’ve been at around half of that for a while. Growth is over, decline begins now.
Growth ended some time ago. What we’ve had is debt issuance on steroids to juice consumption. But all we would have managed to achieve is bring forward the day of reckoning, The jolt from the top will be swift and savage. Most will not make it through the bottleneck as the critical resources needed by the future, to even stay square, have been eaten up.
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2005-03-15/overshoot-nutshell-malthus-was-optimist/Malthus was an optimist
Exactly psile…the global economy, and by extension of course us, have been on life support since 2008, a (thankful) courtesy of CBs largesse…next time around the physical laws of the world we all live in will pull the plug..and that will be it!
What we’ve had is debt issuance in lieu of real growth. An artificial fiscal stimulant to keep the patient alive, while even beginning to transition to renewables. A tough ledge to walk out on to with no knowledge of how to turn that into real growth. A true act of desperate blind faith.
I agree, growth ended some time ago. Probably 2005 or so. It is rather incredible that the US was consuming more than 20 million barrels of oil each day around 2005. And we needed to burn even more to grow. Just insanity. We are down to about 17/18 now as growth is long gone. Globally I think we are around 98/99 million barrels per day and that may be peaking now. Just an enormous amount of energy just to stay even. To grow we need to burn even more.
According to the EIA, US oil consumption has been trending upward since 2012. https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_cons_psup_dc_nus_mbblpd_a.htm
It was 18.5 million bpd in 2012, for the US. Buy 2016, consumption was up to 19.6 million barrels per day. I expect the upward trend is due to a combination of (a) US’s own shale development and perhaps some higher demand associated with it, and (b) the rise of the dollar relative to many other currencies, and the resulting fall in the price of oil. At a lower price for US citizens, they could afford more oil products. January to April is up another 0.5%, suggesting (if this trend continues, but recent stories say that summer driving is down) annual oil consumption of 19.7 million barrels per day.
BP shows 96.6 million barrels per day for 2016, worldwide. This represents an increase of 1.6%, which is higher than the growth in total energy consumption. I think low oil prices have stimulated its use.
I have not been following IEA figures–they tend to be a little different.
What is peaking (actually past peak) is coal consumption. 2016 is down 1.4% from 2015, and 2015 is in turn down from 2014.
I agree IMO OVERALL growth has been in decline since the GFC. Of course individual reports of growth are still showing up but mergers, takeovers, bankruptcies, share buy-backs and massive debt increases mask the reality. Growing energy consumption also masks the rising cost to produce energy. More resources and energy are directed towards producing energy (EROI), leading to double counting, especially with regards to bio-fuels. Be it waste or genuine consumerism, the market must be maintained to continue the burn, if the market wanes so will energy production and this is where debt plays its most important role…….imo of course.
Renewables are helpful (but in no way a solution) in a single instance….they are extending (and enabling) the burn of FF. Coal power stations that burn coal on standby, is it counted as “consuming energy” or is it wasted energy, as in solar panels charging full batteries or powering an overloaded, inefficient grid. When disposal is required for batteries (of all types) is it “consumed” energy. As we build more renewables, more roads, more landfills and waste disposals, more fire and flood mitigation, more incarceration facilities, is it consumerism or the price of doing business…….the list is practically endless.
They (renewables) cannot do it forever though, they cannot extend beyond what is feasible and economically viable. Eventually the energy slaves no longer respond to whipping, they will reach the end of their ability to produce more than they consume.
The problem is that the price doesn’t go high enough. Low prices affect all of the energy products at one time, regardless of EROI. Low prices reflect inadequate wages of the 90% of wage-earners.
I do not believe western society deserves to be sustained.
I don’t see any problems:
http://getrealphilippines.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/funhousemirror.jpg
The deficit is the elephant in the room that no one acknowledges; its been here so long its now part of the furniture!
The underlying assumption of modern economics is that debt can grow faster than income in perpetuity.
Unfortunately, an awfully lot of debt does not make it back to wages–especially of the 90%. It tends to lead to more and more concentration of wealth among the already rich. The bottom 90% find it more and more difficult to buy goods and services. As a result, commodity prices tend to drop, and the economy collapses from low commodity prices.
Well summarized, Gail.
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Prices obviously depend on demand for housing.
When I was in Japan, I heard about the Japanese government taking over some properties (because of high taxes on properties when an owner dies). When there is not much of a market for these properties (rural areas mainly), I was told that the government simply holds on to them, without selling them, to keep real estate prices from dropping. I suppose that if the British Government is in a financial position to do so, it could come up with some similar scheme.
Buying a house for £100,000 and then gratifyingly learning that it is ‘worth’ £500k has become the bed-rock of the British sense of well-being and prosperity….and readiness to borrow to consume. The foundation of everything.
This is connected to a larger problem of “civilized psychology” – as people get into few billions they somehow feel they could live the billionaire lifestyle, or if they command millions hence a millionaire’s living arrangement. Which is trap and bogus reasoning, it’s much better/prudent to always size on or more levels down.
As we know two or three divorces in a row, elections or revolution going badly, uber expensive hobbies, and in no time from mountain of wealth you have suddenly no money again.. People rarely learn a thing through times.
I would never have thought I’d be supporting the top layers of government and the supplying of them with tax money. OFW is dangerous to some long held beliefs.
Fresh Fears Of UK Housing Market Collapse
NEW signs of the housing market slipping are expected this week when one of the best lead indicators of house price movement is released.
The UK Residential Market Survey from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors is expected to show a decrease in the number of members reporting house price rises.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/es-house-price-fall-landscape-3-x-2new01.jpg?strip=all&w=750
It comes after last weekend, it was reported is on the edge of a property price crash which could be as bad as the collapse in the 1990s according to experts who are also warning property value could plunge by 4̶0̶ 90 per cent (fixed it for them).
Let’s see – how exciting! I get to re-live the 1990’s, only fully conscious this time (ah, the student years!)
If so, there will be plenty of cash buyers for the very few sellers who are mortgage/chain-free.
I have to say, it’s astonishing what inflated prices still obtain in London and here for mediocre properties – and they sell quickly!
One reason is the very poor quality of new-builds, which are pared to the bone by the rapers, sorry, ‘developers. Tiny rooms, ‘gardens’ that take a table and chair only, and long lists of faults caused by shoddy contractor work…… and so on.
When the dust settles, who would want to live in such a place as London?
Referenced already, but still lot of material to chew on:
http://crudeoilpeak.info/brent-exit
The UK is f#cked. They have the worst prospects of any of the big tier EU countries. It will end VERY badly for it.
The Sick Man (NOT) Of Europe, once again?
Just need to elect another Iron Lady … oh — and find a new North Sea full of oil….
‘We’re flowing toward the path’ similar to time before Great Depression, analyst says
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/10/were-flowing-toward-the-path-of-1928-one-analyst-says.html
Do you think OWG would solve the problem? One World Government.
Top level governments are likely to be the first thing to go. Adding a new top level government can’t possibly work. We have seen how badly the EU is functioning now. We could never get an agreement; even if we did, it wouldn’t last.
As economies decline, there is so much more to argue about. And ever- less ability to use force to impose governmental unity.
Remember the Guide stones.
I wanted to hear it from CH personally. He is shy, you know!
According to Orlov’s napkin chart, this resource extracting techno civilization is leveraged ~6666,66 : 1 in comparison to agrarian societies (draft animals), and ~100,000 : 1 on the bare human bodily energies leverage (wild berry picker?)..
http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2017/07/natures-conquest-of-man.html
typo meant as 100K = 100,000.00; 6,666.66
Dimitry is ok and has some great ideas on how to handle the terminally disruptive – involves a couple of taps.
But now all the action is happening at the Saker’s site.
Yep, his reading of geopolitics is usually fine analysis. I had to chuckle from hist last podcast, when he spoke about how Russian TV channels are at least weekly reporting about how they are bracing their financial system, infrastructure and defense for the possibility of incoming hard core war, while people in the west would just freak out or start having ideas about toppling their parasites.
Actually in reality, it seems more frequent than weekly reporting, they have it simply in their blood, always throughout history on the defensive watch, always in constant mode of preparing for the next attack from abroad.
From the time when the Golden Horde ‘harvested the Steppes’ of Russian slaves……..
Whereas, as we have seen here, the German authorities can tell people that it might be as well to stock up a bit on tinned food and water, and they mostly do…. nothing!
I find the pro-Russian, pro-Islam, bigotry of the ‘Saker’ quite impossible to bear these days, although one can pick up some useful information there from a different perspective.
Many of the commenters are mental case and not worth reading at all.
Above all, that nasty little Iranian state journalist is beneath contempt, if one knows how Iran really works.
The number of spooks there is enuff for the price of admission. I am surprised the mods let the crappola thru – probly an attempt to seem impartial.
I haven’t noticed the pro-Islam slant – yet.
The Saker is not a moral relativist as far as I can tell.
More nasty than Hilary?
What do you think of the Military- Industrial complex of the US?
AKA Wars”r”Us
Since most of us live in OECD/NATO countries then we are on Team USA – and others would love to have our way of life — but there is only so much to go around — so I am quite pleased that the US smashes the faces in of anyone who dares to take from us….
Then don’t read it. I find the Vineyard of the Saker just the opposite. A voice for freedom and reason.
JJ, I think not everyone is on the level in that they have a NWO OWG agenda.
The article you reference has this wonderful paragraph:
“It is the crude oil, along with coal, natural gas and uranium, that multiply our puny power to a point where the results of our activity become visible from outer space over large stretches of the planet’s surface. Crunching the numbers, it turns out that burning crude oil allows us to multiply our physical, endosomatic energy by roughly a factor of 44,000,000. Add in coal, natural gas and uranium, and you get roughly a hundred-thousand-times amplification of our puny physical powers. It is this that has enabled man’s recent, and short-lived “conquest of nature.” Without fossil fuels the best exosomatic energy we can harness is a team of two horses, oxen, water buffalo or what have you. Any more than that becomes hard for a single human to handle. The horses and other large ruminants multiply our power by a factor of 15 or so. ”
He then adds, “But that, if you think really hard, is plenty.” It may be plenty in an ancient world (especially when burned biomass is added to the mix), but it is nowhere enough to keep our current civilization operating. Of course, Dmitry Orlov isn’t expecting our current civilization to continue to operate. At best, it will be a very difficult transition. Looking at recent posts, Dmitry now has a new crowd-funded sail-powered houseboat, to make the transition in.
Looking at the paragraph, it looks to me as though Dmitry means “roughly a hundred-million-times amplification” of our puny physical powers, not hundred-thousand-times amplification.
His digits-numbers don’t match the following summary explanation “and you get roughly a hundred-thousand-times amplification of our puny physical powers.” He’s got some typo mismatch there probably..
I guess the leverage of ~6 000:1 and ~100 000 : 1 could be roughly correct, whereas leverage in the factor of millions would not be correct (in per capita evaluations at least).
And perhaps it’s even a bit less, e.g. we don’t drive carz in MW peak output and so on..
50Wh guy x 100 000 = 5MW
750Wh horse x 6 000 = 4.5MW
and that’s not peak, but somewhat steady output hence the Wh on the left side
This is the sort of id-iocy that gets funded … when you print trillions of dollars….
China has a peculiar habit of taking the latest and greatest financial innovation available, and then taking it too far. The latest example is the startup Sharing E Umbrella, which hoping to follow in the footsteps of successful bike-sharing startups, decided to – as the name implies – provide shareable imbrellas.
There was just one problem: as the Shanghaiist writes only a few weeks after starting up operations in 11 cities across China, Sharing E Umbrella announced that it had lost almost all of its 300,000 umbrellas.
More http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-07-10/chinese-umbrella-sharing-startup-loses-its-300000-umbrellas-weeks
http://replygif.net/i/1126.gif
I suspect that you will soon have an epiphany rivaling that of Saul on the road to Damascus that…. amazingly there is hope after all but it will involve totally submitting to One World Government.
I want you to swear unequivocally that you will not subject us to NWO bilge!
Strange!
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-07-10/packaged-goods-companies-slash-marketing-spending-amazon-makes-selling-all-about-pri
Reminiscent of the third world… the cool brand doesn’t matter … price becomes all-important….
I drove to the local shopping mall on Sunday afternoon for the first time in a long time. I saw one women’s clothing store that said, “No Item More than $7.99.” Many other clothing stores were clearly off-price as well. Macy’s has changed some of its space to be in a different sales format–clearly off-price as well.
At the same time, there were a lot of empty store fronts, but this was concealed to the extent possible. Instead of saying, “New Store Coming Soon” on the empty space, a more or less permanent wall had been erected, and a sign advertising a nearby business in the mall added. I don’t know whether the business was using the space for storage, or whether the mall was simply able to get a little revenue by selling the advertising space.
My son (who doesn’t drive) was able to get his cellphone fixed at a kiosk in the hallway that advertised, “Fix your cellphone in 45 minutes or less.” That had been the real purpose of our visit. But the mall has too many fixed expenses to cover its expenses with kiosk space rental, I expect. And it is hard for “regular” stores to compete with the low costs of vendors in kiosks. It is sad!
I live at the far side of the country from you, but you could be describing (exactly!) the mall we visit. One possible difference is that there is here a lot of bustle to fix up space for new companies to use. The ones I can remember seeing advertised are: F-21(red), Victoria Secret (Pink), Shoe Dep Exchange (just installed, full of stock, and seemingly usually empty),
Sears Auto Dep is completely gone, while the store itself tries to get rid of the last few things. The outer walls of the mall are cleared from auto store stuff, and when you combine that exterior space with other adjoining ones, it looks like quarter to half a mile of organized space to line up architect-managed homeless shelters against–like an adjunct ti the mall architecture itself.
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There must be some brains exploding in Hong Kong this morning over this …. Mr Cognitive Dissonance will be working overtime!
Electric shock – Tesla cars in Hong Kong more polluting than petrol models, report claims
Electric vehicles in Hong Kong could be adding “20 per cent more” carbon to the atmosphere than regular petrol ones over the same distance after factoring in the city’s coal-dominated energy mix and battery manufacture, a new research report found.
Investment research firm Bernstein also claimed that by subsidising electric vehicle purchases, the government was effectively “harming rather than helping the environment” at the expense of the taxpayer.
“The policy is to encourage drivers to be green, but they are actually subsidising vehicles that create more emissions of CO2 and particulates from power plants,” said Bernstein senior analyst Neil Beveridge.
http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/1935817/electric-shock-tesla-cars-hong-kong-more-polluting
http://www.scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/486w/public/images/methode/2016/04/13/5c2c043e-0188-11e6-a9b2-800cbf78bba6_486x.jpg
https://intermountainhealthcare.org/~/media/Images/Modules/Blog/Posts/2015/exploding-head-syndrome.jpg
Drive a Tesla! Burn More Coal!
So Elon isn’t such a bad guy after all.
Australia’s first battery gigafactory considered for Darwin.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-11/australias-first-gigafactory-considered-for-darwin/8696198
Once it becomes clear that all of this intermittent electricity needs batteries to try to smooth things out, adding lithium battery capacity becomes the next big thing.
The question is, “Where does this go next?” Do people wake up and figure out that the cost of electric generation, if you really have to add a huge amount of batteries is way to high, and as a result, cut back on new installations? Or does the price of lithium go up, as everyone heads for the same resource at once? Or do the battery makers suddenly find a new, somewhat profitable niche?
I think it was that article that indicated the price of electricity when batteries are used would be dramatically higher than if gas was used instead of fake renewable energy …
But that in a few decades the price would be competitive === because the cost of gas will rise substantially.
Basically the article is
http://www.foinews.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/pile-of-dung1.jpg
Basically the article is…….
Most of the news here bears a striking resemblance to that.
Kills a bit of time at work though.
The only batteries that have stood the test of time are trees; they ‘recharge with food and/or fuel via the sun etc…IMHO.
But we’re sucking that down amazingly fast.
Forested areas were in steady decline before the advent of fossil sunlight. Some civilizations (British Isles, Greece, Mesopotamia) clear-cutting their forests, which have never recovered.
North American fared better, with fossil sunlight arriving in time to save the forests. Now, we have more forests than we did in 1850.
But that situation could quickly reverse. As fossil sunlight becomes more dear, expect to see widespread use of wood energy again, with devastating results.
We harvest at no more than a cord an acre, which should be sustainable in this climate.
And what type of furnace if I may ask? Little of fire wood can go a long way, but upfront cost (physical mass) of the burner is an issue. That’s the classic equation, as you have to invest dearly first for high efficiency or otherwise invest little for inefficiency..
A downdraft brick furnace can get a lot of work done.
Efficiency is an illusion. Attaining 100% efficiency would theoretically require infinite resource.
There is a “sweet spot” on the effeciency-effort curve — the “maximum power point” — often at around 50%, although it depends on the quality of the energy resource. Low-quality energy means low-efficiency energy collection. Witness 3.5 billion years of evolution, which has only been able to muster about 1% conversion efficiency for most plants, although a very few C4 grasses (like sugar cane) can push 8%.
A downdraft brick oven provides moderate efficiency at low cost and low embedded energy. This is the same principle used in the “rocket stoves” you hear about. Pushing efficiency higher requires rotating components… and pretty much a lot of civilization, too!
I wish your example could scale. There are a million miles of public right of ways that could be lined with forests. I also hear great things about hemp as fuel.
Me too. Such a strategy is limited to “lifeboat communities,” and won’t be available to everyone.
I am deeply suspicious of such claims, most of which seem to be pushed by the intoxicant community. (In a strange twist, pot farmers hate hemp farmers, because the two cross-contaminate over as much as a few kilometres, reducing the potency of the pot.)
Also, hemp is an annual crop, which means cultivation (typically using fossil fuel) and fertilizer (also typically fossil-fuel-based).
We need to be moving from annual to perennial crops. We’re experimenting with Paulonia tomentosa, or Empress Tree, one of the fastest-growing trees in the world. Our three-year-old saplings are three metres tall!
(As usual, I will not be responding to name-calling or taunting.)
I was told that if you grind up hemp into a powder and snort it — that this will give you immunity to radiation.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/lowres.cartoonstock.com/marriage-relationships-tails-old_wives_tales-wife-couples-freaks-rjo0422_low.jpg
“I am deeply suspicious of such claims, most of which seem to be pushed by the intoxicant community. ”
Hadn’t heard ANY explanation before. It’s good to hear yours. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the problems could be worked around, but that’s another discussion. Oh, and I also hear about a food tree that grows (at least) in Hawaii and the Caribbean (called akee in the latter) that will fruit around three years from planting. Not used for fuel, though.
Good point. We have (or did have) everything we need on planet earth to live… and in abundance. I guess we got carried away with the procreation a bit. Can we get back in balance with the earth and how?
Pingback: The Perfect But Irrelevant Ecologic Critique - The Book Lipstick and War Crimes by Ray Songtree
https://youtu.be/lL4J0T7pQkQ
The Emerging World Chaos – fixed it for ya Noam!
2020s To Be A Decade of Disorder For Oil
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/2020s-To-Be-A-Decade-of-Disorder-For-Oil.html
Decade? Maybe more like disaster for the oil industry around 2020.
I have to say besides Gail the other person I highly respect on energy and economy is Alice. It baffles me that two women have more sense then any man I’ve ever met. I don’t say that to be in anyway derogatory. Women tend to feel and care more then men and are uniquely designed to nurture. Men are not. Frankly men tend to be quite dysfunctional.
However on energy and economics two women dominate the intellectual discussion. Why?
I can only attribute it to superior communication skills. But that is insufficient because the reasoning is also superior.
So could it be that the average man is trapped by his own hormones. For example Cliff Hanger and FE can’t help posting sexually explicit material. It also becomes clear that there is a culture that supports that kind of post.
Seems to be a gender weakness. Or just shear stupidity. No different really.
But why?
From Alice Friedman
Which reminded me of that one reason why the energy crisis isn’t feared by anyone is that it’s like Bop-a-mole. Even if you succeed in convincing someone that solar PV power won’t be able to replace oil because it has a low EROI (too low to replace itself let alone provide power for everything else), is too seasonal, requires too much non-existent energy storage, and so on, most people will reason: but there’s still wind power, hydrogen, geothermal, wave and tidal, hydropower, natural gas and so on. Given the reduction of news and conversation to ten-second soundbites, the pressure to be optimistic about everything all the time (the scientists will come up with something!), and lack of scientific education, I don’t expect to ever make a dent in the general ignorance on energy and natural resource matters, but I don’t mind. This site is meant for the very small percent of people who, like me, want to understand reality regardless of how depressing it may be. An even smaller subset of them will actually make different choices about career and where to live than they might have otherwise, choices that may saves their lives in the bottleneck ahead. So good luck to anyone who has read this far! ]
Good observations about two very smart ladies, JT.
Gail and Alice have both gone where no man has gone before, connecting dots nobody else bothers to connect, and exploring areas that others are content to leave enshrouded in the mist. Both also have a real scholar’s attitude to their research and writing, with a degree of attention to relevant detail that is virtually absent among the males in this field. Also, their writing is pleasantly free from the pomposity and overweening egotism that is either at or just below the surface in the writing of certain male purveyors of resilience, peak prosperity and druidism that I won’t name out of politeness. This makes their work all about the subject at hand and not all about themselves.
Hey hey … I didn’t post the video of the woman with the swinging boobs….
My infantile efforts are focused more on the harem concept — I don’t think women have traditionally kept male harems — it’s always been more of a guy thing.
https://mark.trademarkia.com/logo-images/container-king/container-king-77676990.jpg
I had to give up the harem as due to age-related decline I was no longer able to adequately entertain all the concubines and it was getting too much trouble to vet the eunuchs.
Ah yes, FE, reminds me of a little tid-bit I uncovered reading about the Siege of Stalingrad: male harems!
The most privileged people on the Russian side, apart from the Party commissars, were the soup-kitchen staff.
The female cooks apparently picked out the men they fancied, and fed them up nicely in return for, err, favours.
They, well-fad and dressed, nicely washed, in turn had a much higher survival rate than the general population who were eating their shoes……
This is why I keep coming to FW!
That is incredibly useful knowledge…. I will use this to ensure that I get applicants for the harem of the very finest caliber….
Who would have thought bases of baked beans could be so valuable!
Just watch watch what Mrs FE might be tempted to get up to with her share of the baked beans stash – keep fit and attractive! 🙂
Women are morally no better than men, and not necessarily clearer-sighted or even kinder. To call men essentially ‘dysfunctional’ is feminist nonsense.
Having seen the politics in a female-dominated publishing office (The Guardian), they may do things somewhat differently, but are no nicer and can be just as vicious and corrupt – but in their own way.
Having said that, it is clear that because women have been repressed for so long, and physically more vulnerable, in other words under-privileged, they are perhaps better wired to cope with a collapse situation and to come up with survival strategies. Germany after WW2 showed this. The best of them are very tough indeed.
Whereas men, once the old institutions go, tend to collapse themselves into depression, alcoholism, etc.
The modern Western woman is as much tied in to BAU and its myths as any man, and boy are they consumers of crap and energy!
Gail and Alice are not indebted to any power or career structure, they have no one to please except themselves, they don’t have to tow the party line and they are not making money from their websites. Hence, a clearer look at things is possible – it is as simple as that.
What happened when Walmart left
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/09/what-happened-when-walmart-left
“Filling the void, as well as helping to create it, came a sparkling new phenomenon: a big box, 103,000 square feet of windowless air, where you could catch up with friends, trade guns, shop to your heart’s content and even take a hike, all within a concrete gash carved out of one of the world’s most breathtakingly beautiful ancient forests.”
Seems similar to the modernist high rise issue. They came in and caused a terrible mess, but if they were removed (or abandoned) now, the effect would be even worse than the initial problem they created. Seems like once they’re there, they need to stay there, even if having to be put to new uses.
You know the FED seems to think the asset bubble is the biggest threat to the economy right now and is raising rates. At the same time you have these massive structures like malls and big box stores that are closing. Space which once sold for a premium now close to worthless. What is going to happen if the FED continues raising rates?
Nothing good! Selling securities is probably even worse than raising short term interest rates.
The last time we had an asset bubble…. the Fed responded with higher rates… that did not end well:
http://ei.marketwatch.com//Multimedia/2014/03/20/Photos/MG/MW-BX136_fed_fu_20140320150622_MG.jpg
They should replace Yellen with someone who has more experience with this sort of thing:
http://www.vivenoel.com/images/stories/goldilocks/goldilocks-3.jpg
Good point! Love the cartoon!
I think we are at the end of the financial road as far as interest rates go. The best thing the FED could do (that would extend BAU) is to drop interest rates to zero and just leave them there. There is no long term economy left to worry about.
Best for whom? Certainly not their owners.
This is in line with my layman’s response to people who talk about bringing prosperity back. Their efforts to do so only make the problems worse. I suggest they try triage and stabilizing the downward slide instead.
Problems solved.
World gone mad.
https://mishtalk.com/2017/07/10/all-electric-remote-control-trucks-can-the-concept-work/
Mish stated in a recent article that he expects self driving cars to have huge market penetration in the early 2020s…..
I commented to the effect you are kidding right?
He responded with — I am absolutely certain.
Mish likes to drink Kool-Aid
This all assumes there is a worthwhile destination for the driverless car to go to. If no one has a job and there is no wage increases to buy anything then, all the robots, AI and driverless doo dads will mean nothing.
Mish like Wolf …. dismisses that sort of talk as ludicrous…. It’s BAU Forever for these guys… they are neck deep in the matrix and do not think energy is an issue… they also buy the renewables story.
They are like men in mental wheelchairs… they will never be able to run with the gods
If Wolf Richter lets his site become Catastrophist -ie, realist – he would probably lose his income. He does however seem to be letting more pessimistic comments through, referring to finite world issues, which is an improvement.
I’ve had a few run ins with him and I am 100% certain that he believes renewable energy is the real deal…
My final head on crash occurred when he stated that we could stop or even reduce global population and that would not affect the global economy.
I posted research that indicated that indicated that roughly 30% of all growth is related to increases in populations — he removed the comment then he held all my comments from going live.
I guess he didn’t appreciate me humiliating him like that…. some people don’t take being wrong very well….
Analysts who expose that the entire financial system is built on stimulus and insanity are a dime a dozen …. any fool can work that out…
Wolf is unable to understand or refuses to understand the true nature of the beast…..
Nothing exceptional about that as we know….
Yes, FE, I observed your clash with Wolf and that you disappeared. I was also blocked. 🙂
America Is Struggling With Economic Rot
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-07-07/america-is-struggling-with-economic-rot
Good article isn’t interesting the coincidence of Silicon Valley decline with peak conventional oil?
Productivity is directly tied to energy utilization. Hence Wendy’s kiosks. Or chainsaws. Depends on where you live but the math is always the same.
No worries, once everyone gets their Tesla Battery, energy per capita will go sky high and prosperity will return.
If they can figure out how to crank the handle.
Elon needs a video.
I see Robert E. Hall on the author list. Is he the “Robert Hall” who writes on energy depletion issues?
The availability of cheap coal, more up to date factories, and cheap labor tended to move jobs overseas.
Brexit will cause an ‘alarming mess’ for UK nuclear power, scientists warn
‘You could be doing your writing by candlelight on a typewriter’ by 2025, expert warns
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/brexit-nuclear-power-euratom-hinckley-point-risks-nuclear-fusion-energy-bills-a7832136.html
Reminds me of the seventies.
http://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1394326141i/330096._UY200_SS200_.jpg
This will cause a big mess, but how much is not clear. I have seen a couple of people discussing the issue elsewhere, saying, for example,”Can’t the UK just buy its needed fuel elsewhere?” Of course, safety is important, too. I don’t know much about the details myself.
The WSJ has an article called “How Energy-Rich Australia Exported its Way Into an Energy Crisis: The world’s No. 2 seller abroad of liquefied natural gas holds so little in reserve that it can’t keep the lights on in Adelaide—a cautionary tale for the U.S.”. https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-energy-rich-australia-exported-its-way-into-an-energy-crisis-1499700859 According to the article:
“Producers say they concluded the only way to justify the cost of extracting coal-seam gas was to sell it abroad, where demand was higher and customers would agree to long-term contracts. They also needed money to build terminals on the east coast to convert gas into liquid for shipping. . . . Many politicians emphasized how LNG projects would create jobs in the aftermath of the global financial crisis.”
———
The article is about Australia’s new big LNG export business, leaving little natural gas for Australians. Those doing the exporting don’t realize that it is not really possible to force prices sufficiently higher using shortages. Instead, there are simply outages, as some areas are left with only intermittent renewables, and inadequate backup generation for their electricity.
The plan used in Australia is the plan for the US as well–the hope is to export LNG, and somehow force natural gas prices higher. The article tries to explain why the same problems couldn’t possibly happen in the US.
And Einstein’s definition of insanity is?
Things are so bad in Venezuela that people are rationing toothpaste
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/things-are-so-bad-in-venezuela-that-people-are-rationing-toothpaste/2017/07/07/a11fb782-6197-11e7-80a2-8c226031ac3f_story.html?utm_term=.b4538334c344
Let them stop eating cake!
It rots the teeth….
” Half the explanation to the second law is that entropy tends to increase because there are more ways to be high entropy then low entropy. The second half of the law still remains. Why was the entropy low to begin with?”
“Why was the entropy low to begin with?”
So we could sit here and discuss it on this blog.
Hi mom
Now we are heading into the realms of order out of chaos and self-organizing systems. Before I talk about that, I should read or re-read a book or several. Some thinkers have speculated that the Universe was created or created itself in a “wound up” (low entropy) condition and it’s been running down ever since. Others muse that if chaos (high/max. entropy) continues to reign for a long enough period, then in some times and places order (low entropy) will emerge spontaneously, just as four aces or a running flush will eventually emerge one after another if we deal enough poker hands. But this is another one of those questions nobody knows the full answer to, although philosophically inclined types have been pondering it ever since they learned to ponder.
I think that each galaxy is like a neuron, perhaps our known universe is a very small portion of a larger assemblage of other universes, an extra-unversal brain, of some entity that is so far beyond our knowledge and timeframe…that we cannot possibly comprehend it.
Hey, It’s as good as your theory.
http://media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/1275cbCOMIC-chagrin-falls-16-science.jpg
Good one!
It’s a wonderful theory, Jesse!
But it is it compatible with the standard model of each galaxy as too cosmic fried eggs laid (get it?) back to back?
http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~ryden/ast162_7/cobemw.gif
Over medium? Doubled?