One of the great misconceptions of our time is the belief that we can move away from fossil fuels if we make suitable choices on fuels. In one view, we can make the transition to a low-energy economy powered by wind, water, and solar. In other versions, we might include some other energy sources, such as biofuels or nuclear, but the story is not very different.
The problem is the same regardless of what lower bound a person chooses: our economy is way too dependent on consuming an amount of energy that grows with each added human participant in the economy. This added energy is necessary because each person needs food, transportation, housing, and clothing, all of which are dependent upon energy consumption. The economy operates under the laws of physics, and history shows disturbing outcomes if energy consumption per capita declines.
There are a number of issues:
- The impact of alternative energy sources is smaller than commonly believed.
- When countries have reduced their energy consumption per capita by significant amounts, the results have been very unsatisfactory.
- Energy consumption plays a bigger role in our lives than most of us imagine.
- It seems likely that fossil fuels will leave us before we can leave them.
- The timing of when fossil fuels will leave us seems to depend on when central banks lose their ability to stimulate the economy through lower interest rates.
- If fossil fuels leave us, the result could be the collapse of financial systems and governments.
[1] Wind, water and solar provide only a small share of energy consumption today; any transition to the use of renewables alone would have huge repercussions.
According to BP 2018 Statistical Review of World Energy data, wind, water and solar only accounted for 9.4% 0f total energy consumption in 2017.
Figure 1. Wind, Water and Solar as a percentage of total energy consumption, based on BP 2018 Statistical Review of World Energy.
Even if we make the assumption that these types of energy consumption will continue to achieve the same percentage increases as they have achieved in the last 10 years, it will still take 20 more years for wind, water, and solar to reach 20% of total energy consumption.
Thus, even in 20 years, the world would need to reduce energy consumption by 80% in order to operate the economy on wind, water and solar alone. To get down to today’s level of energy production provided by wind, water and solar, we would need to reduce energy consumption by 90%.
[2] Venezuela’s example (Figure 1, above) illustrates that even if a country has an above average contribution of renewables, plus significant oil reserves, it can still have major problems.
One point people miss is that having a large share of renewables doesn’t necessarily mean that the lights will stay on. A major issue is the need for long distance transmission lines to transport the renewable electricity from where it is generated to where it is to be used. These lines must constantly be maintained. Maintenance of electrical transmission lines has been an issue in both Venezuela’s electrical outages and in California’s recent fires attributed to the utility PG&E.
There is also the issue of variability of wind, water and solar energy. (Note the year-to-year variability indicated in the Venezuela line in Figure 1.) A country cannot really depend on its full amount of wind, water, and solar unless it has a truly huge amount of electrical storage: enough to last from season-to-season and year-to-year. Alternatively, an extraordinarily large quantity of long-distance transmission lines, plus the ability to maintain these lines for the long term, would seem to be required.
[3] When individual countries have experienced cutbacks in their energy consumption per capita, the effects have generally been extremely disruptive, even with cutbacks far more modest than the target level of 80% to 90% that we would need to get off fossil fuels.
Notice that in these analyses, we are looking at “energy consumption per capita.” This calculation takes the total consumption of all kinds of energy (including oil, coal, natural gas, biofuels, nuclear, hydroelectric, and renewables) and divides it by the population.
Energy consumption per capita depends to a significant extent on what citizens within a given economy can afford. It also depends on the extent of industrialization of an economy. If a major portion of industrial jobs are sent to China and India and only service jobs are retained, energy consumption per capita can be expected to fall. This happens partly because local companies no longer need to use as many energy products. Additionally, workers find mostly service jobs available; these jobs pay enough less that workers must cut back on buying goods such as homes and cars, reducing their energy consumption.
Example 1. Spain and Greece Between 2007-2014
Figure 2. Greece and Spain energy consumption per capita. Energy data is from BP 2018 Statistical Review of World Energy; population estimates are UN 2017 population estimates.
The period between 2007 and 2014 was a period when oil prices tended to be very high. Both Greece and Spain are very dependent on oil because of their sizable tourist industries. Higher oil prices made the tourism services these countries sold more expensive for their consumers. In both countries, energy consumption per capita started falling in 2008 and continued to fall until 2014, when oil prices began falling. Spain’s energy consumption per capita fell by 18% between 2007 and 2014; Greece’s fell by 24% over the same period.
Both Greece and Spain experienced high unemployment rates, and both have needed debt bailouts to keep their financial systems operating. Austerity measures were forced on Greece. The effects on the economies of these countries were severe. Regarding Spain, Wikipedia has a section called, “2008 to 2014 Spanish financial crisis,” suggesting that the loss of energy consumption per capita was highly correlated with the country’s financial crisis.
Example 2: France and the UK, 2004 – 2017
Both France and the UK have experienced falling energy consumption per capita since 2004, as oil production dropped (UK) and as industrialization was shifted to countries with a cheaper total cost of labor and fuel. Immigrant labor was added, as well, to better compete with the cost structures of the countries that France and the UK were competing against. With the new mix of workers and jobs, the quantity of goods and services that these workers could afford (per capita) has been falling.
Figure 3. France and UK energy consumption per capita. Energy data is from BP 2018 Statistical Review of World Energy; population estimates are UN 2017 population estimates.
Comparing 2017 to 2004, energy consumption per capita is down 16% for France and 25% in the UK. Many UK citizens have been very unhappy, wanting to leave the European Union.
France recently has been experiencing “Yellow Vest” protests, at least partly related to an increase in carbon taxes. Higher carbon taxes would make energy-based goods and services less affordable. This would likely reduce France’s energy consumption per capita even further. French citizens with their protests are clearly not happy about how they are being affected by these changes.
Example 3: Syria (2006-2016) and Yemen (2009-2016)
Both Syria and Yemen are examples of formerly oil-exporting countries that are far past their peak production. Declining energy consumption per capita has been forced on both countries because, with their oil exports falling, the countries can no longer afford to use as much energy as they did in the past for previous uses, such as irrigation. If less irrigation is used, food production and jobs are lost. (Syria and Yemen)
Figure 4. Syria and Yemen energy consumption per capita. Energy consumption data from US Energy Information Administration; population estimates are UN 2017 estimates.
Between Yemen’s peak year in energy consumption per capita (2009) and the last year shown (2016), its energy consumption per capita dropped by 66%. Yemen has been named by the United Nations as the country with the “world’s worst humanitarian crisis.” Yemen cannot provide adequate food and water for its citizens. Yemen is involved in a civil war that others have entered into as well. I would describe the war as being at least partly a resource war.
The situation with Syria is similar. Syria’s energy consumption per capita declined 55% between its peak year (2006) and the last year available (2016). Syria is also involved in a civil war that has been entered into by others. Here again, the issue seems to be inadequate resources per capita; war participants are to some extent fighting over the limited resources that are available.
Example 4: Venezuela (2008-2017)
Figure 5. Energy consumption per capita for Venezuela, based on BP 2018 Statistical Review of World Energy data and UN 2017 population estimates.
Between 2008 and 2017, energy consumption per capita in Venezuela declined by 23%. This is a little less than the decreases experienced by the UK and Greece during their periods of decline.
Even with this level of decline, Venezuela has been having difficulty providing adequate services to its citizens. There have been reports of empty supermarket shelves. Venezuela has not been able to maintain its electrical system properly, leading to many outages.
[4] Most people are surprised to learn that energy is required for every part of the economy. When adequate energy is not available, an economy is likely to first shrink back in recession; eventually, it may collapse entirely.
Physics tells us that energy consumption in a thermodynamically open system enables all kinds of “complexity.” Energy consumption enables specialization and hierarchical organizations. For example, growing energy consumption enables the organizations and supply lines needed to manufacture computers and other high-tech goods. Of course, energy consumption also enables what we think of as typical energy uses: the transportation of goods, the smelting of metals, the heating and air-conditioning of buildings, and the construction of roads. Energy is even required to allow pixels to appear on a computer screen.
Pre-humans learned to control fire over one million years ago. The burning of biomass was a tool that could be used for many purposes, including keeping warm in colder climates, frightening away predators, and creating better tools. Perhaps its most important use was to permit food to be cooked, because cooking increases food’s nutritional availability. Cooked food seems to have been important in allowing the brains of humans to grow bigger at the same time that teeth, jaws and guts could shrink compared to those of ancestors. Humans today need to be able to continue to cook part of their food to have a reasonable chance of survival.
Any kind of governmental organization requires energy. Having a single leader takes the least energy, especially if the leader can continue to perform his non-leadership duties. Any kind of added governmental service (such as roads or schools) requires energy. Having elected leaders who vote on decisions takes more energy than having a king with a few high-level aides. Having multiple layers of government takes energy. Each new intergovernmental organization requires energy to fly its officials around and implement its programs.
International trade clearly requires energy consumption. In fact, pretty much every activity of businesses requires energy consumption.
Needless to say, the study of science or of medicine requires energy consumption, because without significant energy consumption to leverage human energy, nearly every person must be a subsistence level farmer, with little time to study or to take time off from farming to write (or even read) books. Of course, manufacturing medicines and test tubes requires energy, as does creating sterile environments.
We think of the many parts of the economy as requiring money, but it is really the physical goods and services that money can buy, and the energy that makes these goods and services possible, that are important. These goods and services depend to a very large extent on the supply of energy being consumed at a given point in time–for example, the amount of electricity being delivered to customers and the amount of gasoline and diesel being sold. Supply chains are very dependent on each part of the system being available when needed. If one part is missing, long delays and eventually collapse can occur.
[5] If the supply of energy to an economy is reduced for any reason, the result tends to be very disruptive, as shown in the examples given in Section [3], above.
When an economy doesn’t have enough energy, its self-organizing feature starts eliminating pieces of the economic system that it cannot support. The financial system tends to be very vulnerable because without adequate economic growth, it becomes very difficult for borrowers to repay debt with interest. This was part of the problem that Greece and Spain had in the period when their energy consumption per capita declined. A person wonders what would have happened to these countries without bailouts from the European Union and others.
Another part that is very vulnerable is governmental organizations, especially the higher layers of government that were added last. In 1991, the Soviet Union’s central government was lost, leaving the governments of the 15 republics that were part of the Soviet Union. As energy consumption per capita declines, the European Union would seem to be very vulnerable. Other international organizations, such as the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund, would seem to be vulnerable, as well.
The electrical system is very complex. It seems to be easily disrupted if there is a material decrease in energy consumption per capita because maintenance of the system becomes difficult.
If energy consumption per capita falls dramatically, many changes that don’t seem directly energy-related can be expected. For example, the roles of men and women are likely to change. Without modern medical care, women will likely need to become the mothers of several children in order that an average of two can survive long enough to raise their own children. Men will be valued for the heavy manual labor that they can perform. Today’s view of the equality of the sexes is likely to disappear because sex differences will become much more important in a low-energy world.
Needless to say, other aspects of a low-energy economy might be very different as well. For example, one very low-energy type of economic system is a “gift economy.” In such an economy, the status of each individual is determined by the amount that that person can give away. Anything a person obtains must automatically be shared with the local group or the individual will be expelled from the group. In an economy with very low complexity, this kind of economy seems to work. A gift economy doesn’t require money or debt!
[6] Most people assume that moving away from fossil fuels is something we can choose to do with whatever timing we would like. I would argue that we are not in charge of the process. Instead, fossil fuels will leave us when we lose the ability to reduce interest rates sufficiently to keep oil and other fossil fuel prices high enough for energy producers.
Something that may seem strange to those who do not follow the issue is the fact that oil (and other energy prices) seem to be very much influenced by interest rates and the level of debt. In general, the lower the interest rate, the more affordable high-priced goods such as factories, homes, and automobiles become, and the higher commodity prices of all kinds can be. “Demand” increases with falling interest rates, causing energy prices of all types to rise.
Figure 6.
The cost of extracting oil is less important in determining oil prices than a person might expect. Instead, prices seem to be determined by what end products consumers (in the aggregate) can afford. In general, the more debt that individual citizens, businesses and governments can obtain, the higher that oil and other energy prices can rise. Of course, if interest rates start rising (instead of falling), there is a significant chance of a debt bubble popping, as defaults rise and asset prices decline.
Interest rates have been generally falling since 1981 (Figure 7). This is the direction needed to support ever-higher energy prices.
Figure 7. Chart of 3-month and 10-year interest rates, prepared by the FRED, using data through March 27, 2019.
The danger now is that interest rates are approaching the lowest level that they can possibly reach. We need lower interest rates to support the higher prices that oil producers require, as their costs rise because of depletion. In fact, if we compare Figures 7 and 8, the Federal Reserve has been supporting higher oil and other energy prices with falling interest rates practically the whole time since oil prices rose above the inflation adjusted level of $20 per barrel!
Figure 8. Historical inflation adjusted prices oil, based on data from 2018 BP Statistical Review of World Energy, with the low price period for oil highlighted.
Once the Federal Reserve and other central banks lose their ability to cut interest rates further to support the need for ever-rising oil prices, the danger is that oil and other commodity prices will fall too low for producers. The situation is likely to look like the second half of 2008 in Figure 6. The difference, as we reach limits on how low interest rates can fall, is that it will no longer be possible to stimulate the economy to get energy and other commodity prices back up to an acceptable level for producers.
[7] Once we hit the “no more stimulus impasse,” fossil fuels will begin leaving us because prices will fall too low for companies extracting these fuels. They will be forced to leave because they cannot make an adequate profit.
One example of an oil producer whose production was affected by an extended period of low prices is the Soviet Union (or USSR).
Figure 9. Oil production of the former Soviet Union together with oil prices in 2017 US$. All amounts from 2018 BP Statistical Review of World Energy.
The US substantially raised interest rates in 1980-1981 (Figure 7). This led to a sharp reduction in oil prices, as the higher interest rates cut back investment of many kinds, around the world. Given the low price of oil, the Soviet Union reduced new investment in new fields. This slowdown in investment first reduced the rate of growth in oil production, and eventually led to a decline in production in 1988 (Figure 9). When oil prices rose again, production did also.
Figure 10. Energy consumption per capita for the former Soviet Union, based on BP 2018 Statistical Review of World Energy data and UN 2017 population estimates.
The Soviet Union’s energy consumption per capita reached its highest level in 1988 and began declining in 1989. The central government of the Soviet Union did not collapse until late 1991, as the economy was increasingly affected by falling oil export revenue.
Some of the changes that occurred as the economy simplified itself were the loss of the central government, the loss of a large share of industry, and a great deal of job loss. Energy consumption per capita dropped by 36% between 1988 and 1998. It has never regained its former level.
Venezuela is another example of an oil exporter that, in theory, could export more oil, if oil prices were higher. It is interesting to note that Venezuela’s highest energy consumption per capita occurred in 2008, when oil prices were high.
We are now getting a chance to observe what the collapse in Venezuela looks like on a day- by-day basis. Figure 5, above, shows Venezuela’s energy consumption per capita pattern through 2017. Low oil prices since 2014 have particularly adversely affected the country.
[8] Conclusion: We can’t know exactly what is ahead, but it is clear that moving away from fossil fuels will be far more destructive of our current economy than nearly everyone expects.
It is very easy to make optimistic forecasts about the future if a person doesn’t carefully examine what the data and the science seem to be telling us. Most researchers come from narrow academic backgrounds that do not seek out insights from other fields, so they tend not to understand the background story.
A second issue is the desire for a “happy ever after” ending to our current energy predicament. If a researcher is creating an economic model without understanding the underlying principles, why not offer an outcome that citizens will like? Such a solution can help politicians get re-elected and can help researchers get grants for more research.
We should be examining the situation more closely than most people have considered. The fact that interest rates cannot drop much further is particularly concerning.
Several cycles are converging at the moment..
The economic cycle: is at the Minsky moment. The world economy is drowning in debt to the point that imminent collapse is only being staved off by the constant creation off more currency into the currency system. Increasing the supply of an asset that has value based on scarcity will only decrease the value of that asset. Quantitative easing might kick the can down the road but it can’t sustain indefinitely and it only makes the inevitable value collapse worse.
The social cycle: is at the decline section of the curve as well. Good times have created weak men and weak men (us) have begun to create hard times. Very few of us are engaging in great struggles or accomplishing great feats. Many of us are entitled and arrogant.
The Empire cycle: is reaching the end. The American Empire is in its final stages, their leader has been a combatant on Wrestlemania before if the point needed emphasizing. Whatever your opinion on President Trump it can’t be denied he is not a conventional choice for a ruler.
The civilization cycle: has reached its end as well, in terms of epochs of civilization previous examples being Atlantean and Lumerian. Our current one can be thought of in terms of the Western dominance of the world. The global structure of civilization itself has reach the zenith point on the curve and is at peak unsustainability, in terms of population, technological harmony with nature, and human direction. You can’t live the way we live forever, the Earth is finite and resources have to come from somewhere.
Yes, this is good approach to visualize it as several gargantuan trends commingling and intersecting roughly now (not necessarily in prime single human life expectancy though).
In terms of Western dominance, it’s a tricky concept, since the whole global has been influenced up this point or we could even say got infected by it. There used to be this adage that some of the Asian-antsy vertically oriented societies have higher propensity of tech and science people near or in the top hallways of power. True or not this has been largely negated by the diaspora from say Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore spreading this stuff of ‘finance engineering’ back on the mainland.. So, it’s very doubtful that ‘expected’ events such as GFCv2.0 proper could be cunningly avoided by them.
Nevertheless I think the most plausible near term scenario is still the same, he who controls (and or owns the resources), while simultaneously enjoying at least some degree of domestic resiliency can avoid the triage meat-grinder action for just another round hence the less fortunate ones drop into the abyss sooner.
The big eye opener would be one out of the Saudi/Gulfie pack going down (or Iran), but that has not happened yet, instead we got the lesser-distant players affected (chipped away) such as Libya, Venezuela only so far.
You wonder how bad an effect these floods are going to have on Iran’s economy, given that it was already in a parlous state with the Rial absolutely cratering over the past year or so. There is yet more rain forecast:
“Authorities ordered tens of thousands of residents of the southwestern Iranian city of Ahvaz to evacuate immediately on Wednesday as floodwaters entered the capital of oil-rich Khuzestan province, state television reported…
“Governor Shariati called on young men in the areas, which have an estimated population of between 60,000 and 70,000, to “help us in building dykes and to assist in the evacuation of women, children and the elderly”.
“”The Dez and Karkheh rivers have for the first time joined each other near Ahvaz and are now flowing towards the city,” Shariati told state TV, adding this was unprecedented.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-6907605/Iran-orders-60-000-evacuate-flood-hit-oil-city.html
Breaking News from the Daily Telegraph!
Julian Assange has been arrested by the Metropolitan Police after being expelled from the Ecuadorean Embassy, where he has been hiding as a fugitive since 2012.
A police spokesperson said: “Julian Assange, 47, (03.07.71) has today, Thursday 11 April, been arrested by officers from the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) at the Embassy of Ecuador, Hans Crescent, SW1 on a warrant issued by Westminster Magistrates’ Court on 29 June 2012, for failing to surrender to the court.
“He has been taken into custody at a central London police station where he will remain, before being presented before Westminster Magistrates’ Court as soon as is possible.
“The MPS had a duty to execute the warrant, on behalf of Westminster Magistrates’ Court, and was invited into the embassy by the Ambassador, following the Ecuadorian government’s withdrawal of asylum.”
Whilst it is UK law that Assange should answer in the courts for skipping bail, he did have good reason. Now the UK, a vassal state of USA, is determined to extradite him to the ‘Great Satan’ where they intend to incarcerate him forever and throw away the key.
If this happens, and our government cowers to the criminals running America, the British people will be seen in the streets and pitchforks will be sharpened. I kid you not.
They’re no charges against him, so he couldn’t be tried for skipping bail. This is just payback, because Wikileaks exposed U.S. war crimes.
British people are timid, unlike the French. Maybe it’s the diet? Less sugar, processed junk?
Thank you, psile, I love your assessment of the British psyche – so true. But actually the indolence of the Brits IMHO comes from the stoicism of the wartime experience as they waited patiently in the bomb shelters while all hell broke loose above. “Keep Calm and Carry On”. I don’t actually remember it but I do feel a twinge when I hear a wailing siren
And then of course, we had the ‘cold war’ and I do remember planning to build a nuclear shelter in my garden (3m down is enough) after the Cuba missile crisis. This was very real for us at the time and I believe was a major cause of the 60s hippy culture: “Beware of Reds under the Bed” and “Better Dead than Red”. I was a fervent anticommunist and volunteered for Nam – didn’t go though, thank God.
You are quite right about payback and I am furious that our vassal government is going to extradite Julian in due course. If in fact this happens I am going to move heaven and earth to do something about it – ancient though I be, weak in body, strong in spirit! Lock & Load – F’ing “A” man .. etc etc.
Thanks Peter, fight the good fight, until the end…
Looks like there’s going to be war, sooner than later. The U.S. is taking its decline very badly, and has clearly gone full psycho now, judging by its recent actions. Conflict with Russia, China and Iran are a foregone conclusion. The drums of hate will only beat louder, the deeper into the grave the empire goes. Within a few years, bombs will be falling on green, freshly manicured lawns. Russia will be last-man standing, for what it’s worth, as it has the stronger mindset, because it fears war, though is prepared for it. Whereas the soft and flabby West are toast, since they don’t fear war, nor are they in any way ready.
Yep, we battle onward and upward, psile and I couldn’t agree more with your views, we are on the same page. It’s my children and family I feel for most and is why I wrote my book, so I could leave behind a little of my knowledge for when the isht hits the fan and I have passed on to (hopefully) a better world.
You see, I have never really felt at home here on planet Earth,even as a child. I always say that I can’t remember anyone asking me if I would like to spend a lifetime here – if they had – I would have politely declined because I come from planet Zob where everything is wonderful at the happy farm. My psychiatrist says that I am quite mad, but I say it’s this place that’s mad, but I hope I am proved wrong and it turns out to be just me! Here’s a link for the future:
https://www.thelostways.com/vsl/index.php?r=4008&r=9239&hop=eprism&rx=1
Back in WW2, Italy was considered the soft underbelly of Europe. These days Europe consists of nothing but soft underbelly with the possible exception of Switzerland.
The Assange case is pretty opaque just now. He’s being charged with conspiring to help Chelsea Manning hack a government computer back when she was Bradley. I don’t think anyone was expecting that particular angle. The optics didn’t look good as they dragged him out of the Embassy, did they?
“Yes there were people on watch. Sadly many were undercover cops, the worst slime on the planet.”
“Financial regulators have done a lot to reform the derivatives markets that helped turn the financial crisis of 2008 into a global disaster. But their work is unfinished — and there’s even a danger that, in one way, they might have made things worse… because [derivatives] enable big wagers with little money down, they can quickly generate losses and cash demands large enough to destabilize the entire financial system.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-04-10/derivatives-are-still-too-dangerous
Derivatives are like insurance, with no fund to pay claims when they happen. You cross your fingers that all of the pieces of the system will hold together.
“The Federal Reserve is likely to leave interest rates unchanged this year given risks to the U.S. economy from a global slowdown and uncertainty over trade policies and financial conditions, according to the minutes from its March 19-20 policy meeting.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-fed-minutes/citing-global-slowdown-fed-sees-no-changes-to-rates-in-2019-idUKKCN1RM2EL
“The European Central Bank (ECB) held interest rates steady on Wednesday, shortly after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) sharply downgraded its economic growth forecast for the euro zone economy. The ECB has been forced to backtrack on its plans to tighten monetary policy, amid an intensifying climate of economic gloom.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/10/ecb-interest-rates-draghi-under-pressure-amid-gloomy-economic-outlook.html
“Central banks are running the risk of a severe financial crisis through policies aimed at boosting short-term economic growth, the International Monetary Fund has warned. In its half-yearly global financial stability report, the IMF said the removal of the threat of higher interest rates had prompted a rapid recovery in financial markets after last autumn’s turbulence but would lead to a fresh buildup in already high levels of debt.”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/apr/10/short-term-growth-policies-risk-new-financial-crisis-imf-warns
The ECB understands the connection between higher interest rates and and economic growth!
“European Central Bank policymakers are increasingly leaning towards rewarding banks for lending to households and businesses but are mostly sceptical about giving lenders a reprieve from a charge on their idle cash, four sources told Reuters.
“With the euro zone economy slowing more than expected, the ECB is again looking for ways to stimulate inflation, but with an increasingly empty-looking toolbox and just months after stopping a 2.6 trillion euro (2.24 trillion pounds) bond-buying programme.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-ecb-policy/ecb-would-rather-pay-banks-to-lend-than-cut-charge-on-idle-cash-sources-idUKKCN1RN27I
“All is not well in the global economy…a deeper global downturn could result in some dangerous solutions”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/business/a-deeper-global-downturn-could-result-in-some-dangerous-solutions-9gg7k7mqd
“Central banks are running the risk of a severe financial crisis through policies aimed at boosting short-term economic growth, the International Monetary Fund has warned. In its half-yearly global financial stability report, the IMF said the removal of the threat of higher interest rates had prompted a rapid recovery in financial markets after last autumn’s turbulence but would lead to a fresh buildup in already high levels of debt.”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/apr/10/short-term-growth-policies-risk-new-financial-crisis-imf-warns
“The middle class is shrinking and its economic power diminishing in the U.S. and other rich countries, a development that threatens political stability and economic growth, according to a report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. At the peak of its powers in 1985, the aggregate income of the middle classes was four times that of the richest group. Three decades later, it had fallen to less than three times.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/shrinking-middle-class-threatens-global-growth-stability-11554922801
“American savers have lost $500 billion to $600 billion in interest payments on bank accounts and money market funds thanks to the Federal Reserve’s post-financial crisis policies, according to Wells Fargo analyst Mike Mayo. Mayo included the statistic in a research note about the congressional hearing scheduled for Wednesday called “Holding Megabanks Accountable: A Review of Global Systemically Important Banks 10 Years After the Financial Crisis.””
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/10/americans-have-lost-500-billion-in-interest-after-financial-crisis.html
This is quite correct Harry, thank you. And note this unverified article:
“And in connection with Basel III, this story (translated from a Russian site) is not confirmed to be true as yet, but if it is so, will prove to be quite a bombshell because it is forecasting global mayhem in the autumn, just six months away!”
http://thesaker.is/basel-3-a-revolution-that-once-again-no-one-noticed/
“In all corners of the globe, warning signs are flashing about the state of the economy. The IMF recently downgraded its forecast for global economic growth for the fourth time in nine months. We are now in a “significantly weakened global expansion,” according to IMF chief economist Gita Gopinath.
“Some 70% of the global economy (as measured by GDP) will experience a slowdown this year, the IMF forecasts. That would make it the most extensive synchronized slowdown since 2011.”
https://qz.com/1590499/the-global-economy-has-entered-a-synchronized-slowdown/
“The global economy is highly vulnerable to a debt crisis as dangerous levels of business and government borrowing could crush growth and exacerbate any slump, the International Monetary Fund has warned.
“Record corporate borrowing in the US could turn boom into bust in the world’s largest economy.
“Risky links between banks and governments in the eurozone threaten to restart the sovereign debt crisis. This is a particular risk in Italy where government debt is still rising and its banking sector is weak.
“And China’s government, business and household debts all pose a risk to this engine of global growth.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/04/10/surging-debts-raise-risk-crisis-undermine-efforts-battle-slowdown/
“There are similarities with 2008 that we should not ignore.
“A massive China stimulus inflates risky assets and commodities.
Poor macro and earnings data is ignored by markets assuming that all will improve in the second half of the year.
“Yield curves invert. 15 economies now have 30-year yields lower than LIBOR overnight rates.
“The figure of negative yield debt rises to $11 trillion.
“Financial repression is at all-time highs while leading indicators point to a growing risk of recession.”
https://www.eurasiareview.com/11042019-central-banks-are-heading-toward-a-stagnant-global-zombie-economy-oped/
“Many European countries haven’t recovered yet from the financial crisis of 2007-2008 like Italy, Portugal, Spain, Greece. Lots of uncertainty for a Brexit Deal. UK parliament still has not approved Theresa May proposal and a NO Deal seems closer than ever. European Banks for the past three quarters have reported negative numbers , like Deutsche Bank, and the ECB has kept interest rate at minimum without obtaining the expected results.”
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4253749-turmoil-europe-affect-financial-markets-soon
Not sure if this has been posted before. Jay Hanson (dieoff.org) has died on a diving trip in Indonesia.
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2019-04-09/jay-hanson-dies-in-diving-accident/
Gail informed us of Jay’s death last week. But the information was sketchy. Thank you for posting this more recent link.
Why is this being ping-backed from “The Christian Porn Addict”? That’s a fairly random combination of interests…
I can get rid of it. I did look at it, and the site seemed to be concerned about pornography being shown to seventh graders, in the article up front.
The site generally seemed to be concerned generally about end times. I can see why they might link to my post.
green wind energy is a farce it will take 19 years for a windmill to generate the same amount of energy used to make the thing running at annual capacity of 30% , as they last at best 15 years they are a total energy looser .
I recently found this and think it bears serious consideration,
it proposes to remove and sustainably sequester all the carbon within the CO2 released since the beginning of the industrial revolution and do it over the next 40 years.
this would reset the atmospheric gas balance, hence stabilising that aspect of climatic change, it would replace the amount of deforestation that’s happened during the industrial era which would also fix a lot of the climatic problems, help fix the water cycle, halt desertification and expand food producing land area instead of impinge upon it, etc.
the real bonus is that it would also allow the continued use of fossil fuels that underpin modern society,
I’m not advocating profligate use of fossil fuels, they are finite and also dwindling, but we could use what remains wisely and where appropriate, efficiently and with an eye to the future,
this proposal would buy us a lot of time which could be used to transition to a more thoughtful and sustainable energy and material usage model.
http://www.thetreesolution.com/en/
if you like this guys proposal I suggest looking at his invention that allows you to grow trees in areas with insignificant rainfall, it’s been trialled in deserts and on a high plateau in Spain, seemingly quite successfully,
https://www.groasis.com/en
FDR setup the planting of the Great Plains Shelterbelt, it’s hardly an alien or controversial solution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Plains_Shelterbelt
nothing needs to be invented, we could start tomorrow.
“we could start tomorrow.”
So what’s stopping us?
In my part of the world forest fires. Here in British Colombia the population contributes 65 million tons of co2 while forest fires contribute 200 million tons. There are no easy solutions – remember we don’t have a problem here we have a dilemma!
“There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need gifts” – “Illusions” (The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah) by Richard Bach
Or from another angle:
‘Man develops capacities in accordance with need: increase, therefore, your need!’
:-))))))
well FDR planted the Great Plains Shelterbelt to arrest the dustbowl and stabilise the loss of the top soil from a huge region,
you know the dust from the dustbowl was even reaching NY it had become so bad?
China has been working on stabilising the Loess Plateau that had become totally denuded by centuries of over grazing and unsustainable agricultural practices,
China has also reversed the expansion of the northern desert, it’s required a herculean and sustained effort but faliure wasn’t an option,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDgDWbQtlKI
didn’t someone one say “we do these things, not because they are easy but because they are difficult”
didn’t the spin offs from technology developed for that project enhance and advance that countries prosperity?
You have to remember Matt that forests now are not carbon sinks anymore they are carbon emitters! It’s not what nature intended but that’s where we are – trees are carbon emitters when they burn. Plant more trees create more carbon dioxide!
no, we do these things because our collective backs are against the wall, and we have few choices going forward. that’s how most grand human endeavors are done, after all the easy wrong choices have been tried.
Gail tries to explain why pretty much nothing works. The laws of physics, she calls it. But I think there ARE some answers, only that they are inside people–the species has to change, including to decentralize effortlessly. If a thing isn’t effortless, it might not work.
Despite reports to the contrary I am not dead. I’m just old (38) and tired. Everything that I’ve done and discussed has been for nought. People will not change. It’s a useless passion. I see even Fast Eddy has given up.
You can’t go on and on about the same things for more than 10 years, and yet nothing changes and nobody learns anything. 1 year, maybe. 5 years, and you already pushing it. 10, and we are beyond redemption.
They destroyed me. So I bid adieu and wish you all the best of luck. American civilization is crumbling. I tried, but it was too late. I’m out. I have no stake in this game anymore.
I guess many if not most of commenting folks here have had in fact not very successful ‘conversion rate’ with regard to debating and informing the public be it just immediate circle of friends and family. That’s normal, why to be upset about it? You are still youngish, it takes roughly ~6-12yrs to have ‘no oily’ permaculture style farm to start produce heavily even on formerly decrepit land for conventional agro, chances are you can make it on the other side or at least enjoy the good life before marauders locust your place over in ~2030s and beyond.
Don’t give up Dolph, there will always be people who won’t listen, they are too busy living their lives. It is hard to maintain faith when all around you everyone is losing theirs; Try Mark 11:24, “it works if you work it” as we say in the most expensive club in the world.
Nice to hear from you Dolph.
You are doubtless going through an early mid-life crisis brought on by too much moping and fretting .Please stay away from the fentanyl and the cocaine and remember: Don’t worry, be happy!
As they used to say in the old country, life begins at forty.
https://youtu.be/adoQFNS_Gjc
Dolph,
I’m 38 too. At times I feel fat, old and useless (for my age) too. Like you, few heed my warnings on the Collapse that is probably just around the corner. But giving up isn’t the answer.
What is one to do in your / our situation? Simple: stop trying to change others and just worry about changing yourself.
“If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself, and then make a change”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PivWY9wn5ps
Cheers,
-GBV
Ah, no truer words spoken GBV thank you. Clearly some counselling/reading has taken place and in one so young? It took me until 50 to meet my armageddon on the road to Damascus, so you are well ahead IMHO.
It’s amazing how one changes after one blows up their government-employed / university-educated life to become a social pariah, spend 2 years in jail (for something that wasn’t even considered a crime a decade ago, no less!), and then emerge to take up a menial labour job at 1/5th one’s previous income.
On the plus side, I figure going through my own personal collapse now should help me (possibly) survive humanity’s collapse in the near future. So I’ve got that, along with total consciousness on my death bed, going for me…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X48G7Y0VWW4
Cheers,
-GBV
WOW, GBV, thank you so much for so honestly sharing – you have blown my mind – the clip is fab – you are clearly an advanced soul. Perhaps this book will help if you haven’t already read it:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Children-Law-Lost-Teachings-Atlantis/dp/0966001532
And maybe my book will help? Happy to send you a pdf on request: peter@underco.co.uk
(sorry Gail – OT – promise not to repeat too often!)
I’ve actually been goaded into buying Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning”, so that will be my next ego-crushing / mind-expanding read (when I can find the time!). I hope it lives up to the hype of which was used to push it onto me…
Jon Peniel’s “… Lost Teachings of Atlantis” looks to be fairly interesting. I’ll have to keep my eyes peeled for it in used bookstores or at the library, or perhaps wait for it to go on sale ($48 here in Canada on Amazon… a bit rich for my blood!).
And I’ll definitely reach out to you via email – who could say no to a good PDF read? 🙂
Cheers,
-GBV
Thanks GBV and noted. The price of the ‘Lost Teachings…..’ has escalated immensely since I bought it some years ago – it’s £26 in UK. Must be in great demand? Like you, I certainly wouldn’t have paid that much.
dolph, you’d make an old ape, but not a human. in fact, at 38 I consider you a young p-u-n-k, still w-e-t behind the ears, etc. so cheer up, kiddo!
The problem is that you fight overshoot when it is an inbuilt feature of our DNA. If you stop using resources, someone else will use them. The people who waste resources usually are more successful in genetic reproduction. It is a feature not a bug. To resist is a waste of time. Overshoot and collapse has happened to all civilisatoins before ancd it will of course also happen to ours so what? Be angry and have a bad time? Party hard till the bitter end and enjoy what you can get ? Easy decision
“Be angry and have a bad time? Party hard till the bitter end and enjoy what you can get ? Easy decision”
Yes, because all decisions in life are binary – there couldn’t possibly be any other (middle-ground) choices for us at this point (i.e slowly reducing one’s dependence on fossil fuels in favour of self-sufficient living, a re-focusing on local community vs. the global community, a shift away from consumerism / wealth-maximizing towards a balance between financial / health / social wealth, etc.)…
-GBV
This Monday there was a press conference of the fridays for future organisation in germany. They aksed for a co2 price of 180 Euros per tonne. That is amazing. German per capita CO2 is about 11,5 t. That will mean about 2000 Euro per capita extra payments. Ok, ok, there exists a possibility that the money will be transferred back to the people with little income but then they will also consume more.
I was really scratching my head as why the Fridays for Future movement is so positively embraced by all channels of media. I get the impression that the need is to make “cilmate change” an urgent threat instead of fossil fuel delivery problems.
“We can consume happily for ever because all our consumption will be green in a short time”
The problem really is that all economic activity is FF. No FF, no economy. We could have made it if we started with a level of maybe 1970 and then had a long time for experiments and a lot of energy to jump over to the renewable aera. Today ? Very difficult. 2 t CO2 per capita is allowed. 80% reduction of energy slaves. Maintain our complex civilisation with 80% less in everything and what is left will be very inefficient low tech (water powered saw mills) ? Well that sounds like a problem for a strong AI
Even Germany has beem heavily investing in gas infrastructure and gas turbines when the public discussion only is about coal. When coal usage declines the greens see it as a good sign. The renewable revolution is taking up speed. We will have electrical cars and zero emissions in 2030. The perception has to be managed that there is no imminent crash ahead. The green new Deal will propell us into a green new world where everybody can live greenly.
Here is an article for what is required with a green new deal but simply is not there: FF :
http://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2019/03/19/solve-this-or-you-solve-nothing-2/
Excellent article!
the fundamental piece of propaganda that the windfarms allow to be broadcast, is the one about the windfarm being able to supply sufficient energy to power xxx homes
the sum arrived at by dividing the output of the windfarm (which is itself the max rating of every turbine) by the number of homes that output can serve (based on the average power requirement of a typical home).
The resulting figure of “10000 homes ” or whatever, leaves everyone with a warm glow that reassures us that everything is going to be OK energy-wise, and we have no need to worry.
The figure never mentioned, is that the physical and social environment in which the typical home sits consumes 50 x as much energy as the home itself, and that no form of energy other than fossil fuels can possibly replace that
It is just convenient to fool people into thinking that it can.
When they figure out that it can’t all hell is going to break loose
“The figure never mentioned, is that the physical and social environment in which the typical home sits consumes 50 x as much energy as the home itself, and that no form of energy other than fossil fuels can possibly replace that”
Great point. To put it differently, the infrastructure and environment that allows a typical home to use energy in a meaningful way itself consumes energy. If most/all of the consumption environment is running on FFs, so is the consumption.
If householders cut back on energy use, the utility companies will have to charge them much more per unit in order to pay for the whole infrastructure…..
Interesting to see the what the young are being taught,as this will condition their reactions to future developments – we can never quite escape what we believed passionately in our youth.
As per Greta Thunberg and the ‘Strikers’:
1/ The ‘Transition’ is technically feasible, now.
2 / It is the only thing that can save humanity in general, and their future in particular.
3/ The Transition will also create Clean, Green, well-paid employment – in abundance. It will also end all wars over energy – nothing to fight over in a world of wind turbines and solar panels, right?
4/ The only obstacles to this desirable state of affairs are the fossil fuel corporations, the older generation, and the ‘liars’ in government.
We can see that this is both wildly off the mark, and much closer to a revolutionary or religious programme than to physical reality or the current state of technology and our economies.
I suspect it is being propagated to create a future voter-base in favour of policies yet to be imposed. Greta didn’t come up with this all by herself.
I don’t there’s any subversive force behind all this—it’s far too naive and innocent. It’s just a chance spark lighting a forest fire, the fire will burn till it’s consumed all there is to consume
It is an exercise in single focus logic. Which if you don’t look sideways makes perfect sense, particularly to lives as yet unlived.
Oil has caused the problem so stop using oil
Windfarms supply energy–therefore we don’t need oil
we need transport, batteries will provide it
people need jobs, they can be employed building wind turbines
we need food, so go back to horse power
The people screaming “extinction” are no doubt correct, but expecting governments to have some kind of answer is naive in the extreme. They know no more than we do
But single focus logic requires someone to blame.
admitting that we are all to blame diffuses it
Unfortunately ‘Greta’ and similar are ostentatiously puppeteered by int NGOs in very organized fashion with other players like trans national govs, yes we could continue to believe that it is far from subversive connotations and motives, but ..
it is a fundamental lack of understanding that money can only exist if it underpinned by energy
no matter who is orchestrating it
and i still say it is all too naive
Norman, check whether your Period key is working. It seems to have come to a full stop.
OK, Greta might conceivably come up with all this on her own. I doubt she did, but it isn’t completely beyond the bounds of possibility. However, she couldn’t have gotten a global campaign up and running with massive TV and newspaper coverage and endorsements from all the usual suspects.
In this respect she is no different from Malala or David Hogg or AOC in my opinion. Whether willingly or unwittingly, they are all useful prawns or seahorses on the Great Underwater Global Chessboard.
Tim
if i promise to bring an apple into class for you on Monday morning—can I have my job as chalk monitor back?
Please?
there’s no logic other than pretzel, and it sounds more-on like stuuuupidity than anything we should consider important. mi dos centavos.
“We can see that this is both wildly off the mark, and much closer to a revolutionary or religious programme”
Same can be said for a lot of things, including stock markets, a lot of nuclear/fossil fuel optimism, techno-utopianism in general etc. The inability to apply the same process of reasoning to completely different things is the clearest indicator of bigotry.
A lot of the techno-optimists have described themselves as evangelists, so they are not unaware of or in denial of a religious aspect to their activism.
Remember when the prophet Jobs brought down two tables from the mountain and said, “Behold the iPad and the iPad Mini! Use them together. Use them in peace”?
Religion, like metaphor, is deeply rooted in the human psyche. This is something most atheists are in pathological denial of, which helps to explain atheist bigotry.
Selfishness, greed and lust are deeply rooted in the human psyche, and religion is an expression of those things.
Occasionally religion can also be an expression of nobler things, but reactionary new atheist types who say “religion is deeply rooted in the human psyche” don’t much care about those.
You touch on a prescient subject jupiviv, because I have recently finished reading this book which, in essence, claims that if we can give up being selfish then we can move nearer to enlightenment:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Children-Law-Lost-Teachings-Atlantis/dp/0966001532
Worth a look, IMO
I have good news….my millennial son and daughter in law were visiting, and my son told me he learned from a prof that solar panels and wind turbines are not really green, and now he is researching it and writing a paper on that! He is ahead of most in coming to a correct understanding of it all. Now, if I could just get him to realize the rest of the energy predicament.
Excellent exposition Xabier, thank you, and I entirely agree with your sentiments. Part 2 of my book addresses the issues you raise. We will need to re-educate the young ones to understand that deferring gratification is the first step in the process of personal transformation.
A book that I have used successfuly with my clients in the past is: “Love is Letting Go of Fear”:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Love-Letting-Fear-Gerald-Jampolsky/dp/1587611961
Jampolsky is a good friend of M.Scott Peck and his book “The Road less Travelled” is a must read for budding counsellors. The first three words always struck me as prescient: “Life is difficult”
I am fascinated by how intricate and interwoven the battle lines in this renewables vs FFs debate can be. So many real/perceived selfish ends combined with political allegiances and positioning involved! In almost all cases it just acts as a “proxy issue” for wholly unrelated conflicts and grudges, that are at best tangential to the material reality.
This is similar to all the infighting between Christian sects during late antiquity. They claimed to want to kill each other over what the Trinity actually was, but such controversies were banners to rally under. A Roman empire in decline could neither support nor pacify its diverse inhabitants sufficiently.
Some might say we are living through a time that resembles late antiquity. I beg to differ, we are living through a time that has no precedent in all of human history, and that resembles other periods of collapse metaphorically at best.
Also @Gail, thanks for the article.
Gail:
Solar panel fabrication is an energy intensive process. I don’t believe that anyone has demonstrated that solar panels produce more energy in the course of their productive lifespan than that consumed in their production. If so, I’d like to be informed of the study which shows that we can get more energy out of them than what is put into them.
If the economy collapses, their lifespan is not very long.
They also disturb the carrier that are supporting the economy with their intermittent electricity that needs to be supported.
Yes, most of installs (utility+residential) are grid based only.
Hmm, well, I guess I agree with the general premise of this article. However, almost all of the countries used to make the argument have been subject to an array of issues of a geopolitical nature. It would be more convincing to use examples that aren’t so batted about by larger, more powerful countries via proxy wars and debt-trap “diplomacy”, though I suppose in practice this may be hard to achieve.
Lastly, I think one can be a long-time reader of this blog and be very concerned about climate change. Fossil fuels will be functionally gone one day and life can still go on for however many humans the resulting energy/resource profile supports; a planet tipped into run-away warming will be the end of humanity and a good chunk of our non-human neighbors. I guess if you’re a doomist christian or similar that doesn’t bother you much, maybe even something to look forward to.
George, I also felt the use of Syria, Yemen and Venezuela was to an extent cherry picking. There are other geopolitical factors involved in the messes all three of them are in and it is far from easy to trace the lines of cause and effect at work. But as I understand it, the FF affordability trap is a “real” phenomenon, squeezing economies everywhere. It is a powerful factor in all sorts of problems different countries are facing.
I am totally uncertain about economic matters. I have no idea how things are going to play out. And so I can’t make predictions about whether we are all going to get richer or poorer or washed away in a tsunami of economic collapse any time soon. It does seem to me that global population must peak soon and FF use must also peak soon, but beyond that my clairvoyance refuses to reveal anything.
You can be very concerned about climate change, but be assured too. At least in the case of run-away warming, I am convinced, confident and as certain as certain can be that it isn’t going to happen. I would never say never, but it is highly improbable given what we think we know about physics. What Gail says about the Economy is just as true of the climate: The real situation is that “the laws of physics”, rather than humans, are in charge. And those “laws” (meaning the way the physical world operates) will not permit runaway warming. Obviously, the amount of heat we get from the sun varies within fixed limits and is just enough to keep the earth at about its present temperature. And there are a number of negative feedback mechanisms at work that would prevent “runaway warming”.
I know I can be an irritating old s*d and I expect most readers think I’m bonkers. But in my comments on climate I am simply trying to add some commonsense to counter the torrent of alarmist propaganda that is causing many of our finest young minds to be—in my opinion commendably but quite unnecessarily—very concerned about climate change. If a man is not a runaway-warmist by the time he is 20, he has no heart. If he is not a sceptic by the time he is 40 and a reactionary old fart by the time he is 60, he has no brain.
I am sorry, I ran out of time and space to put in more examples. If we look at world energy consumption per capita, excluding the Soviet Union group of countries (because that group of countries depended on high oil prices, while oil consuming countries depend on low prices), what we get is this chart:
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/world-ex-former-ussr-energy-consumption-per-capita.png
The one sharp dip we find is the 2008 recession. The dip is not big, but the effect worldwide was huge! The softer dip at the beginning in the 1980 to 1983 period reflects the economic contraction in reaction to the higher interest rates of 1980-1981 period. I earlier thought at this had to do with more fuel efficient vehicles and other changes, but I am beginning to think it really was mostly economic contraction.
A couple of other countries that would be interesting to look at is Argentina and Egypt. They have been in and out of the news. I expect their periods of falling energy consumption per capita correspond to the periods when they appeared in the news every day.
I am afraid the result we are seeing is not my cherry picking. There is likely to be war when there is not enough to go around. World War I and World War II all seem to have related to peak coal. This was a peak in both production and consumption, because there were not huge supplies elsewhere, and there was less international trade than today.
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/52-peak-coal-in-uk-and-germany-led-to-world-wars.png
Brilliant article. In effect, you revealed all the BS behind the climate threath.
Of course, the climate really is changing. But that is not the immediate threat. The real threat is collapse. And we can do absolutely nothing about fixing the climate problem, except the collapse that is coming at us anyhow.
It’s sort like being on the side of a mountain watching a speeding train head in your direction. Do you decide to jump out of the way and fall off the side of the mountain to your death or do you wait for the train to hit you?
Either way the outcome is the same.
No Rodster. This is not the 1800’s anymore. Duh, you can call 911 on your 4G iPhone and play solitaire (in 3D no less) while you wait for your heros to show up and save you. Maybe post a few selfies of you and the train to get “likes” while your waiting. And no fossil fuels were used either. It is so magical isn’t it. We are so advanced and technology will always save us. – end of extreme sarcasmic episode.
Or you start climbing down the side of the cliff before disaster strikes (i.e. start lowering your energy consumption, prepping and engaging in permaculture, seeking out and actioning mitigation strategies rather than sitting around and blah-blah-blahing on OFW all day)? It’s difficult, no doubt, and odds are you will fail and fall to your death… but you tried, goddammit; at least you did that.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gSPBLBjCLIw
Cheers,
-GBV
This is an article I noticed today in the WSJ:
A Chill Descends on the Coal Market: Thermal-coal prices have tumbled to multiyear lows
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/coal-price-crash-april-2019-wsj.-png.png
Coal and natural gas prices are very important too, and they are falling too low for producers as well. The focus is always on oil, because it is highest priced and more globally traded, but low prices on coal and natural gas are just as important.
Thanks, have been watching (retail) prices easing a bit, but not a true ‘fire sale’ collapse so far, perhaps might order a pallet (or more?) in the early summer though. There are ways how to burn it relatively cleanly and efficiently in certain setups.. The same for wood as the bug is causing havoc in CEE again, plus the effect of ~mild winter, hence the looming over supply..
BOTTOM LINE TRUTH IS THAT UNTIL FOSSIL FUEL INTEREST GROUPS SEE IT PROFITABLE THERE IS NOT GOING TO BE MAJOR CHANGES FOR RENEWABLE ENERGY.
The bottom line truth is that renewable energy is not helpful. Without fossil fuels, everything stops. There is collapse.
I’m amazed how people think we have to move away from FF’s. On another forum some made this comment: “the only thing more destructive that that is not moving away from fossil fuels”. How is that possible? Everything comes to a complete stop without FF’s although Congresswomen AOC would never figure that out with her push for her Green New Deal.
“I’m amazed how people think we have to move away from FF’s.”
We WILL move away from FFs, as well as energy generation techniques that indirectly rely on an FF-based global economy. Which is not to say renewables don’t have their place today or will completely vanish post-BAU. But we cannot maintain the current global industrial empire and moar if only the FF industry stops being such a jerk and lets us build moar renewables. The latter is true, but also irrelevant.
“We WILL move away from FFs”
I share Gail’s belief that we will collapse globally when FF’s “leave us”. We won’t move away from FF’s. We’ve been trying for decades and we still have not made a sizable dent.
FFs are not a conscious entity that can leave us. You might have been speaking metaphorically, but I’ll dismiss that possibility entirely given your annoying nitpick.
On the other hand, we – through our exploitation of FFs – are moving away from them even if most of us don’t realise that.
our lives are entirely dependent on the availability and usage of fossil fuels and their derivatives
we can not consciously move away from such a life support system any more than it is possible to consciously decide to stop breathing the polluted air around us
I’m going to be an even more annoying nitpicker now and point out that the Rodster was merely quoting Gail and that Gail was almost certainly using the imagery of FFs leaving us metaphorically.
Actually all language is metaphorical. Words are never the thing itself; they can only point toward the thing, like the proverbial Zen finger pointing at the moon.
Honestly, Jup, you don’t just nitpick, you also carp, cavil, fuss, niggle, and quibble. And on top of that, you have the audacity—nay, the temerity—to project your stingy, mean and uncharitable behavior onto other commentators. It’s shameful and lamentable. I blame your parents. They should have smacked your bum regularly when you were knee high to a grasshopper and sent you off to a Catholic school ruled by frustrated nuns armed with big bamboo canes, like mine did to me. But I suppose it’s too late to do much about your moral character now.
An entity needn’t be conscious in order to leave us—as in go away, depart the scene.
When the glaciers left Britain at the end of the last glacial period, for instance, they left behind ribbon lakes, U-shaped valleys and deposits of boulder clay.
And when Halley’s Comet leaves the inner solar system on its 76-year cycle around the outer suburbs to rings around Uranus (that’s an old schoolboy pun we would never had dared say in front of those nuns, by the way), it leaves behind a trail of dust and ice particles that form the annual Orionid Meteor shower each October.
Then again, we observe that the seasons come and go, or in other words, arrive and leave. As the Reverent WIlliam Ellery Channing of Boston wrote in a letter in 1839,”The summer has left us after having shed on us very many blessings.”
Wow.
Sorry, but, How naïve of us to think that a GREENer economy was the path to the survival, and maybe even well-being, of the inhabitants ?? What were we thinking? There’s finance. There’s investments. There’s corporate needs to be met.
Somebody owns those FFs, you know.
A lotta ‘gee whiz’.
“”Instead, fossil fuels will leave us when we lose the ability to reduce interest rates sufficiently to keep oil and other fossil fuel prices high enough for energy producers.””
(gee whiz)
WHOEVER WROTE THAT IS, planetarily speaking, AN IDIOT.
Or I am.
What does it even mean?
(WAIT. Don’t explain.)
Is our newfound inability to fend off the FF economics caused by – like – some npv valuation of ‘grounded resources’ – fossil fuel reserves?? And that these corporate values fluctuate (LOL) with the cost of money. ??
OMG, how stupid of us. Let’s put corporate finance in charge of our planet.
Yeah. That’ll work.
Totally wrong resource consideration.
Read Dr. Frederick Soddy.
FF will leave us when two things happen.
First, public policy advocates for a GREEN economy win that ‘policy-feasibility’ debate (A social-ecology based GREEN Economy Populism will advance), AND second, when we advance that GREEN Economy agenda into the law $$ of the land – through monetary reform..
Know where you’re going.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/112th-congress/house-bill/2990/text
This pro-FF agenda cannot support itself without continuing the Bankers debt-based money system. But this, itself, is an agenda of failed FF economics as its investors are learning (sorry ), and failed also as debt-money financing as its lifeline is moot – passe …….. there will be no valid thinking of corporate controlling of interest rates in a public money economy.
The Public Money Bridge.
It’s in the Green Party Platform.
Our leaders will just have to find it.
The Money System is an integral part of the Common Wealth.
It’s how we share that common wealth.
It can make anything happen.
Our Money System Common.
joe bongiovanni
the kettle pond institute
Of course, wind and solar are terribly dependent on the debt based financial system too. They add complexity, and thus help increase wage disparity. Make the grid harder to control. Add more long distance transmission lines to add sparks to our lives.
You seem to have the GREEN religion.
WHOEVER WROTE THAT IS, planetarily speaking, AN IDIOT.
Or I am.
Quite possibly, one or the other or both of you are. As my mother used to say. “Forrest,” she used to tell me, “Stupid is as stupid does.”
Or perhaps you simply failed to explore or comprehend the argument underpinning the particular words you read.
You are a partisan in this policy debate, Joe, which means you are not dispassionate or objective. Perhaps that clouds your understanding to some extent? I don’t want to accuse you of anything untoward or underhand or of being educated beyond your intelligence or having a poor IQ for a glass of water, but to paraphrase Oliver Cromwell, I beseech you, in the bowels of Gaia, think it possible that you may be mistaken.
And to paraphrase and expand on the passage you are having trouble understanding, it means that we the people will no longer have access fossil fuels when they the bankers lose the ability to continue reducing interest rates sufficiently to keep oil and other fossil fuels affordable to we the people at prices high enough to make it worthwhile for they the energy producers to keep extracting and refining and transporting these fuels.
It’s a contentious claim and a novel one in the sense that has not been made very widely up to now, I grant you, and it may be wrong for any number of reasons, but it is not nonsense by any means, and sneering at it like a vampire recoils from garlic is not going to make it go away, Joe. If you want to make it go away, you are going to have debunk it by invalidating at least one link in the chain of reasoning upon which it has been constructed.
I’m sure Gail would welcome any valid criticism of any aspect of her thinking. If we the species are not as doomed as she fears, nobody would be more pleased than her.
“Without fossil fuels, everything stops. There is collapse”
Can’t imagine fossil fuels disappearing all at once, Gail. I suspect there will be small pockets / communities that will have reserves or maintain some rudimentary means of extracting small amounts of fossil fuels, post-collapse, for a few years (perhaps even decades).
While the vast majority of the world that survives collapse (in itself, a small minority of today’s population) will see its energy use collapse by 90%+, these small pockets of reserves/production may serve as the seedlings for a new epoch of man’s existence… or perhaps they will only serve to drag out the death of industrial civilization as we know it today.
Either way, not everything stops. People have been growing food, telling stories, singing songs, making babies, killing each other, discovering their spirituality, etc., for hundreds of thousands of years. All of that will likely continue.
Cheers,
-GBV
You need to have an appropriate system to use fossil fuels. Natural gas needs pipelines. Otherwise, it is simply a waste product.
Oil needs to be at least separated into its component parts in a refinery. The refinery needs a very stable supply of electricity. This can be done using natural gas; I have seen this done on an offshore oil platform. But it normally needs to come from a commercial electricity provider.
Coal that we are mining today is far away from where it might be used. It needs a lot of processing to be pulverized to be used in an electric power plant.
We can have collapse of industrial society with small pockets of people surviving—possibly thriving—and doing their thing, certainly. But that’s still collapse. Everything stops for industrial society and everything gets very grim for most of us. But yes, after the dust has settled and the survivors settle down into some new and probably lower-energy mode of existence, party time can begin again.
The reason why people have a sense of humor IMHO is that it helps us get through the hard times. I doubt very much whether the people who who hunted and gathered before the age of agriculture included many grumblers or depressives. Such people would quickly succumb to the psychological burden their “big brains” placed them under in such tough environments as the savannah, the prairies, the desert or the tundra. The human condition is pretty bleak when you come to think of it. You have to learn to laugh about it in order to get by.
The bottom line is that without fossil fuels – nothing in our modern economy would function. That includes building wind turbines, batteries and solar panels. How can a person be so blind not to appreciate the the density and magnitude of BTU’s in fossil fuels and not understand how important that is for powering our society. Has humanity so lost touch with reality that we no longer appreciate how much real effort it takes to push a single automobile down the roadway at 70MPH? Just give it a try. Push that 2-ton SUV one city block. And then scale that up to the Earth-moving equipment used to mine resources to build those “green” solar panels, wind turbines and batteries. It is an insane amount of energy to keep this economy running. Jesus people are dense.
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Another great article, Gail. I too am amazed at how many people believe in the ‘happily ever after’ transition from fossil fuels to renewables and ignore the hurdles that stand in the way of that utopian world (reducing one’s cognitive dissonance is a powerful incentive, I suppose). Here is what I posted on another article challenging this narrative (https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2019/04/02/Low-Zero-Carbon-Future-Survival/):
“I am increasingly convinced that those people who champion a zero carbon future and smooth transition to renewable energy significantly misunderstand the complexity of the issues and systems involved. First, there is good evidence that the needed rare-earth minerals to build the required infrastructure don’t exist in large enough quantities. Second, the mjning, processing, and distribution of the materials needed for this buildup are pollution intensive and would require massive carbon-based energy use—probably pushing us well beyond the limits considered dangerous. Third, where is consideration for the fossil-fuel inputs into our industrial agriculture that feeds everyone? While an organic, permaculture base for food production would be ideal, we lack the arable land and fertile soil to supply our current population. And speaking of population and food production, many (most?) regions have already overshot their natural carrying capacity and are dependent on complex, long distant supply chains, yet where is the conversation on halting or even reducing population? Or the conversation on reversing economic growth that is pushed by every politician and industrialist? The infinite growth culture that we live within is our most significant hurdle, yet many who support a renewable energy future ignore it and argue that the transition will be great for the economy and growth not comprehending the conundrum. Further complicating this mess are our credit/debt-based fiat currency monetary/financial systems that require perpetual growth to keep from collapsing (yes, a classic Ponzi scheme); to say little about the already massive debt loads that have been supporting our unsustainable globalized, industrial systems for decades—where will the capital to create this renewable-energy utopia come from?
Most of these issues are not solvable. They may only be overcome with a total reset of the complex, global world we inhabit. And a reset that will not be the nice, smooth transition many believe.”
While none of us can predict the future, I am increasingly convinced the most likely path ahead is one of overshoot and collapse…
Agree entirely with your analysis, Steve. Do you have a tentative timeline in mind?
No timeline prediction at all. The process seems to have started some time ago and the only question left is whether it will be a long, drawn out affair as was the fall of the Roman Empire or a relatively quick one like that of Easter Island. The powers-that-be will in all likelihood attempt to kick-the-can-down-the-road as long as possible but there is no controlling the various complex systems that are involved, regardless of our attempts and wishes to do so.
It is a conundrum. A very large and very complex one. Almost like whack-a-mole. You think you have solved one problem and another problem pops up. And sometimes more than one.
Another issue to that proponents of “renewable” energy do no take into account is that technology doesn’t create energy. It uses energy. There is this mindset of “zero carbon” folks that technology just magically creates energy. Technology USES energy..
In addition, the name “renewable energy” rings in my ears like the sounds of a perpetual motion machine. One has to be very careful about considering the system as a whole to see if it will violate thermodynamic laws of perpetual motion. Just because one panel powers a light bulb means nothing. Can we create a system that can capture enough electrical energy from the sun to not only power existing homes but, to build machines and extract resources and maintain the solar infrastructure all while using no additional fossil resource? It would be a complex calculation to make. To take into consideration all the embedded energy in all the devices used to build a solar panel and battery. And all the food and housing and embedded energy in the education it takes a society to build and maintain such a system. But, from what I have read I am convinced that “renewable energy” is perpetual motion! The trick used to make it appear to work is to keep using the fossil fuel inputs. I think when the dust settles it could be shown that solar power EROEI is at best zero and likely negative. The only sustainable use of solar power is to grow plants and consume them in the fasion of hunter gatherers – not to build and recharge millions of electric cars.
+++++++
Agreed. Two additional thoughts. The use of the term ‘clean’ energy drives me mad…no energy is ‘clean’ and just the use of the term is an immediate indicator that the user has placed little, if any, critical thought into its use and implications. The other, and is closely connected to the miscommunication via language just discussed, is the magical thinking that proponents of a smooth and non-chaotic transition to renewable/clean energy must use to get to their vision of utopia. The cheerleaders of electric cars being some sort of panacea for our woes is a perfect example. They ignore all the fossil fuel inputs that must still be made to produce, distribute, and maintain these cars; not least of all the 7 gallons of oil that goes into each and every tire and the very significant quantities of bitumen that goes into paving the transportation infrastructure. Without a lot of magical thinking to avoid the cognitive dissonance of the real world and its geophysical limits, their vision collapses.
“Can we create a system that can capture enough electrical energy from the sun to not only power existing homes but, to build machines and extract resources and maintain the solar infrastructure all while using no additional fossil resource?”
I would raise the bar. The resources must be recycled.
Everything comes at a cost. Whether that cost is dollars or resources or labor doesn’t matter. And in that regard it seems that fossil fuels have more bang for the buck than anything else we have thus far discovered. To “transition” to anything else would be going backwards in living standards.
I just did a basic calculation – that a single solar panel generates 900 kWh a month, or 10800 kWk a year, or 810000 in 75 years, the average lifespan of an American (+-).
The average person uses approximately 562,500 kWh over a lifetime ($61,875)
A solar panel lasts 25 years, so if you gave a newborn baby 3 solar panels at birth, they would have offset an entire lifetime of energy usage by age 25.
Why not start a campaign to give solar panels as a baby shower gift? They could be part of a new array financed by other baby gifts. The child would get a carbon offset or compensation throughout their life.
It doesn’t really work this way.
The output of a solar panel by itself is not helpful to the grid. It distorts pricing for every other electricity producer, driving them away. The electric grid cannot operate on wind and solar alone. Or on wind, water and solar alone, for one thing.
How helpful is some current when the sun is out? How would you pave roads with this type of product, for example? Operate a blast furnace? Get to work? Build a battery?
The vast majority of energy consumption is by businesses and governments.
Solar panels reduce demand during part of the peak demand period, depending on the orientation.
In summer my solar panels drive my neighbour’s airconditioner as our house is well insulated and only needs fans.
20/7/2018
Sydney go on your rooftops and save power for 3 million new immigrants
http://crudeoilpeak.info/sydney-go-on-your-rooftops-and-save-power-for-3-million-new-immigrants
11/3/2018
Australia’s east coast solar generation is replacing coal by only 2% in late summer
http://crudeoilpeak.info/australias-east-coast-solar-generation-is-replacing-coal-by-only-2-in-late-summer
You will need massive wind farms and hydro-power storage
http://re100.eng.anu.edu.au/research/phes/
https://www.snowyhydro.com.au/our-scheme/snowy20/about-snowy-2-0-2/
The problem is that tunnel construction capacity (including diesel consumed) is currently wasted on oil dependent toll-ways
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/after-delays-and-controversy-the-westconnex-m4-east-tunnels-are-almost-complete-20190411-p51d97.html
10800 kWh per panel and year. That must have been a very basic calculation .
https://www.worlddata.info/america/usa/energy-consumption.php
11980 kWh per year and american, only electricity.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cell_efficiency
Say 340 kwh/m2 and year.
That is 35 square meters of a roof per baby. Replaced every now and then. Batteries not included.
It isn’t the averages that matter, it is the peaks and when those peaks occur that determine how much solar generating capacity you need and how much storage you will need. For a typical American home I would think about 5Kw would be peak energy demand. But, if that occurs at night you need the battery capacity to do it. And that would not be cheap. And, if you will charge during the day you need to have that 5Kw capacity plus enough spare capacity to charge the batteries for the nightly demand. And, you have to take charging and discharging losses into account. It isn’t that simple as having 5Kw of solar panes. Realistically (to see no degradation in standard of living) you’d probably need twice that to account for peaks, charging and losses. So 100 panels (100W each) on a typical American home with inverters and batteries to get you off the grid (because we know solar and the grid don’t work) will likely amount to about $50K (without subsidy). The batteries might last 10 years if you get the good ones and get enough of them so they are not discharging too much. And that cost even more money. Probably $15K or more every 10 years to get good batteries and enough spare capacity. Is is do-able. Yes. Is it sustainable? No. Can everyone do it? No. Is it cost effective? No.
Greg, your general approach is sound. But the numbers would be slightly better in reality. Also as you know it is about accumulated past legacy structures and path dependency of the entire society, so it won’t happen as you correctly conclude.
However and for example. theoretically, people could move into partly earth shelter houses, and use various energy usage avoiding (waste) and or efficient methods to drop their per capita consumption much further down. As shown in DJ’s links the US consumes 2:1 vs. Europe, and even the European number could be further chopped down still..
Such above discussed offgrid setups would make sense only in truly (largely) distributed pattern of society, i.e. each 2-3 generational family having smallish homestead (say <5-10acres), providing local food for themselves in say at least ~30-70-90% out of the total 24/365, and most of their energy. The core infrastructure would be separate layer, base load grid model, fraction of total pop living in these techno hubs-cities.
Will it happen? Most likely not.
(as it apparently did not happen evolve towards it in the first run ..)
I would add that the value of intermittent electricity is quite low.
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/Median-PPA-Prices-Compared-to-Gas-Price-Forecasts-2017-Wind-Technologies-Market-Report.png
Buyers seem to be willing to pay about 2 cents per kWh (20 cents per kWh) for the intermittent electricity. It mostly offsets natural gas consumption.
The value you are getting out of the three devices is thus about $11,250 over the life of the three panels, or about 18% of the $61,875 you quoted. Per year, it is about $150.
I hope you are not paying much for these devices.
With Eds real world figure the value would be $13/year.
I get 54 KWHr/panel/month
Slightly less than 900.
@Daniel McGuire
How much does a solar panel of the above mentioned cost, if it is produced in the US?
Daniel McGuire
I would like to know the price of a solar panel. If I know the installation price, I will convert this price into how many industrial kwh I could buy for this amount: If the solar panel costs 1000 dollars to build and install (no subventions of any kind), and the price of 1 industrial kwh is 0,06 USD you could have bought 17,000 industrial kwh for those 1000 dollars. Thus the energy balance during the panel’s lifespan will be 270,000/17000 – that is an energy balance of 16 which is very fine compared to the global energy balance now of around 12. But it depends on the total price of the solar installation. 2000 dollars = energi balance 8, 4000 dollars = energy balance 4. And don’t forget all the minusses mentioned by Gail. Taken these conditions in account, maybe you end up with an energy balance of less than 1.
We live off grid and the panels are not the problem. Inverters have a much shorter life span.Storage is a bigger problem. We need a “miracle” in battery technology.
There are limitations to solar even without considering the problems of integration into a grid.
Excellent summary Wolfbay, thank you. I too have found that electrical storage is the main problem and this is why I think that the US government is subsidising Tesla in the hope that a break-through in battery technology will be achieved.
We live in hope. But of course, they are on the wrong track. It is ‘vacuum energy’ that is the real philosopher’s stone, as used in the pyramids of Egypt. Mr Tesla was on to it and it is ironic to me that Elon’s company carries his name! Unfortunately Nikola Tesla was out-bid by Edison:
“The two feuding geniuses waged a “War of Currents” in the 1880s over whose electrical system would power the world — Tesla’s alternating-current (AC) system or Edison’s rival direct-current (DC) electric power. Amongst science nerds, few debates get more heated than the ones that compare Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison”
But then, what do I know, a mere accountant (retired-hurt)?
Peak oil guru Colin Campbell very well understood peak oil and debt:
Colin Campbell On Peak Oil – The Credit Crunch Predicted In 2005
Wow ! Colin really nailed it in that discussion.
At one point he noted that one day the bankers will “wake up and realize that they have all this bad debt”. Great foresight. I think the bankers (and countries) are in that situation right now.
The hyper-exponential growth in world debt is reaching serious limits. And that could bring down everything.
I don’t claim to be original in my thinking. I think I have followed the story through farther, however. Thanks for the link!
You say, “Even if we make the assumption that these types of energy consumption will continue to achieve the same percentage increases as they have achieved in the last 10 years, it will still take 20 more years for wind, water, and solar to reach 20% of total energy consumption.”
At roughly 3% growth, the doubling time for our energy usage would be roughly 20 years. Is growth considered in your calculations, or should the number given above be 10% and not 20%?
Growth is a killer. It makes to the road to “renewables” an an infinitely long road. “Renewables” cannot be built in a reasonable time frame where growth isn’t a factor. If it takes 50 years to build the “renewable” infrastructure then in that time “demand” for energy will four to six times more than the original plan accounted for. So lets say you spent 50 years and have built all this “renewable” infrastructure. Now all this “renewable” infrastructure will not only need maintaining and replacement but, somehow, you will need to build six times more than you already have in the ensuing 50 years. It is just an impossible dream. you will never catch up.
Fossil fuels carried the load because we were able to extract more and more out of the Earth for many years. And, we burned it up to create growth which lead to more extraction. Fossil fuels are dispatchable forms of energy. The are ready on demand. They are not intermittent. That is what makes them so much more valuable than “renewables”. The level of complexity of a society is directly proportional to the net dispatchable energy available to that society. If that society is expending 90% of their time trying to capture energy from the wind, sun or water, then that energy has to be deducted from the energy that is truly dispatchable. So, even thought the enegy flows are the same the “renewable” society is living relative poverty compared to their fossil fuel counterparts.
Hi Gail
Thank you for your usual clear and cogent analysis.
And now for the nitpicks. I perceive two questionable assumptions you make.
(a) You seem to think we must must must maintain the electricity grid. We can’t.
Any analysis of the future must begin by assuming the grid is gone, and start
from there.
(b) You seem to believe that in order to reduce total energy consumption by
X%, we must reduce per capita consumption also by X%. That renders the
problem insoluble. But if we look at the denominator, the solution is obvious:
reduce the population by X%: problem solved.
Let me take the Shock! Horror! as said. But think: Nature is going to do this
anyway, just as she did to the reindeer on St Michael’s Island. So the only
debate is not whether it will happen, but how it will happen.
Sometimes I like to imagine what it would have been like if we had all the progress and technology that was available in say the year 2000 with only 1 billion educated involved citizens (not consuumers) living on the planet. And the cap was set a 1 billion.
I think that one of the early Limits to Growth models assumed a capped population. Each year, someone would estimate how many people would die. Then countries would be given their allocation of permissible births. I expect that this approach would produce quite a few 0 and 1 child families, because with increases in healthcare, there were far fewer deaths than births.
I don’t think that they had thought through who was going to enforce this idea.
Thank you for your observation.
I took the two societies that had lived sustainably for a considerable time over a considerable area: Mediaeval Europe and Edo Japan. The were both feudal societies, which I found interesting enough to study further.
But when I scaled their population up to see whether the world could do it, I came out with an absolute maximum population of 1.2 billion. Living at subsistence level. If we want a civilisation also, and arts, science, philosophy &c, I think we have to get down to half that number, about 600 million.
Which means we can reduce our energy consumption by about 93% at least. And by more when we go fully sustainable. And full sustainability is certainly possible, as Nature has proved over 4 billion years, because the ecosystem is still here, and still far from thermodynamic equilibrium. As Ilya Prigogine explained many years ago.
I understood the Edo period in Japan was one where tax extraction from the underclasses was taken to such extremes that it resulted in open revolt?
I don’t know much about that period, but it seemed far from socially ideal
“tax extraction from the underclasses was taken to such extremes that it resulted in open revolt”
Sounds like a standard formula leading to collapse!
The peasants are always revolting!
The first Shogun is often quoted as saying that the rulers should take so much rice away from the peasants in tribute that the peasants could neither live nor die.
At this point, however, we begin to glimpse one of the elements that limited the severity of the system. The rulers had no desire to exterminate the peasants even if they could. They knew perfectly well that they depended on what the peasants produced for their own way of life, including its amenities and luxuries. The peasants had to be allowed to live and produce.
In a system of small peasant farms (with some rich but more poor) that meant that there must be a floor under the small peasant’s economy. “Surplus exploitation” and excessive cruelty could drive the small peasant out of existence and destroy the whole system. A great deal of such thinking may have ended up as self-serving rhetoric. But on several occasions the Shogun’s government intervened in a fief with agrarian unrest and a reputation for undue exploitation. The lord of such a fief might find himself transferred to a much less attractive fief or even without a post.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0020859000008841
Norman, I think you are correct, and I agree. Edo Japan was sustainable, but only on the margin. That is why I decided to halve the raw number I calculated.
But note: even that marginal society created great art, literature, philosophy, and architecture. Civilisation is not an energy intensive enterprise, as four thousand years of history has proven.
And no, Adam Smith was wrong: civilisation is not coextensive with capitalism.
Those living at subsistence level will hardly care about arts & philosophy.
If subsistence living means no commenting on doomer blogs, then count me out.
it has been our forward expanding population that has created all the whirly whizzy things that make civilisation go round
The stuff we had in 2000 was put there through the efforts of people producing ”stuff” since about 1900
I dont think you can have the interplay of transport, electronic wizardry food production and all the rest with only 1 billion people, they would be too thin on the ground to extract all the materials necessary to produce all the stuff we need.
educated involved citizens are first and foremost consumers, they must consume to keep the system going. Even the Nobel prizewinner has to buy food along with everything else.
There’s the rub. A billion of us may be too few to extract all the materials necessary to produce all the stuff we need. But in our finite world, seven billion of us may be too many to get our hands on all the stuff we need.
Perhaps we have grown too needy as a species?
As an early peak oiler it has always been clear to me that without fossil fuels there was little future. Cutting back on CO2 is fine but it only means cutting back on our lifestyle/ over sized population (at last) . It has been said before: FFs are the main driver of our society. And we’re in deep manure. . And it gets worse. All these supposedly mankind saving renewable energy technologies are subsidised with the fruits of FF. The FFs will only be depleted sooner thanks to this largesse. And indeed, some of the more swanky oils, like the shale oils, are also subsidised with good FFs: that’s how $200 bln went down that rabbit hole, never to be recovered. The next 10bln barrels will cost a lot more, or stay in that hole too: another peak past. But the score has not been settled yet.
The damage of gas extraction has become clear in the Netherlands and just a couple of weeks ago it became clear that the stopping of 45 years of draining old Dutch coal mines, at theother end of the country, for the benefit of now too closed, German mines, is having after all effects at the surface: slipping layers in the underground cause earthquakes and changes at the ground surface. Entire streets have to be evacuated. A slow process (it’s geology after all) but unstoppable.
This whole adventure with FFs may turn out be a nightmare of unknown proportions.
Reducing CO2 may not be the most pressing of our priorities.
But it was fun! Enjoy it while it lasts.
I agree. Our collective mass of billions of people can no more move away from fossil fuels than we can move away from breathing air.
Spot on Greg! That should be a headline in the morning papers!
I predict that within 15 years, people will no longer care about sea o’too. The news headlines will be about shortages of goods and who’s to blame (Trump, immigrants, russians, millennials)…
I am not sure we will ever see stories about shortages of goods. Instead, we will read about supply gluts of many things, because there are so many poor people who cannot afford to buy much. There will be talk about overthrowing the government. There may be wars. But shortages won’t look like shortages. This is the upside down way our economy works as a networked system.
As always Gail, very truthful and insightful viewpoints backed up by hard facts and data. Its true, you are not the first, nor will you be the last, to express concerns over resource utilization – it seems history does not teach the masses lessons learned (known) from past experiences. Much of the problems the world faces today stemming from resource depletion were experienced and similarly documented 150+ years ago by William Stanley Jevons’ “The Coal Question” – only to be exasperated by human nature when technological advancements were looked upon to ‘save the day’ resulting in accelerating, not decelerating, resource utilization as explained by Jevons Paradox. The world population seems to believe that ‘the problem’ is unit cost for resources and the impact it has on the quality of people’s lives. What is neither being realized nor as aggressively pursued as lower resource prices and higher availability is curbing human appetite for said resources. As you rightly point out, resources “will leave us” long before we learn to live with far less of it or… without. In any event, as Dr. Albert Bartlett also pointed out, if we do not learn to curb our demands and dependencies on resources, nature will take care of our problems on its own accord without consideration for who will be impacted and to what extent.
I once suggested that the easiest way to move away from energy consumption would be to simply take our clothes off, go outside, and act like all of the other animals around. This is how we would need to live.
Anything, as we move up, adds energy consumption. Having roads adds energy consumption. Wearing clothes adds energy consumption. Getting fresh water from a faucet adds energy consumption. Having a job other than digging in the dirt with a stick you picked up adds energy consumption. Going to school adds energy consumption.
The common view of what cutting back on energy consumption means is far too small.
How can you be a regular reader of Gail’s reports and still be concerned with global warming?
Right.
The big issue to understand is “Do oil and other energy prices keep rising and rising, to allow extraction of all of the resources in the ground, or don’t they?”
Oil prices are self-organizing. They operate under the laws of physics. But this doesn’t mean that they are well-understood. Oil and other energy prices significantly affect the cost of producing finished goods and services, such as homes, factories, vehicles, and airline trips. The cost of these goods and services cannot rise greatly, relative to the wages, or the system collapses.
The a-ha moment for me came when I figured out that if oil prices rose, average wages (at least in oil consuming nations) fell, if you factored in the job layoffs that occurred with recession. Our fundamental problem was that increases in energy costs do not transfer to increases in wages of most workers. They cannot rise endlessly.
If a person sets up their models assuming that energy prices rise endlessly, then it is quite possible to show that our biggest problem is climate change. In this case, we needed to do everything that we can to prevent this climate change.
If prices cannot rise endlessly, in fact, they are limited by how low interest rates can go, then we are likely facing near-term collapse, caused by fossil fuels that leave us because prices fall too low for producers. This is the scenario we are really facing.
Peak oilers didn’t really understand the issue either. Prices and debt were beyond their understanding. They came up with a new concept called “peak oil.” Somehow, we would run out of oil first, and the other fuels could carry on. Somehow, we could make wind and solar to extend the system. (Or perhaps the wind and solar weren’t particularly from the point of view of peak oilers. But this seemed to be a way that people could make money off of the arrangement, and salvation could be preached, if we just made some tweaks to our lives.)
Somehow, models were put together claiming that wind and solar could be helpful to the system. Some even claimed that the system as a whole could operate on them.
As far as I can see, all of this story about oil running out before other fuels, and some fuels continuing after others is complete nonsense. The story is the age-old collapse story, which few thought about. We don’t really have a solution for it. Governments and financial systems collapse, and pretty much everything collapses at the same time.
The climate is indeed changing. The world economic seems to be facing near-term collapse. This collapse is pretty much all we can do about the situation. We don’t have much more that we can do, as far as I can see. Wind and solar aren’t even very helpful. At most, they give the world an excuse for more debt.
But authorities have latched on to the “we can get all of the fossil fuels out with higher prices” story, and that is what allows the climate change models we see endlessly. They have also not figured out that it takes growing energy per capita to operate the world economy.
“It takes growing energy per capita to operate the world economy”
Does this take efficiency into consideration?
I think I (mostly) understand your article but unless used purely for heating the use of fossil fuels is intrinsically inefficient. If we transition the private transport sector to electricity from oil, when looked at in isolation it’s energy consumption has decreased by some 60-75% as much of the energy previously consumed was lost as heat. Yet it’s contribution to the economy is the same.
Surely the statement should be “it takes growing *useful* energy per capita to grow the world economy”. 90% of the worlds energy currently comes from fossil fuels, but only some 30% of that is actually useful.
Does your article take this into account?
The short answer is that I am looking at what really happens, net of efficiency gains.
In fact, if you look at some earlier posts of mine, you will see that I have shown that a very similar pattern seems to hold, if we go back almost 200 years. We have to have a gain of energy consumption per capita, net of efficiency gains.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2018/09/23/the-worlds-fragile-economic-condition-part-1/
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2018/10/14/the-worlds-fragile-economic-condition-part-2/
The background story is that energy price, including the benefit of efficiency gains, must keep falling, in order for the economy to grow. In other words, if the economy is to grow, the total cost (based on price times units needed to operate the economy) of energy needs to keep falling. This happens because the wages of workers plus other portions of demand must to be able to afford more and more energy per capita.
As far as I can see, efficiency mostly adds more capital goods and takes wages away from workers (because the revenue from finished goods must be shared between the two). Also, high wage workers tend to be the owners of the capital goods, making both wage and wealth disparity a problem. Thus, efficiency gains are not really a benefit to the economy. The system tends to fail, as we add more and more efficiency. This is a complexity effect. We cannot solve our problem through more technology.
In the end I think efficiency gains actually INCREASE consumption. So that would imply growing energy per capita (if the energy was there to consume of course). I don’t really think efficiency gains help. Nor do I think recycling helps. The bottom line is we use energy products to make our lives easier and more comfortable.
Yep… Jevon’s Paradox…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
Cheers,
-GBV
Yep… Jevon’s Paradox…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
Cheers,
-GBV
This is a chart I had in my back pocket, when I was thinking about writing the post. I will eventually use it, or make a newer version of my own.
The chart is of median inflation-adjusted earnings of US men and women.
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/wsj-graph-of-median-inflation-adjusted-earnings-for-male-in-the-us-through-2014.jpg
This chart is from a Brookings Institution report:
https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/the-typical-male-u-s-worker-earned-less-in-2014-than-in-1973/
The report title is “The typical male US worker earned less in 2014 than in 1973.
As I see it, once the price of oil went up (as did the price of other energy types, to some extent), all kinds of complexity was added, instead of depending on rising energy consumption at the worker level to help lift the quality of life of the workers.
All of the complexity added debt. It added women workers. (I was one of them.) Later, it added globalization, indirectly, so that more workers around the world could compete. But none of the benefit went to the original male workers. Instead, governments and business organizations and higher level management absorbed the increase that were provided. GDP seemed to go up, but the benefit didn’t go to the typical male workers, once growing complexity became the method of operation.
But there are diminishing returns to added complexity, as Joseph Tainter has said. Eventually adding growing complexity, even in the name of “efficiency,” fails.
More wisdom Gail, many thanks and a stunning chart. i have looked everywhere for some such as a simple example – this one is brilliant. I don’t think people really cotton on to how far they have been conned into believing that things are just dandy.
Only through debt and all the family working all hours can people keep up the style of life to which they have been accustomed. I’m afraid that they are in for a rude awakening, This article has serious connotations for America::
https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/financial_tyranny_america_has_become_a_pay_to_play_exercise_in_fascism
Excellent synopsis Gail. May I use it in other blogs, with your permission of course?
Yes. Please link back to the original.
Will do Gail, thank you, and I have acknowledged your original. I have just posted to http://www.Mises.org (I am an Austrian economist) but don’t often admit it due to ridicule!
https://mises.org/wire/its-not-recession-its-global-economic-slowdown?utm_source=Mises+Institute+Subscriptions&utm_campaign=ac38b9036e-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_9_21_2018_9_59_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8b52b2e1c0-ac38b9036e-228270721
Best wishes
Peter
“Our fundamental problem was that increases in energy costs do not transfer to increases in wages of most workers.” – That is really the key to understanding what is happening right now. That is why the price of energy has become so volatile.
‘The story is the age-old collapse story, which few thought about.’
Well we have technology now so……mmmmm!
“Venezuela removed eight tonnes of gold from the central bank’s vaults last week, and the cash-strapped socialist state is expected to sell the bullion abroad as it seeks to raise hard currency in the face of U.S. sanctions, a lawmaker and one government source said.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-venezuela-gold-exclusive/exclusive-venezuela-removes-8-tonnes-of-gold-from-central-bank-sources-idUKKCN1RL24D
“Venezuela’s central bank has been operating with an emergency team of only about 100 workers since a power outage left its headquarters without running water two weeks ago, according to four people with direct knowledge of the situation.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-09/without-water-venezuela-central-bank-said-to-send-workers-home
“The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Tuesday cut its global growth forecast to the lowest level since the financial crisis, warning of significant downside risks to the world economy including trade tensions, pockets of political instability, mounting debt levels and increasing inequality.
“The IMF lowered its growth forecast for 2019 to 3.3 percent from the previous level of 3.5 percent in its latest World Economic Outlook. This is the third time in six months that the fund has revised its outlook downward.
“[The IMF] warned the outlook for many countries is still “challenging” given the potential for trade disputes to flare up. The IMF also cautioned growth in China “may surprise on the downside”…”
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/04/imf-cuts-global-growth-outlook-lowest-financial-crisis-190409182821062.html
“The free fall in the world’s largest car market has shown no signs of easing. Retail sales of sedans, sport utility vehicles, minivans and multipurpose vehicles in China continued their plunge in March, dropping 12 percent to 1.78 million units…”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2019-04-10/china-car-market-slump-persists-video
“Shipments of mobile phones to China fell 6 percent in March compared with the same year-earlier month, official figures showed on Wednesday, as slowing economic growth took a toll on the sector. The shipments dropped to 28.4 million units in March from 30.2 million units in March 2018, the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) said…”
https://kfgo.com/news/articles/2019/apr/10/march-mobile-phone-shipments-to-china-fall-6-percent-as-economy-slows/
Thanks, Gail – an excellent article. It is a privilege to watch current affairs through the prism of your analyses.
“President Donald Trump will issue two executive orders in the heart of the Texas energy hub on Wednesday seeking to speed gas, coal and oil projects delayed by coastal states as he looks to build support ahead of next year’s election… An environmentalist decried the planned orders. “Trump can try to rewrite regulations in favor of Big Oil, but he can’t stop people power and our movement,” said May Boeve, the head of 350. org.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-energy/trump-to-seek-to-stop-states-from-delaying-energy-projects-idUSKCN1RM06V
“Evidence is piling up that the U.S. is heading for a slowdown…”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/robisbitts2/2019/04/09/recession-looming-yup/#64cd20ca3b7a
“More undocumented immigrants and migrants were apprehended along the southern border in March than any month since 2008, according to Customs and Border Protection data released Tuesday.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/09/politics/apprehensions-border-highest-decade/index.html
“Canada intends to change the law to make it harder for asylum seekers rejected by countries like the US to file refugee claims at the border. The move comes as thousands of asylum seekers have crossed the border after their claims were rejected in the US.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-47874012?fbclid=IwAR1OGfhBhtHeSk09TCrSOYAleqyb8Q3o3pzVBAWWwctIea6ts180XDm-VzA
Really great to see you find the per capita fossil fuel consumption trends. I have wanted to see this data for a long time. Is there a total world version of this as well? It is interesting to speculate about the nonlinearity of impacts of declining per capita fossil fuel use- are there some critical thresholds where life gets dramatically worse? I would love to see the data for Japan, Cuba and North Korea as well, plus Great Britain during the blitz. I get the impression the Cuba reduction was less severe than the popular press admits with ongoing fossil fuel imports, while North Korea was basically left to starve and scramble for survival. A big factor for how a society adapts to falling per capita energy must be the speed at which it happens- slowly enough and time is available to perfect adaptive strategies. Political cohesion (USA/France vs Japan) and the risk of opportunistic neighbours (eg Syria) must also be very important to how systems evolve in response to the stresses.
Fully agree with you all and particularly with Adonis with his statement….”energy per capita must increase and it can only increase by lowering the population severely” ….. and that cannot be done with war, violence, viruses, famine, etc…how someone is trying to do now, the destiny of Humanity is linked to its virtues and cultural development. Therefore if we are not able to cultivate and distribute these factors we have no chance to survive and that is how it should be. If we are not able to distribute energy, culture and welfare, if we do not understand that we can’t let poor people with the only chance of making children in order to survive, we are predestined to finish soon this experience on this planet. Maybe some other kind of humanity will have to try again from the scratch on this planet Heath or somewhere else.
Thank you Gail for your important work.
Regards
Giovanni
l take my hat off to the elders the greatest scam perpetrated on the human race “man made climate change ” it was the only way to fight peak oil without panicking the world”s population to the reality of de-population .
The human race has added an enormous amount to CO2 into the atmosphere which is beginning to heat up the planet. More CO2 = a hotter climate (that is a given). And the sooner the world depopulates, the better for the planet and its other inhabitants. The depopulation will likely be started with a nuclear war (maybe small scale as opposed to a WW3 event).
Just check out the amount of CO2 expelled by volcanoes alone, Jonzo, not to mention SO2 and other gases; added to this all the natural methane emitted over the world including animals.
IMO the amount attributable to human activities is less than 1% – but I might be wrong and don’t have time to research it. There is a lot of fear-mongering in order for the elites to establish their carbon taxes. Always follow the money – you can never go wrong on this route.
I guess it’s not indecent to call it out, Gail mentioned it in her snippet comments at least ~3x times during past several years, the late 1990s sudden refocus of agenda was quite peculiar to say the least.. in terms of follow up ‘oily’ events and sequencing..
So we head towards a cashless society (temporary) as a means to go below zero interest rates on savings.
1) People with savings will splurge at a speed inverse to their ‘negative returns’.
2) Assets that have been bouyed by low interest rates will continue to gain value, thereby generating feel good consumption.
3) The all important energy infrastructure will be funded by govt backed bonds with perhaps zero interest rates in order that the good (conventional), the bad (shale) and the ugly (tar sands) oil continues to flow.
4) Them without assets, well, same old same old….
The UN will morph into the ON (Oil Nations) and all other non-essential programs will cease.
Meanwhile, despite the best plans of mice and men, any semblance of balance in the ‘natu-real world’ will exit stage right and them bacteria/fungi/viruses will feast upon the hapless two-legged idiots.
Our latest false god (technology) and its high Pre..eists (Elon, Zuck, et al) will be hapless and likely headless. We shoulda have stuck with them nature spirits sigh…!
Bit doomy, but we headn into winter down here.
Winter is beautiful: the trees show their beautiful skeletons, a fire, food and wine never feel so good as then. Here in Britain, the skies are more interesting too.
the best article yet which proves one thing energy per capita must increase and it can only increase by lowering the population severely as the plan is a lower carbon world which means growth will reverse or de-growth any bet the elders plan to do this by design when will BAU end definitely this year as the year 2020 is always mentioned repeatedly by the elders when the world will be out of harms way.
Gail, what a brilliant article. It really shows up what we are contending with and how our current political fantasies ( make America great again, Brexit, etc) will totally fail to deliver.
Not only will future generations have to survive in a lower energy environment, it’s also going to be in a much hotter world – and by the end of this century, largely uninhabitable.
The big thing of course is just how much of BAU do we have left? 5 years, 10 years, 20? It seems pretty clear we are not going to make it to 2050 unscathed.
I’d be very interested both in your views and those of other readers on this one…
The world will not be hotter you are being scammed…If the powers that be thought it was a problem they would not be moving low carbon footprint people into high footprint areas.
Many parts of the world will be cooler. If you live in Canada….consider moving south.
“The big thing of course is just how much of BAU do we have left? 5 years, 10 years, 20? It seems pretty clear we are not going to make it to 2050 unscathed.”
yes… I see quasi-BAU until about 2049…
From an ecological perspective renewable sources of energy are flows, which have a ceiling. They also draw down finite stocks in their construction. Both implicate limits to growth modelling. Renewables, no more than finite fossil fuels, support unlimited economic and population growth, as argued in detail by Jackson in his _Prosperity Without Growth_. Club of Rome modelling shows the same thing.
Thank you very much Gail for a very insightful analysis of our general predicament. I have focused on EROEI in my book, very like Dr Tim Morgan in his book “Life after Growth” which I have only recently read. Through your lucid studies I now realise that it is much more than just energy extraction/consumption economics that is affecting our economies.
Your link to interest rates is worth expanding and perhaps needs more research because clearly there is some sort of correlation with energy production/consumption? I haven’t thought it through yet because your article is ‘deep’ enough for me at this time of night!
Anyway no doubt this will spark many responses and I shall learn much more in the coming days.
Thanks Gail.. always great articles from you
Electricity is so cheap that we can combine atmospheric CO2, breakdown water to get the hydrogen and combine them to form fossil fuels… It certainly solve the klimate ccchange issue as the same time. Whoa… circular stuff – soak up CO2, combine to form FF, burn and then repeat…
haha… should I put in a sarc tag?
Humans have a great sense of optimism
M. King Hubbert was convinced at one point that nuclear electricity would be “too cheap to meter.” As I recall, he proposed reversing photosynthesis to produce fossil fuels with this very cheap electricity. So the idea is not entirely new. The problem is that we don’t have a very cheap source of electricity.
I don’t know enough about energy production but I have thought that Geothermal energy might be one option. I know Iceland has used this but the Ring of Fire countries don’t seem to have taken advantage of this source?
Nuclear is apparently so expensive to build these days that First World nations can’t or won’t afford to build their own and the UK (almost First World, for the time being at any rate!) must rely on the Chinese to do it for them.
On the other hand, nuclear is apparently so cheap to build these days that China and India are building dozens of nuclear plants at home and China and Russia are marketing them to Third World and Second World nations the world over.
What are the magic ingredients that make nuclear power cheap in the Third World? One is low interest rates. In the UK, operators of new plants will have to pay about 9% PA on the funds they borrow to build these things, while in China or India operators will commonly pay 1% or thereabouts. Two is strict safety standards in the First World that can double or triple the costs (possibly) compared with letting Chinese people knock them up in the garden shed. (and we must hope the Chinese plants are safer and sturdier than a lot of their infrastructure is). And three is the power of the Green lobby in the First World to protest and complain and demonize and most of all to take court action against nuclear power in all its forms, which leads to delays, cost overruns and cancellations of perfectly feasible and otherwise affordable nuclear plants.
The Greens are a Doomsday Cult and their raison d’être and sacred task is to collapse the West and secure an obstacle-free course for the rise of the Chinese-led Even Newer World Order (ENWO), you mark my words! In the future, we Westerners will have our nuclear power but all the operating manuals will be written in Chinese and when something goes wrong the operating staff will be forced to rely on dodgy machine translations.
You are correct, there are several reasons for it, each supporting the other one.
The “second ingredient” you mentioned is not correct. Their gen3+ NPPs have got all the necessary passive and active safeties. If you recall few weeks ago I posted several times in great detail and numbers what is going on in this industry, incl. recycling fuel capability, which is existing and expanding technology of today no unicorns etc.
If I try to condense it into few words, the western societies and industry just atrophied on the previously gained expertise and commitment in this particular field. In latest stage* from roughly 1990s onward, partly thanks to the non sense of renewables buildup when for example Germany is balancing its grid on electricity imports based on Polish coal, Norwegian and Alpine hydro, French and Czech nuclear.. and increasingly (into the future) on imported Russian natgas..
__
* mind you, the cutting edge nuclear energy stuff technology (incl. fuel recycling) is at least three decades old concept anyway.. but the teams and factories where not disbanded..
Nuclear energy and the fossil fuels
http://www.hubbertpeak.com/hubbert/1956/1956.pdf
If the United States is able to survive another 100 years, 3 things are guaranteed to happen.
1- The U.S. gov. will control, by force, all production of oil, gas and electricity.
2- The U.S. gov. will decide who may consume said energy.
3- 99%, of the surviving population, will return to feudalism.
Based on our current trajectory and what we have been doing to this planet and it’s life support systems., i’m beginning to question if humans will be around in 100-150 yrs.
There will be no U.S Govt. that resembles it’s present form.
Thank you Gail for your clear analysis (which is roughly mine as well). The consequences are very grave, because unless we are able to decide to live a far simpler and energy poorer life, it will be forces upon us via either the mechanisms you describe or the, in the end far more destructive increase of the effects of climate change, fresh water crises, soil fertility reduction, bio diversity reduction etc, resulting in the collapse of food production followed by destabilization, famine and death. The devil or the deep blue sea! Do you agree?
I am afraid the simpler life is not sufficient. There also need to be very few of us. In fact, it is not certain that any of us will survive. We do know that humans survived ice ages, so we seem to be pretty resilient.
While humans may have survived many ice ages, what’s clearly different now is that we have been destroying our habitat and ecosystems. Fossil fuels has enabled us to grow food for billions of humans at the expense of insects who science has been saying is the result of the chemical based fertilizers we are using. We are eroding our soil and are making our soil chemical based junkies where nothing will grow without those inputs. Bad things happen when you begin to kill off the bottom of the food chain.
In short there is so much harm we have done to this planet since we made the transition to fossil fuels.
Accepting for the sake of argument that what you are saying is true, is it bad or wrong or unfortunate that we have been destroying our habitat and ecosystems; is it bad or wrong or unfortunate that we are eroding the soil and beginning to kill off the bottom of the food chain?
I understand the Christian “All Things Bright and Beautiful” ethical system that holds it a sin to destroy what the Lord has created, but in the absence of the sacred, doesn’t anything go? If we don’t live in an all embracing moral Universe but just a physical one in which all roads lead to heat death anyway, what is good and what is bad AND—most importantly— why should we be good rather than bad?
The religion of consumer materialism has failed. It leaves people empty, cynical and morally bankrupt. “Why should we be good rather than bad?” Is it possible that “Good is Good?” If your not sure hit your hand with a hammer. If it feels good, hit it again. If it feels bad, stop. If you do this exercise for about an hour i’m sure you will figure out why good is good, and bad is bad. GOOD luck with this ethical experiment!
Thanks. I tried the exercise you recommended but all I got was this sore head.
But if I hit someone else’s head repeatedly with the same hammer, my head felt fine. I guess this is one factor in why many people inflict violence on others even though moralists abound in telling them it isn’t good, or even that it is downright naughty.
When Amazon forest dwellers attempt to prevent their lands from being developed, they are roundly applauded by Greens such as Sting, and yet when Borneo forest dwellers take delight in cutting down their forests for the sake of development, they are roundly condemned by the same voices, Clearly preserving tropical forests is a more important principle for Greens than preserving the rights of the local people who own the land.
Meanwhile, in some parts of the Land of the Free, the Police are likely to turn up at the door and shoot your dog if you don’t mow your lawn every two weeks in the summertime. So I’m still struggling hard with secular morality, perhaps because of this sore head.
https://ocweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/6589257_sting.rainforest.jpg
Yes, those are the horrifying consequences of your careful analysis. But the ones that will ride out this greatest of all storms, will be the ones that adjust fast enough to a simpler life (and happen to be lucky, you can try to prepare for this, but the chaos that will ensue at some point will be enormous before it slowly dies down and the world becomes a more quiet place…)
“so we seem to be pretty resilient…”
Some of us, anyway.
Sadly, many of the middle-class, 30-to-70 year old Westerners I know remind me of mindless lemmings rushing to their demise – can’t see many of them surviving (save for incredible luck). Those few that seem recognize the catastrophe that faces us tend to reek of complacency, to the point that it almost seems like they subconsciously yearn for entropy/death (that includes some of you here on OFW).
It will be interesting-yet-terrifying to live in a post-collapse world where those who are not hungry for life and willing to fight to maintain it (physically, mentally and emotionally) find that it is quickly snuffed out.
Cheers,
-GBV
My bet is that in 120 years from now, not one of us will be alive.
LOL!
“◾It seems likely that fossil fuels will leave us before we can leave them.”
I agree, but my angle is most people are not willing to give up anything if they have a choice. Leaving fossil fuels would require a sacrifice of luxuries, and most people (not all) just don’t volunteer for that kind if thing, at least not on a national or international scale. People always want more. That direct tv satellite reception remote control will have to be wrested from their clenched cold dead hand/s.
Whatever comes next, whether it’s some form of dark ages or some slightly better version, it won’t occur until the oil age leaves us – we aren’t leaving it. I’m convinced of that.
Of course they won’t. That is what politcians are counting on. I prefer JMG’s advice: crash now and avoid the rush.
Billionaire Hedge-Fund Manager Warns a “Revolution” Is Coming
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/04/ray-dalio-capitalism-revolution
A high tide seizes all yachts!
I am afraid what the economy really needs is more energy consumption per capita, if the wage disparity problem is to be solved. Redistribution doesn’t work.
Replace the word “love” with “consumption” in these lyrics, and Dionne Warwick is singing your song, Gail.
https://youtu.be/2cW8Alo_5uI
I think that’s enough holes to sink the green new deal but this voice will never be heard.
I really expect the people who are in charge will pay no attention at all.
One way to maintain high levels of available energy per capita (or to slow the decline) is to lower the ‘capita.’ My impression is that a small percentage of people understand the population problem, but most people do not.
It seems that wherever there’s a place where women have more control over their lives – particularly with respect to education, birth control, jobs, and housing – population growth diminishes on its own. Another thing: energy production esp wrt fossil fuels has high energy consumption; this adds to per cap consumption without individuals/families themseives consuming more energy. Solar PV generation pushes PCEC the other way but differently; PV production’s energy needs scale with *power* but not very much by *energy*.
“PV production’s energy needs scale with *power* but not very much by *energy*”
What does that mean?
I agree that empowerment of women lowers the birth rate. I also believe we don’t need to consume anywhere close to current levels of energy per capita to have a decent lifestyle. However, we are in serious overshoot globally regardless of energy consumption, and even the amount of energy needed for that “decent lifestyle” is likely more than we are capable of attaining solely from non-fossil fuels. At least not in the near term; transition takes a lot of energy to build new technologies and infrastructure.
“PV production’s energy needs scale with *power* but not very much by *energy*”
What does that mean?
I assume this means that there is a linear relationship between the amount of power you want to generate using solar PV and the amount of energy you need to invest in making the hardware, but that not very much energy needs to be invested in the production of this hardware in comparison with the amount of energy it can provide over its anticipated working lifetime. But I agree “What does that mean?” is a reasonable response. It was a vague statement that is open to a variety of interpretations.
Tim – Your interpretation of what I said is correct.
Thanks Jeff. I would like to add that however clear and simple one makes an explanation, there will always be someone reading who thinks, “What does that mean?” and someone else who complains that you’ve made it too complicated.
The ’empowerment of women’ argument – higher education, urban jobs, feminist rights, etc – unthinkingly assumes that the extension of industrial high-energy civilization to primitive countries is both possible and desirable: we know neither to be the case.
Actually, birth rate can be controlled within a largely rural and traditional economy and society – without contraception or infanticide – using the old Norwegian method which was in place up to the late 18th century and noted by Thoman Malthus. It simply delayed marriage to a late age, and was not cruel or inhumane.
When the marriage laws changed, and Norway entered little by little the modern industrialising world (and one in which a high birth-rate was sought by all states in order to provide soldiers for modern mass-conscription armies) it led eventually to gross over-population, extensive poverty, and the massive migration to North America which that century saw.
Politicians and economists, though, are currently obsessed with increasing late-industrial populations in rapid decline, using young migrants from Asian, Africa and S. America to maintain consumption levels within an industrialised, highly urbanised, model which is clearly doomed in the near-to-medium term, for all the reason so well put by Gail.
In Spain, for instance, people are asking: if we aren’t starting families because of poverty and low-wages, why do we need the migrants, just give grants to young native families?
The answer of course, is the looming consumption crisis of a shrinking and ageing society, and only the young migrants can do the job of boosting demand immediately – a lot of charitable and government agencies now live off them, too.
“I agree that empowerment of women lowers the birth rate”
This line of discussion is somewhat misguided, IMO.
Lowering the birth rate does nothing to address the fact that not all people are equal – some are young and productive (though physically growing and thus requiring a larger amount of energy), while others are old/enfeebled and otherwise unproductive (perhaps requiring less energy, but providing little return back into the system).
Lowering birth rates with “empowerment” takes time and effort, and still causes all sorts of problems in the long run (unless you believe China’s one child policy was a success).
A cull, NOW, may be much more effective. At the very least, it would serve as a sort of “steam valve” to relieve some pressure on our system / world.
Cheers,
-GBV
“’PV production’s energy needs scale with *power* but not very much by *energy*’
What does that mean?”
Thanks for your question. Consider the case of crude oil, where you have to drill for and transport it, run it through a refinery to make gasoline, and then transport all that gasoline to points of sale. The gasoline’s thermal energy scales quite firmly with its mass and the energy it takes to drill, transport, refine, and again transport the substance also pretty much scales with mass.
Solar PV is different in that the energy it takes to obtain materials for panels, transport those materials, make panels out of them, and transport and deploy panels scales more or less with the *mass of the panels* which in turn scales firmly with their nameplate rating, which is a *power*. Power and energy are linked through only one independent parameter: time.
To put this another way, suppose that if Panel Farm X is set up and run in the sun for one ideal day, it will have produced energy Y. If it’s left up to run for 1000 ideal days, it will have produced energy 1000*Y…but without any appreciably more energy having gone into the existence of Panel Farm X. So the energy I needed to embed into Panel Farm X in the course of its creation didn’t scale with the farm’s energy – just its power. This holds true whether the power figure used is nameplate rating or effective annualized power; just the scaling constants would differ (by a factor of 5-7 as a crude rule of thumb).
The big difference between the two cases is that the energy carrier in the case of gasoline is the gasoline itself, whereas the energy carrier with the panels is…wait, there isn’t one! You lay ’em out in the sun and *that* is where the energy comes from; it’s not embedded in the panel the way energy is chemically embedded in gasoline. Some might try to make the case that the panels *are* effectively consumed (just as gasoline is actually consumed) over the course of their 30-odd-year working life but I’m pretty sure that the amount of energy that is embedded in panels’ creation and transport is far, far less than the amount of energy they can render from sunlight over that lifetime.
I figured that I had better leave out the question of lower population from this post. If a person thinks about it, lowering the capita has to be part of any solution.
I have long ago accepted that mother nature will fix this using a lowering of capita.
Current estimates are that an average 360,000 babies are born every day (15,000 an hour) and 151,600 people die every day (6,316 an hour). I get tired just thinking about numbers of this magnitude. With finite resources, we long ago past the point where population growth was sustainable and we must soon reach a point where it goes into reverse.
One question that interests me immensely is the question of whether or not it will be possible to manage the inevitable future human population decline humanely or whether its too late for that and human society will be overwhelmed by an unstoppable catastrophe. I would much prefer it to be done humanely, even if this means living in societies that resemble old people’s homes, but I don’t expect this to happen in most places around the world. Maybe I’m a pessimist, but Yemen, Syria and Venezuela all look like harbingers of the future for much of the Third World.
“Current estimates are that an average 360,000 babies are born every day (15,000 an hour) and 151,600 people die every day (6,316 an hour).”
Those are staggering stats. That’s a net increase of 208,400. or a little over a million every five days.
Mother Nature is sharpening her knife: no one does it better, or more swiftly…….
Great article Gail, Thanks for the hard work you do. I read and re-read your posts and check in all the time to see if a new one has arrived. Focusing on energy consumption per capita tells the real story that all the headlines seem to miss. The dark side of the equation is the per capita side. No one really wants to go there. But, since continuing to grow in a finite planet is impossible, we must have the courage to face the unavoidable issue of population reduction. I fear that the powers that be are way ahead of us. The world is shrinking. Many nations are being left out in the cold without adequate energy. This may be the new political reality, “which nation can we effectively exclude from the remaining supply of cheap energy, so there will be more for the rest of us.” I don’t see any real political effort to find a humane global strategy that works to bring humanity into balance with finite resources . With great respect.
Note Theophilus: Agenda 21
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/641Synthesis_report_Web.pdf
Is in fact a UN programme for population reduction wrapped up in weasel words.
On the one hand, we can imagine a game of musical chairs in which strong nations try to exclude weaker ones from obtaining or using energy in order to save more for themselves. On the other hand, we can imagine a game of keep the ball in the air in which all nations are encouraged and assisted in consuming as much energy as possible in order to keep the BAU ball in the air.
As a bourgeois Westerner and a lover of freedom, democracy and being on top of the world, it has always puzzled me why the West not only allowed but actually aided and abetted China—a totalitarian, communist, dictatorship that used to insist on all its subjects dressing alike, behaving alike and thinking alike to a degree that violated every traditional bourgeois Western sentiment in the book, prohibited them from having more than one child, and that even now won’t allow Bohemian Rhapsody to be shown in the cinemas without the references to h—sexuality, s–omy and cross dressing removed—actually aided and abetted this ideological enemy and—from our perspective—monstrosity into becoming the second largest industrial power on earth. Intellectually, I tell myself it was necessary in order to keep the game of keep the ball in the air going, but emotionally I’ve never understood why we were doing that.
@Tim Groves
Maybe you know that Xi Yinping has got his own app: It should be called DO AS I COMMAND!
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-xi-jinping-app-millions-forced-download-a8859511.html
(In Denmark we always seek a good bargain. So we sent the Queen. She begged humbly for a couple of pandas, and then we would not mention Tibet or other nasty things. We got the pandas – as long as we behave ourselves)
I very much agree with you Tim Groves, but now it is too late, I suppose. The Chinese are intelligent, hardworking and very goal-directed.
So much insight in this post. Thanks!!
I have been studying this topic for a long time. I am glad you liked the post.
In my presentation on EROI (Energy Return on [Energy] Investment) I point out that as your civilizational EROI begins to drop in the direction of 1:1, you start to lose the things you gained as it was rising, in reverse order. At some point, you can’t afford to run Xboxes. Eventually, you can’t have a university anymore. Or movies. Or a hospital. Or central potable water systems. Or roads. Similar events may also befall us if energy costs become unaffordable; it’s kind of the other side of the coin from falling ERsOI.
I think we left affordable EROI levels back in the 1970s. EROI researchers didn’t put the correct lower bound on EROI. They also missed the importance of timing in energy return. Return really needs to be close to simultaneous.
We have covered up the EROI problem with more and more debt since the 1970s. EROI researchers didn’t understand the role of debt either.
EROI theory makes too many simplifying assumptions, I am afraid. It was a reasonable theory to start with, but it needs a lot of updating.
Gail – My approach to EROI does a bit of an end run around the assumptions problem in the sense that I try not to traffic in actual numbers but rather as one or more ultimately unknowable numbers that one can nevertheless think of in terms of rising/falling or more/less. I guess it’s a little like the way economists valuate utility.