It seems like a reset of an economy should work like a reset of your computer: Turn it off and turn it back on again; most problems should be fixed. However, it doesn’t really work that way. Let’s look at a few of the misunderstandings that lead people to believe that the world economy can move to a Green Energy future.
[1] The economy isn’t really like a computer that can be switched on and off; it is more comparable to a human body that is dead, once it is switched off.
A computer is something that is made by humans. There is a beginning and an end to the process of making it. The computer works because energy in the form of electrical current flows through it. We can turn the electricity off and back on again. Somehow, almost like magic, software issues are resolved, and the system works better after the reset than before.
Even though the economy looks like something made by humans, it really is extremely different. In physics terms, it is a “dissipative structure.” It is able to “grow” only because of energy consumption, such as oil to power trucks and electricity to power machines.
The system is self-organizing in the sense that new businesses are formed based on the resources available and the apparent market for products made using these resources. Old businesses disappear when their products are no longer needed. Customers make decisions regarding what to buy based on their incomes, the amount of debt available to them, and the choice of goods available in the marketplace.
There are many other dissipative structures. Hurricanes and tornadoes are dissipative structures. So are stars. Plants and animals are dissipative structures. Ecosystems of all kinds are dissipative structures. All of these things grow for a time and eventually collapse. If their energy source is taken away, they fail quite quickly. The energy source for humans is food of various types; for plants it is generally sunlight.
Thinking that we can switch the economy off and on again comes close to assuming that we can resurrect human beings after they die. Perhaps this is possible in a religious sense. But assuming that we can do this with an economy requires a huge leap of faith.
[2] Economic growth has a definite pattern to it, rather than simply increasing without limit.
Many people have developed models reflecting the fact that economic growth seems to come in waves or cycles. Ray Dalio shows a chart describing his view of the economic cycle in a preview to his upcoming book, The Changing World Order. Figure 1 is Dalio’s chart, with some annotations I have added in blue.
Figure 1. New World Order chart by Ray Dalio from an introduction to his theory called The Changing World Order. Annotations in blue added by Gail Tverberg.
Modelers of all kinds would like to think that there are no limits in this world. Actually, there are many limits. It is the fact that economies have to work around limits that leads to cycles such as these. Some examples of limits include inadequate arable land for a growing population, inability to fight off pathogens, and an energy supply that becomes excessively expensive to produce. Cycles can be expected to vary in steepness, both on the upside and the downside of the cycle.
The danger of ignoring these cycles is that researchers tend to create models of future economic growth and future energy consumption that are far out of sync with what really can be expected. Accurate models need to include at least some limited version of overshoot and collapse on a regular basis. Models of the future economy tend to be based on what politicians would like to believe will happen, rather than what actually can be expected to happen in the real world.
[3] Commodity prices behave differently at different stages of the economic cycle. During the second half of the economic cycle, it becomes difficult to keep commodity prices high enough for producers.
There is a common belief that demand for energy products will always be high, because everyone knows we need energy. Thus, according to this belief, if we have the technology to extract fossil fuels, prices will eventually rise high enough that fossil fuel resources can easily be extracted. Many people have been concerned that we might “run out” of oil. They expect that oil prices will rise to compensate for the shortages. Thus, many people believe that in order to maintain adequate supply, we should be concerned about supplementing fossil fuels with nuclear power and renewable energy.
If we examine oil prices (Figure 2), it is apparent that, at least recently, this is not the way oil prices actually behave. Since the spike in oil prices in 2008, the big problem has been prices that fall too low for oil producers. At prices well below $100 per barrel, development of many new oil fields is not economic. Low oil prices are especially a problem in 2020 because travel restrictions associated with the coronavirus pandemic reduce oil demand (and prices) even below where they were previously.
Figure 2. Weekly average spot oil prices for Brent, based on data of the US Energy Information Administration.
Strangely enough, coal prices (Figure 3) seem to follow a very similar pattern to oil prices, even though coal is commonly believed to be available in huge supply, and oil is commonly believed to be in short supply.
Figure 3. Selected Spot Coal Prices, from BP’s 2020 Statistical Review of World Energy. Prices are annual averages. Price for China is Qinhuangdao spot price; price for US is Central Appalachian coal spot index; price for Europe is Northwest European marker price.
Comparing Figures 2 and 3, we see that prices for both oil and coal rose to a peak in 2008, then fell back sharply. The timing of this drop in prices corresponds with the “debt bust” in late 2008 that is shown in Figure 1.
Prices then rose to another peak in 2011, after several years of Quantitative Easing (QE). QE is intended to hold the cost of borrowing down, encouraging the use of more debt. This debt can be used by citizens to buy more goods made with coal and oil (such as cars and solar panels). Therefore, QE is a way to increase demand and thus help raise energy prices. In the 2011-2014 period, oil was able to maintain its price better than coal, perhaps because of its short supply. Once the United States discontinued its QE program in 2014, oil prices dropped like a rock (Figure 2).
Prices were very low in 2015 and 2016 for both coal and oil. China stimulated its economy, and prices for both coal and oil were able to rise again in 2017 and 2018. By 2019, prices for both oil and coal were falling again. Figure 2 shows that in 2020, oil prices have fallen again, as a result of demand destruction caused by pandemic shutdowns. Coal prices have also fallen in 2020, according to Trading Economics.
[4] The low prices since mid-2008 seem to be leading to both peak crude oil and peak coal. Crude oil production started falling in 2019 and can be expected to continue falling in 2020. Coal extraction seems likely to start falling in 2020.
In the previous section, I showed that crude oil and coal both have the same problem: Prices tend to be too low for producers to make a profit extracting them. For this reason, investment in new oil wells is being reduced, and unprofitable coal mines are being closed.
Figure 4 shows that world crude oil production has not grown much since 2004. In fact, OPEC’s production has not grown much since 2004, even though OPEC countries report high oil reserves so, in theory, they could pump more oil if they chose to.
Figure 4. World crude oil production (including condensate) based on data from BP’s 2020 Statistical Review of World Energy. Russia+ refers to the group Commonwealth of Independent States.
In total, BP data shows that world crude oil production fell by 582,000 barrels per day, comparing 2019 to 2018. This represents a drop of 2.0 million barrels per day in OPEC production, offset by smaller increases in production for the US, Canada, and Russia. Crude oil production is expected to fall further in 2020, because of low demand and prices.
Because of continued low coal prices, world coal production has been on a bumpy plateau since 2011. Prices seem to be even lower in 2020 than in 2019, putting further downward pressure on coal extraction in 2020.
Figure 5. World coal production based on data from BP’s 2020 Statistical Review of World Energy.
[5] Modelers missed the fact that fossil fuel extraction would disappear because of low prices, leaving nearly all reserves and other resources in the ground. Modelers instead assumed that renewables would always be an extension of a fossil fuel-powered system.
The thing that most people do not understand is that commodity prices are set by the laws of physics, so that supply and demand are in balance. Demand is really very close to “affordability.” If there is too much wage/wealth disparity, commodity prices tend to fall too low. In a globalized world, many workers earn only a few dollars a day. Because of their low wages, these low-paid workers cannot afford to purchase very much of the world’s goods and services. The use of robots tends to produce a similar result because robots can’t actually purchase goods and services made by the economy.
Thus, modelers looking at Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROI) for wind and for solar assumed that they would always be used inside of a fossil fuel powered system that could provide heavily subsidized balancing for their intermittent output. They made calculations as if intermittent electricity is equivalent to electricity that can be controlled to provide electricity when it is needed. Their calculations seemed to suggest that making wind and solar would be useful. The thing that was overlooked was that this was only possible within a system where other fuels would provide balancing at a very low cost.
[6] The same issue of low demand leading to low prices affects commodities of all kinds. As a result, many of the future resources that modelers count on, and that companies depend upon as the basis for borrowing, are unlikely to really be available.
Commodities of all kinds are being affected by low demand and low selling prices. The problem giving rise to low prices seems to be related to excessive specialization, excessive use of capital goods to replace labor, and excessive use of globalization. These issues are all related to the needs of a world economy that depends on a high level of technology. In such an economy, too much of the output of the economy goes to producing devices and to paying highly trained workers. Little is left for non-elite workers.
The low selling prices of commodities makes it impossible for employers to pay adequate wages to most of their workers. These low wages, in turn, feed through to the uprisings we have been seeing in the last couple of years. These uprisings are part of “Revolutions and Wars” mentioned in Figure 1. It is difficult to see how this problem will disappear without a major change in the “World Order,” mentioned in the same figure.
Because the problem of low commodity prices is widespread, our ability to produce electrical backup of all kinds, including the ability to make batteries, can be expected to become an increasing problem. Commodities, such as lithium, suffer from low prices, not unlike the low prices for coal and oil. These low prices lead to cutbacks in their production and local uprisings.
[7] On a stand-alone basis, intermittent renewables have very limited usefulness. Their true value is close to zero.
If electricity is only available when the sun is shining, or when the wind is blowing, industry cannot plan for its use. Its use must be limited to applications where intermittency doesn’t matter, such as pumping water for animals to drink or desalinating water. No one would attempt to smelt metals with intermittent electricity because the metals would set at the wrong time, if the intermittent electricity suddenly disappeared. No one would power an elevator with intermittent electricity, because a person could easily be trapped between floors. Homeowners would not use electricity to power refrigerators, because, as likely as not, the food would spoil when electricity was off for long periods. Traffic signals would work sometimes, but not always.
Lebanon is an example of a country whose electricity system works only intermittently. It is hard to imagine that any other country would want to imitate Lebanon. Lack of reliable electricity supply leads to protests in Lebanon.
[8] The true cost of wind and solar has been hidden from everyone, using subsidies whose total cost is hard to determine.
Each country has its own way of providing subsidies to renewables. Most countries give wind and solar the subsidy of “going first.” They are often given a fixed rate as well. Both of these are subsidies. In the US, other subsidies are buried in the tax system. Recently, there has been talk of using QE to help wind and solar providers lower their cost of borrowing.
Newspapers regularly report that the price of wind and solar is at “grid parity,” but this is not an apples to apples comparison. To be useful, electricity needs to be available when users need it. The cost of storage is far too high to allow us to store electricity for weeks and months at a time.
If we were to use intermittent electricity as a substitute for fossil fuels in general, we would need to use intermittent electricity to heat homes and offices in winter. Sunshine is abundant in the summer, but not in the winter. Without storage, solar panels cannot even be counted on to provide homeowners with heat for cooking dinner after the sun sets in the evening. An incredibly huge amount of storage would be needed to store heat from summer to winter.
China reports that it has $42 billion in unpaid clean energy subsidies, and this amount is getting larger each year. Countries are now becoming poorer and the taxes they are able to collect are lower. Their ability to subsidize a high cost, unreliable electricity system is disappearing.
[9] Wind, solar, and hydroelectric today only comprise a little under 10% of the world’s energy supply.
We are deluding ourselves if we think we can get along on such a tiny total energy supply.
Figure 6. Hydroelectric, wind, and solar electricity as a percentage of world energy supply, based on BP’s 2020 Statistical Review of World Energy.
Few people understand what a small share of the world’s energy supply wind and solar provide today. The amounts shown in Figure 6 assume that the denominator is total energy (including oil, for example), not just electricity. In 2019, hydroelectric accounted for 6.4% of world energy supply. Wind accounted for 2.2%, and solar accounted for 1.1%. The three together amounted to 9.7% of the world’s energy supply.
None of these three energy types is suited to producing food. Oil is currently used for tilling fields, making herbicides and pesticides, and transporting refrigerated crops to market.
[10] Few people understand how important energy supply is for giving humans control over other species and pathogens.
Control over other species and pathogens has been a multistage effort. In recent years, this effort has involved antibiotics, antivirals and vaccines. Pasteurization became an important technique in the 1800s.
Humans’ control over other species started over 100,000 years ago, when humans learned to burn biomass for many uses, including cooking foods, scaring away predators, and burning down entire forests to improve their food supply. In my 2018 post, Supplemental energy puts humans in charge, I wrote about one proof of the importance of humans’ control of fire. In the lower layers of a cave in South Africa, big cats were in charge: There were no carbon deposits from fire and gnawed human bones were scattered around the cave. In the upper layers of the same cave, humans were clearly in charge. There were carbon deposits from fires, and bones of big cats that had been gnawed by humans were scattered around the cave.
We are dealing with COVID-19 now. Today’s hospitals are only possible thanks to a modern mix of energy supply. Drugs are very often made using oil. Personal protective equipment is made in factories around the world and shipped to where it is used, generally using oil for transport.
Conclusion
We do indeed appear to be headed for a Great Reset. There is little chance that Green Energy can play more than a small role, however. Leaders are often confused because of the erroneous modeling that has been done. Given that the world’s oil and coal supply seem to be declining in the near term, the chance that fossil fuel production will ever rise as high as assumptions made in the IPCC reports seems very slim.
It is true that some Green Energy devices may continue to operate for a time. But, as the world economy continues to head downhill, it will be increasingly difficult to make new renewable devices and to repair existing systems. Wholesale electricity prices can be expected to stay very low, leading to the need for continued subsidies for wind and solar.
Figure 1 indicates that we can expect more revolutions and wars at this stage in the cycle. At least part of this unrest will be related to low commodity prices and low wages. Globalization will tend to disappear. Keeping transmission lines repaired will become an increasing problem, as will many other tasks associated with keeping energy supplies available.
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Dear Gail,
Really impressed by your mastery and analysis. I don’t believe much also on wind & sun. I guess hydrogen or fusion will need extra 10/20 years to ramp up. But what about producing oil/carbon with algae ? They are fast growing plants, easy to crop and with usable remains. If we do solve the our energy/caloric problem, then we can restart again. And it sounds somewhat “simple” to produce if we crack the DNA improvement challenge.The main difference with the past (even early 1900’s) is our capacity to exchange knowledge very very fast now. Regards
I wish people would give up this nonsense about a Hydrogen economy. Hydrogen is incredibly dangerous, ask anyone who designs the plants that produce it. It escapes from molecular sized cracks and when it does it heats up (unlike other gases which cool) and ‘boooom’!
Hydrogen does disappear under the best of conditions.
Unfortunately the hydrogen/energy cycle is very inefficient. 60% for the electrolyser, say 80% for storage and compression, and about 60% for the conversion via fuel cells. (0.6x 0.8 x 0.6 = 0.288%) and that doesn’t include the related inefficiencies!
Fusion power was first proposed in the 1920s. It has been “20 years away” ever since. If you want fusion poser, go for the one fusion reactor that will outlast all of us: the Sun.
Folks don’t seem to realize the sheer complexity of a fusion system – and then expect for these devices to be replicated all over the globe – no way – and the enormous resources required to support them .. dream world.
People have made algae oil farms. I have not looked into it recently. Does anyone know how they are doing?
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/lessons-from-the-great-algae-biofuel-bubble
No cost competitive producers yet. 2020
and https://harvardpolitics.com/united-states/the-myth-of-algae-biofuels/
Steven Chu seemed to have this idea as well. Evolution has allowed changes over billions of years to optimize pretty much every process.There is a need for redundancy as well as efficiency, so the systems won’t collapse. We cannot get the combination right. More efficient systems tend to be not sustainable.
Nature favours sustainable systems, for the obvious reason that the unsustainable ones eventually go away.
This article shows a clear lack of understanding about renewable energy and how the electricity market operates in the United States.
Take this with a very large grain of salt!
I have been involved with energy issues in general since 2005. I have gotten involved with electricity issues as well. In fact, I have spoken at some electricity-related conferences.
One website you might be interested in reading is P-F Bach’s from Denmark’s blog, writing about Northern European electricity, http://pfbach.dk
On July 3, he wrote:
On this chart, Sweden is the blue line. (SE3) Denmark has two lines DE-LU (yellow) and DK1 (gray). Norway, which as this point finds little market for its electricity, (thanks to the jammed up transmission lines and lack of local industry that want to buy the electricity) is Kr. Sand (green). The wholesale price for buying electricity is SYS (red). You can see that this has dropped close to zero.
http://pfbach.dk/firma_pfb/graphics/nordpool_weekly_spot_prices_2020a.jpg
Hmm. Are there 2 Grants posting replies or has the link between original post and reply become somehow misattributed?
I’ll use a different name.
I looked. Definitely two different people posting as Grant. Good choice!
The changes in Africa since decolonisation are worth noting. While Zimbabwe has almost 6 times the population it had in the 1950’s it’s food supply is a fraction of the past. Repeat this pattern throughout southern Africa and you find a continuous subsistence economy where population expands and prospects diminish. I see this same pattern extending to first world. We will consume less, live simply and maybe create inner lives rather than material ones.
Alternatively we may self destruct from the pressure of the excess population….its up for grabs.
John Burman,
That sounds like 60’s Flower Power.
Would that philosophy have a better chance of working in a world even more used to globalisation than it was then and with a larger population with higher expectations across the globe than was the case back then?
The simplification may indeed come about. But probably not without a lot of pain, just like all past civilisation changes but this time with large numbers and more widely destructive technologies available. But only for a short time until the energy supply lines fail.
I guess what I am watching for now is what the FED is going to do. Can They buy up all the debt And make it disappear? I have heard that the treasury is holding back billions of dollars that they will flood the market right before the election. Where I live people are acting like there’s nothing happening and back to normal lots of fancy high-rise apartments being built lots of people eating out.
I am not hoarding gold or silver bitcoin or stocks I am making sure I have the essentials clothing tools canned goods. A good pair of walking shoes I’ll get you far!
money debt is actually energy debt
so for the FED to buy up $xx bns in debt they have a choice:
Find the relevant amount of energy that equates with the outstanding debt
or
Ignore the energy factor and Print enough money to cancel the debt, or at least keep the debtors from actually starving to death
take a guess at what they will eventually do.
Dan,
Walking shoes are consumable. How far will they get you? How many days will they serve you if you start to walk a lot?
Can you make your own shoes when existing shoes are worn out?
Maybe clogs will make a return. Can one make usable clogs from quick growth timber?
(Why are you walking when we have the Internet through which we can do everything? Or so we are told)
Grant,
A group is necessary:
1. A farmer to raise cattle
2. A butcher to carve up the animal so it can provide energy
3. A tanner to make a hide
4. A black smith to make nails
5. A cobbler to make shoes.
Now, put them in a village and one needs a preacher, a simple set of rules repeated each week, maybe an instrumentalist to provide entertainment(hymns which sound good and reinforce the message). The set of rules needs to include one about not having sex with one of the other members of the group – it messes up the production of shoes.
Interesting thought, even if the sex is between two consenting males, that would make one or both of the wives angry, and then, fewer shoes. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
The following is a quote: ” No, this one’s not a Shakespeare quote. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned is a proverb adapted from lines in The Mourning Bride, a tragic play by English playwright William Congreve first performed in 1697. The lines are said by the character Zara, a queen whose capture entangles her in a lethal love triangle.
The expression is interpreted to mean that no one is as angry as a woman who has been romantically rejected or betrayed. The saying is somewhat controversial, as some reference it to affirm the power of women, while others see it as a sexist stereotype of women as overemotional.” Simpler explanation, the woman wants her man making shoes to provide for her family, not screwing around so to speak.
So back to our group, if there is enough wealth to both make shoes and mess around, no problem, but if that messing around interferes with the groups ability to make shoes, there is a problem. If the group makes surplus shoes for the village, a decline in production and bare feet might cause social anger towards those members causing the discord resulting is a social taboo as an addendum to the adultery rule.
Simple story, not complete, but consistent with many very old rules from low energy times.
It is always a group, never an individual.
Dennis L.
“Heav’n has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn’d, Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn’d.”
A wonderful meditation, Dennis. Thank you. By the way, St Crispin is the patron saint of shoemakers, and the “Daughters of St Crispin” was the first women’s labour union in the US. And lest we forget: Jesus was a carpenter, and Omar Khayyam was a tentmaker. Manual labour is part of a long and honourable tradition. I hope it will be rediscovered.
According to rumour,and there is some documentary evidence, the sex problem was partly and conveniently resolved by incest among the cottage dwellers around here. Another reason to have lots of children, one might surmise.
Also according to tradition, the village green here was the scene of some lively wife-swapping when the metropolitan customs of the 1970’s reached this part of rural England – in the early 80’s.
The former owners of this house were quite notorious in this respect, and it is said that the husband hadn’t the faintest idea who had fathered his children. He had a great kitchen garden, and I suppose that kept their strength up……
remind me again where you live Xabier
sounds like a fun place for a weekend
(unless you are getting confused with wife selling of the 1780s?)
Pre-1914, there were an estimated 250,000 village cobblers in Britain, to supply the tough boots needed by the farm workers.
And in the cities, most skilled workers knew how to do home repairs on their family shoes, up until consumerism took off post -WW2.
My father had a ‘cobblers iron’ (or whatever its called). Most working families did as I recall
You can get them now in junkshops for a pound or two as an interesting antique/doorstop
Norman, it was called a “cobbler’s last”, and my uncle had one. He also used it, since his job involved a lot of walking on the hills of North Wales.
thanks Robert—I knew the word but it just wouldn’t come to me when I wanted it in that comment
My father had one and used it regularly
“Globalization will tend to disappear.” About time. The UK had a wonderful opportunity to develop their local resources with Brexit, but they blew it. In France, where I live now, there are more local food sources than in the US and the UK. And buying food from Spain and Portugal is like buying from California when you live in Oregon. Our life is quite good in France, but my partner’s children and grandchildren live in Washington and they are in an iffy position. I am glad we left the States.
My local source of meat, carefully cultivated with good neighbourly relations, has gone, somewhat ironically bulldozed by a ‘Green’ development……
I would say there is no governmental interest in true localisation and resilience in the UK, the assumption is that a prosperous UK will always be able to purchase what i needs on international markets.
If there can be no “reset”, in the sense of returning to a large extent to business as usual (as I believe), what remains? Here in this forum we seem focussed on two possibilities: a stepwise descent, or collapse. It seems more useful to talk about the former. As I see it, there are parts of our built environment that can be preserved, perhaps modified in some way (that’s the step), but others that will have to be abandoned (that’s the descent). I’d like to talk briefly about three aspects of this: things that should be preserved as much as possible; things that need to be modified, perhaps drastically, but can be rebuilt; and things that must be abandoned. Please allow me to give one example of each; as always, in my own opinion based on my own partial knowledge.
1. Medical science. This must be preserved at almost any cost. But I do not mean health care; rather, the scientific progress that helped create our health care. Antisepsis, anaesthesia, antibiotics, anatomy, … Health care as we know it, and most certainly in the US, must be dismantled and rebuilt from the ground up.
And I believe that ground is a recognition that the purpose of health care is not primarily to cure the sick, but rather to enable the healthy to stay healthy. The front line is the individual, who should take primary responsibility for their own health. The second line is the General Practitioner, who should intervene when departures from full health are easily remedied. The massively expensive, massively overspecialised, modern “healthcare” belongs at the margin, and should use perhaps 5% of the total effort, mostly on curative surgery. Health insurance is a failed model, and will disappear.
2. Supply chains must be dramatically reconfigured: made shorter, more robust, and managed more locally. But they must be retained, not least to support Adam Smith’s absolute advantage, without which we are back to the Middle Ages. But the system needs less complexity and far more resilience. Each node in the chain should keep an ample contingency reserve, and be prepared for shortages, interruptions, and other random events.
For example, I see no reason why a town should not keep six months’ supply of perishables in a large underground refrigerated store, perhaps with geothermal cooling. (Incidentally, this seems a good candidate for solar power: you need more cooling in the Summer, when there is more sunshine, and the sheer hysteresis of a large cold chamber should be able to cope with any intermittency.)
3. Transport. Most current transport cannot be saved. Mass air travel as we know it will disappear. Perhaps there is a role for smaller, business class aeroplanes, but how could, say, a 90% downsized industry support the immense land based infrastructure we now have, of airports, dependent ground transit, and the hugely expensive air traffic control systems? They are doomed.
Personal transport, namely the private automobile, is also doomed. Everyday transport will by by foot power or pedal power; less frequent trips will use jitney, boat, or perhaps small powered trishaw. Suburbia will go the way James Howard Kunstler has been gleefully predicting for years.
There remains rail, which I think is where almost all the complexity will survive. If at all possible, we should keep it electrified, not least because there are major advantages in vehicles that do not have to carry their motive power with them. So we have freight, commuter trains, intercity trains, and bullet trains; making sure they all live together is the key problem. The US does this very badly: passenger trains typically arrive hours late, because they must yield to freight. And the fast intercity trains tend to displace commuter trains, as Spain discovered. My own thoughts on this would perhaps be a digression too far, so let me close here.
Please feel free to disagree.
Indeed, there is a possibility of step-wise decent, at least in some parts of the world.
I have a hard time seeing electric trains being part of step-wise descent. There are too many parts that will need to be kept up. Oil powered transportation came into being before there was much electric; I expect oil (or even coal) powered trains will last longer than electric, especially if those fuels are available. We want to keep what is at the top of our technology. I expect that keeping what is close to the lowest level of our technology will be a whole lot easier to maintain.
Similarly, with health care, it seems like the sub-specializations of healthcare will disappear. What we will need is someone within walking distance who can provide a low level of care. Perhaps the ability to splint a bad break or to pull an abscessed tooth.
I just hope we keep some form of anesthesia beside 2 fingers of whiskey and a punch in the face…
Thank you, Gail. i agree completely about health care; almost all the specialisations will disappear. and I believe we shall abandon almost all health care that simply slows down the process of dying.
Concerning railways, I am more optimistic than you about electrification. First, the motive power is amazingly simpler. The engines need no fuel tanks, no combustion chamber with its mass of inflow and outflow pipes, no pistons or turbines, no gear train; indeed, no gears. The motors go inside the wheels, and now you don’t need an engine: each car is powered independently. And as a bonus, you get regenerative braking essentially free.
But I think the big win is the “grid”, which is coextensive with the rail line. This is a huge simplification, and would represent a huge decrease in installation and maintenance costs. Moreover, a smart railway company could sell electricity to the towns that surround the railway stations. You know: that way you could electrify a whole country, one railway town at a time.
So I think it would be worth the effort to explore this concept.
Since the economy is self-organizing I am pretty sure that it will as a result of thousands of decisions be simplified.
> Please feel free to disagree.
Mostly I don’t.
> 2. Supply chains must be dramatically reconfigured: made shorter, more robust, and managed more locally. But they must be retained, not least to support Adam Smith’s absolute advantage, without which we are back to the Middle Ages.
Three-D printers and related fabricators are largely at the toy stage, but they will become a common way to make things, one or a few at a time. It may be that this will cope with the problem of replacement parts.
Food is harder. If you want bananas and apples, currently, then long-distance shipping is part of your world. Of course, enough genetic manipulation of plants might give you a tree that makes banana on one side and apples on the other.
Where would you get the raw material for the 3d printer?
I think industrial lathe with skilled operators who can create something from spare parts would be more valuable, provided you can power the lathe. Maybe put the lathe next to a hydro-plant?
> Where would you get the raw material for the 3d printer?
If there is a complete collapse, you don’t. But it takes only a few kinds of material to make a wide variety of parts.
> I think industrial lathe with skilled operators who can create something from spare parts would be more valuable, provided you can power the lathe. Maybe put the lathe next to a hydro-plant?
There are a bunch of fascinating youtube videos of machinist making or rebuilding parts. Unless you are talking about 16-inch gun barrels, the power to run a lathe is modest.
Back in the early 1970s, I spent a lot of time installing computer gear in a few John Deere plants. They had a policy (in those days anyway) that a customer could order parts for every model they had ever built. I remember looking over a room full of wooden patterns that were used to make sand molds. The sand molds were used to pour cast iron parts. If someone needed a part for a tractor that had been built in the 1930s, they would dig out the pattern, make a mold, pour a part, and machine the part to specification.
About this time last year I was talking to a chap who is an engineer in some sort if advanced hi tech industry who told me of the challenges facing manufacturing today.
Basically for some units at cost effective prices the user can support one has to look to the cheapest sources and attempt to manage the supplier.
They did that and received a batch of product that matched or exceeded specification on all counts.
They ordered a second batch and those failed on all counts.
There are still opportunities, in many situations where relatively high investment products are concerned, to have components manufactured. But it is rarely cost effective nor a sensible investment in any way. Especially when modern equipment and its components are really not intended to last very long.
In a simpler world if the technology was still similar it might make sense. But in the complex modern world it probably would not make sense at all.
My uncle has a machine shop in Wisconsin. He used to do very well, but like most other people, he has suffered greatly under globalization. He’s just a one man shop now. Normally he would have an apprentice, but who wants to go into a “failing” business like that when you can make money drop-shipping crap from China online.
If you want bananas, perhaps you could build a greenhouse? Apples grow on threes throughout the whole temperate zone.
Bananas grow on plants that are grasses. Apples on trees. I assume you were jesting. If not then it is a typical comment on wishful thinking when somebody has no idea of the reality of the situation. The same applies to most people’s understanding of energy.
> Bananas grow on plants that are grasses. Apples on trees. I assume you were jesting.
Not entirely. https://frieze.com/article/grow-your-own Of course by the time we could build a “cabinet beast” we might be living off electricity. https://web.archive.org/web/20121130232045/http://hplusmagazine.com/2012/04/12/transhumanism-and-the-human-expansion-into-space-a-conflict-with-physics/
> If not then it is a typical comment on wishful thinking when somebody has no idea of the reality of the situation. The same applies to most people’s understanding of energy.
I have found over the last 13 years that getting people to grok the economics is harder than getting them to understand energy. YMMV
Well, my understanding comes from (a) helping tend my parents’ apple orchard in Lincolnshire many years ago, and (b) observing banana cultivation while living in Africa.
And banana “trees” are perennial herbaceous plants, but certainly not grasses. Hope that helps.
Technically health care is a luxury and not beneficial over all. 50million legal abortions are performed every year. Add to that the extension of geriatric society. Combined with detrimental treatments like ventilators for Covid the health industry is a net drag on society. There is a reason Africa has a younger population than the western world. Lack of heath care. Preserving it at all cost won’t be in the mix. Preserving farmers and farm land maybe.
The bigger problem is last in first out. The electrical grid will go before oil gas and coal and wood. The grid is a product of fossil fuel. You can’t make steel without coke. Most information is stored electronically think about it. Once the grid cracks the spent fuel ponds ignite. There is no step down.
> You can’t make steel without coke.
Please do a little research before making such statements. Times have changed since blast furnaces were the only way to reduce iron.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_reduced_iron
You can’t make steel with just some intermittent electricity, however.
> You can’t make steel with just some intermittent electricity, however.
That’s a technical and economic statement and would take analysis. The capital cost of the plant would go up by a factor of 4 if it were run only 1/4 of the day (PV), but if the intermittent power was cheap enough, it might make steel for about the same cost. You might want to use induction heating instead of an arc furnace, but I don’t see it being technically impossible.
There is a quantity issue that makes this whole thing impossible. We can’t scale up the solar panels and battery backup needed sufficiently.
> There is a quantity issue that makes this whole thing impossible. We can’t scale up the solar panels and battery backup needed sufficiently.
Over the last year, I have had my expectations turned upside down by the astonishingly low cost of solar power. 1.35 cents per kWh is less than the lowest cost of hydro and there is a *lot* more desert than there are undammed rivers. I worked it out and replacing all the oil with synthetic fuel would take about 28% of the area of the Sahara desert. Oil is around 1/3 of total energy use, so it’s not impossible that all the energy humans use could come from ground PV. (I still think power satellites are a better idea but if ground solar is less expensive (accounting for intermittency) I will have to accept that.
You don’t need batteries if you are making hydrogen and then synthetic oil But Musk’s engineers have developed a million-mile car battery that does not use cobalt. In a year or two, we all might be surprised a how cheap batteries are.
Far as steel goes, it’s not a large fraction of energy use. I suspect that if engineers looked into making it with intermittent power, it might be even less expensive than it is now.
But you might be right, it is all impossible and we are all doomed. I suspect that this may be the year of the peak population.
Keith, when can we start Solar Oil Corp? Let’s start in Nevada it is close and safe.
> Keith, when can we start Solar Oil Corp? Let’s start in Nevada it is close and safe.
I have been talking to the APS people who run the reactor complex at Palo Verde (Arizona).
Because of all the solar installed in Arizona and California, they now have power they don’t know what to do with spring and fall of the year. It has been a while since I talked to them, but they were considering making hydrogen with the excess power. My suggestion was to combine the hydrogen with CO or CO2 and make diesel fuel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oryx_GTL
Making hydrogen is a nice way to manage the grid by load instead of generation.
The economics are a bit difficult to analyze because it is hard to put a cost of power that otherwise has no market.
Keith, if you ever want to talk about electric to oil I am at edpell a t optonline d o t net
I think that symbols of our decay are being successfully hidden in the wealthy countries. Homeless are shunted to back streets, tourism ads for San Fransicko don’t show addicts dumping in the street, and burned out parts of left wing cities are left off the beaten path. The more complex the society and the higher up it is in the food chain, then the symbols of decay are more successfully hidden. One day in the not too distant future, criminals in New York that are currently freely committing crimes without risk, will burn and loot the more successful and wealthy areas. One day they will,burn and loot a high rise, a skyscraper. The image of a burning high-rise will be a symbol that cannot be swept under the rug, that things are decaying. Or increasing blackouts will “illuminate” the problem.
Many here comment that they don’t realize the short timeline but it is because the symbols of decay are not in their face. But it is inevitable.
The international decay is now growing, and encircling the wealthy center….look at Lebanon and you see the future if the periphery. The wealthy center cannot be immune from these problems.
There’s a wonderful story from the end of Rome.
Soldiers were happily sitting in their watch tower on the border when they realised that their pay was very late, so one of them was selected to go to town to chase it up.
When he turned up again, he came down the river – headless.
That was the sign that something was quite definitely up, or over …….
At the moment, the ‘corpses’ are piling up largely out of sight: for instance, over 1/2 million lost their jobs almost at once in the UK due to the lock-down, but one doesn’t see them on the streets begging, they are out of sight, quietly despairing.
If they have families, that is probably several million lives ruined, to ‘save’ how many? And this is just the beginning.
The people “saved” were mostly in terrible shape to begin with.
I am afraid you will be right. The decay is now hidden everywhere. The wealthy center cannot be immune from these problems.
Finch, somebody wrote this on another blog after reading your comment on this site:
It simply cannot be overstated that without a massive, rapid reduction in human population all of the commonly accepted goals towards a more sustainable existence on the planet are nearly (if not completely) impossible to satisfy. And that doing so with the least possible amount of suffering (likely to be colossal, regardless) should be the highest priority for our species. The denial of this reality by 95 percent (maybe less, maybe more, but certainly the vast, vast majority) of humans is a supreme validation of MORT. Your repeated emphasis on this astoundingly important topic never fails to inspire and encourage me, as nearly everywhere else I’m met with extremely defensive positions and hostility when discussing it.
I need to search un-Denial more thoroughly to locate content describing how it is that a small minority of humans deny reality less than the average (and sometimes very significantly less). I’m struggling to understand how some of us have come to be less affected by MORT. Has MORT just not had enough time yet to completely infiltrate the human nervous system, and thus the human intellect, via evolution? Or were some humans 100,000 years ago not, or not as much, affected by MORT which has carried through successive generations until the present allowing for a minority to still more accurately comprehend reality?
IMO, understanding and discussing our predicament is just another game or hobby. We feel smart, we like to (virtually) be around similar minded people, and we like to make sense of what we observe in life. Not unlike watching and discussing sports with your friends.
To strive for our existence is natural for humans and life in general. To go against this would be un-natural. I don’t see how humans ever could evolve away from life’s basic functions. It would be like the sun wanting to become a cold rock.
Luke, I think the issue of population is not a problem, but a predicament. That is, we have no means of solving it. There is no human power with either the will or the ability to reduce our population by anything like what is needed, except for a war that would reduce it to zero. The famous “demographic transition” occurred only in welfare states, and only in states without an established natalist religion. These demographics were outbred by the others, are now being swamped by them, and eventually will be replaced.
That is why people like me don’t care to discuss the issue, because we believe all such discussion is futile. It would be like telling he reindeer on St Matthew Island to stop breeding, or the inhabitants of Easter Island to stop chopping down trees: it simply won’t happen. Nature will take her course, and my conviction is that her solution will be the best; if not for us then for Gaia.
Discussing overpopulation is very important to me and others because the prevention of suffering by the prevention of birth, even if it is only one sentient being at a time, is operating on the side of the angels. Actually thinking that something will be done about the problem by the so-called authorities is simply not the issue anymore.
Thanks, Luke, for the response. Here’s my original quote:
I think intentional non-breeders are a manifestation of an extremely rare allele or gene, which is probably some sort of empathy gene. Essentially, if I were to gauge or poll those in this category, I think the majority would test for high degrees of empathy and/or higher intellects or spatial awareness than on average.
There are genes for risk-taking (DRD4), so there are other genes that would encourage empathy. I’m also positive that most of them, and I include myself in this group of outliers, view most human interactions as extremely selfish and frustrating, and we find ourselves questioning why people do the things they do. And I don’t really have the answers. The only thing I can think of is that there is a very human psychopathy that defines our species, and for whatever reason, we intentional non-breeders did not inherit it. Either it is that reason, or the non-breeder possesses a very old and very latent gene that went the way of the dodo centuries ago.
Thoughts?
Since this site is called “Our Finite World,” overpopulation is obviously a relevant point of discussion. Besides, I like knowing that there have been superbly educated and aware folks out there, like James Lovelock and Albert Bartlett, who have taken THE most important subject seriously.
“Those who fail to see that population growth and climate change are two sides of the same coin are either ignorant or hiding from the truth. These two huge environmental problems are inseparable, and to discuss one while ignoring the other is irrational.”
James Lovelock, scientist/environmentalist, who will turn 101 at the end of this month and has seen it all
“Can you think of any problem in any area of human endeavor on any scale, from microscopic to global, whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way aided, assisted, or advanced by further increases in population locally, nationally, or globally?”
Albert Bartlett, physicist/population activist, who lived to 90 and had seen it all
Bartlett: “The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.”
Congratulations to any human for taking the entire concept of suffering seriously. Some of us really do have the mental/emotional capability of understanding what the future holds without making excuses about humanity’s supposed “natural” imperatives. The act of sex is the actual driving force, with reproduction the consequence, Mother Nature’s most powerful trickery.
If children are needed to help growing crops or to take care of their elderly parents in the parents’ old age, then families have a tendency to have quite a few children.
Also, if there is a high level of death among children and young people, this also encourages families to have extra children, as part of contingency planning.
We have been living in a very unusual period in the history of human population. Death rates have been very low, thanks to the benefits of fossil fuels, sanitation and antibiotics. These benefits are disappearing in front of our very eyes. We can see that COVID-19 is not easy to defeat, for example. Fighting it seems to have as bad, or worse, effects than the disease itself.
All ecosystems are built to work on natural selection. There is an overproduction of members of the next generation; the best adapted survive. We have been working on defeating this mechanism. With the addition of enough energy, we can sort of do this. Ultimately, the system can be expected to revert to the normal situation: There will be a lot of deaths among children. Women will need to have many children to make certain that some survive. Africa and parts of the Middle East are still following this pattern.
I disagree that having extra children is part of a contingency plan. It’s more like when the Human body senses more death. There is more urge for sex.
“So many vaginas, stomachs, cocks, snouts, and flies, you don’t know what to do with them . . . shovelsful! But hearts? Very rare! In the last five hundred million years, too many cocks and gastric tubes to count. But hearts? Only on your fingers!” Louis-Ferdinand Celine
In order to become the successful parasites that we are, we were given very little choice in our behavior from the menu called life. We have competed, reproduced, consumed, and now will destroy the host. Empathy/feelings had very little room in the cosmic setup. Nevertheless, my wife and I (mid-60s) are childfree by choice, our tiny contribution in the name of empathy. I’ve never been a fan of suffering.
Thanks for the comments, everyone. Animals, excluding Homo sapiens, have the most attractive babies, and I found a wise woman who agreed. Simple life, zero kids, enjoyment of our solitude with our wildlife and domestic friends = the good life . . .
Schopenhauer: “Men are the devils of the earth, and the animals are its tormented souls.”
I used to be unhappy I had no grand kids but now I am happy about it. I am sorry my youngest might get to see the year 2070 and the other two 2060.
“I think intentional non-breeders are a manifestation of an extremely rare allele or gene, …”
If that was intended as irony, it was beautifully crafted. But if you really cannot understand why the genes of non breeders become extremely rare, …
Are we saved?
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-53409521
It would be wonderful if all this blow should have been dealt not to people, but to state finances. But the realities are different. I completely agree with you that the government from the very beginning incorrectly coped with this crisis and still copes badly with it.
State finances are indeed being affected by all of these problems. In the United States, the place where this is most evident is in the state and local budgets. These are being cut back. One benefit of having students (supposedly) learn from home is that the is no need for bus drivers, or for people to cook school lunches or provide gym classes. State and local governments also fund many hospitals. University budgets are being cut, leading to layoffs of many kinds.
So far, central governments have been dealing with the problems with more deficit spending and QE. At some point, this will stop working. There will be broken supply chains that can’t be fixed.
Desperation is broadcast by an airlines CEO…
American Airlines CEO: ‘Let’s go fly, for God’s sake’
Published: July 17, 2020 at 10:52 a.m. ET
By Nicole Lyn Pesce MarketWatch
Doug Parker says the fly-more strategy is ‘working extremely well’ so far
American Airlines AAL has brought back about half of the 410 jets it grounded earlier this spring, the Journal reported, and is offering more than twice as many seats this week as United UAL , and almost 50% more than Delta DAL .
Still, travel demand is about a quarter of last year’s levels, and the number of coronavirus cases has taken off across most of the country. That has seen some cities and states — including the New York City tri-state area travel hub — enacting new travel bans and restrictions to slow the virus’ spread, which could further hit demand.
“They’re [American] either going to look very prescient or very foolish,” Wolfe Research analyst Hunter Keay told the Journal. “They’d better hope the traveling public gets comfortable pretty quickly or that there’s a vaccine.”
Sorry, but the folks that visit here in South Florida won’t be coming anytime soon…
The Politicians are talking about another lockdown…
Seems WARLORDS, like this one in Mexico, will emerge as the nation states lose the ability to govern as available energy and resources
diminish.
Reuters. By Julia Love
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – A video depicting a sprawling military-style convoy of one of Mexico’s most powerful drug cartels circulated on social networks on Friday just as President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador visited the group’s heartland.
In the two-minute clip, members of the fearsome Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) stand in fatigues alongside a seemingly endless procession of armored vehicles.
“Only Mencho’s people,” members of the cartel shout, pumping their fists and flashing their long guns. The cry was a salute to their leader, Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera, one of the country’s most-wanted drug lords.
The video’s release coincided with Lopez Obrador’s visit to the states of Guanajuato, Jalisco and Colima, some of the cartel’s strongholds.
“They are sending a clear message… that they basically rule Mexico, not Lopez Obrador,” said Mike Vigil, a former chief of international operations for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
A spokesman for Lopez Obrador’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment
PS Homicides reported increase by 71% since elected!
Found the video. Very impressive
https://m.yenisafak.com/en/video-gallery/news/mexican-cartel-shows-its-might-as-president-visits-its-heartland-2204476
Decades ago I was a believer in a sustainable green industrial economy.
Living here in South Florida. We are unable to even place Solar Water heaters on rooftops. That is the lowest hanging fruit step and yet FPL promotes it’s solar panel farm collectors.
Thank you for your latest write up, Gail. Doubt it will be accepted by policy makers.
If Joe Biden becomes President, he’s promoting a 2 trillion dollar green initiative!
Wonderful ❣️… sarcasm
Mexico is interesting, the big gangs are like the private armies of the great barons of England before the Tudor dynasty crushed them.
Medieval kings were often weaker than their strongest ‘subjects’.
Public Health England have been counting Covid19 deaths as anyone who dies and had previously tested positive. Yes, you read correctly! No wonder counts are so high if you can never recover from the virus. What stupid people we have running our country.
Are you sure about this? Do you have a link?
The total number of deaths is nearly always higher than the counted number of deaths attributed to COVID-19, because there are a lot of people who don’t get treatment for other conditions (diabetes and heart conditions). Strokes can be the result of COVID-19 or other conditions. In fact, heart disease problems may be increased by COVID-19. There is a fine line between what is COVID-19 and what is not. Most people who die have multiple conditions.
“Researchers say current data includes a “statistical anomaly” by which “no one can ever recover from COVID-19 in England”.”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/news.sky.com/story/amp/coronavirus-health-secretary-matt-hancock-orders-urgent-review-into-public-health-england-death-data-12030392
Thanks Harry
Strange!
There have been many strange aspects to the pandemic and how it has been handled and numbers reported in the UK.
It will be interesting to find out how the newly announced “6 types of Covid-19” symptoms might be used to create more effective diagnosis and treatment options and whether, if modelled back across the reported fatalities, they might highlight where new knowledge could offer improved outcomes.
Of course the “improved outcomes” opinions might depend on one’s point of view abut what constitutes an good outcome …
I looked at this issue. It is not a “statistical anomaly’, it is a piece of stupifyingly bad IT programming. To boil it down: somebody wanted to count covid deaths, and wrote this:
IF testedpositive(p) AND isdead(p) THEN “p died of covid” END.
And there you have it. The lesson here was explained to me by a CEO many years ago: “If you have a first rate manager they will hire first rate people. If you have a second rate manager they will hire third rate people.” And presumably the rot spreads down from there.
Despite the title, this article doesn’t talk much about the Great Reset. We all know that the promised “green growth” will never happen, but what does it hide? What is the real agenda behind the Reset? Because there is one.
The Great Reset is what happens at the end of Figure 1. Governments are overturned. Often, countries fall apart, as the Soviet Union did back in 1991. There can be huge loss of life, often from pandemics. Without fossil fuels, world population would need to be very much lower. Our primary energy source would be the use of wood burned for heat and cooking. It is hard to support a very large population on wood and charcoal from wood.
Many people can see that something is going to happen as many, many businesses collapse, debt defaults, and jobs disappear. The agenda behind the Great Reset is to promote a happy Fairy Tale that people can believe, so they will not worry too much about what is ahead. As long as people believe that printing money is a a solution to all our problems and that the pandemic will quickly go away, they will no longer be worried.
Of course, what we really need is goods and services. Central governments cannot print goods and services. Pandemic shutdowns are badly disrupt the production of goods and services. They break supply lines and destroy jobs around the world. Pandemic shutdowns are a big part of what leads to collapse, much more than direct deaths from the disease. The huge number of jobs lost lead to starvation of many poor people around the world. These poor people become more susceptible to diseases of all kinds as well.
This is a google-translated post from the german “das gelbe forum” from 2010, regarding “downsizing” to the 16 th century!
Constructive
offthspc , Monday, Nov 22, 2010, 10:34 PM (3523 days ago) – zipedited by
unknown, Wednesday, May 18, 2011, 6:21 PM
Quote: To me, the timing to the bust seems less important than what happens afterwards. I imagine that the later the case occurs, the more risk the time after that, the more risk there will be.
I am concerned that for this time, the main debate is on mental approaches derived from the field of ‘sightings’ or related to the fact that our highly complex society is being thrown back to the level of development of the 16th century.
Answer: This is not possible. Where are the 16th century equipment? Where is the robust (but low-yield) seed of the 16th century?
Where are the .. Cows of the 16th century? Small-framed, robust, calving without foreign help, since the offspring is not a uterus-breaking high-breeding cattle?
None of this is there anymore.
Instead, corn root drills, firebrand, potato beetles and other pests that were not known in the 16th century.
Where are the 30 people/square kilometres of the 16th century?
How many do we have today? Around 250.
No one will put some humus aside and use the pickaxe to extract coal or ores. These resources are gone without no longer promoting large-scale industrial materials and energy use.
Economic reconstruction, by the way, is the same as energy consumption, no energy, no recovery.
No one will create a seaside city any more and, thanks to fishing, will reach a population density of 100 people/square kilometre in order to establish a new civilization as in antiquity.
The schools of fish are also gone and will be on our lifetimes.
Even if we are still in a hurry to plough, where are the oxen?
Even if we plough the fields with human power, where is the non-F1 hybrid seed for next year’s harvest?
Quote: I do not want to criticise these views. Unfortunately, I find there to be too few discussions here, which are “constructively” structured and deal with the will to survive in every human being, which historically proves that after every system collapse, a reconstruction has taken place, which resulted in a better living situation than before the crisis.
Answer: Well then “constructive”: What does man need to survive?
Man dies after:3 minutes without air3 days without water3 weeks without food3 hours without shelter (in a snowstorm without special equipment)
Air: We have plenty. What about this in the event of a crisis?
When solvents, detergent precursors of all kinds as a result of an economic crash are stored in countless tanks and plants and they rust in front of them.
What about the cooling basins of the nuclear power plants, if the water supply fails and the freshly burned fuel rods ignite themselves after a few weeks? Not to be deleted and in the consequences in the dimension of Chernobyl.
Where does the fire brigade collapse when whole areas full of low energy Styrofoam-Pressspan-Wood facade houses are on fire for whatever reason?
Or the parched meadow of farmer Joe in midsummer goes up in flames due to a discarded glass bottle?
Water: Have we plentiful. But.. is it drinkable?
In many areas, even if one succeeds in reactivating one of the wells, which have to become deeper and deeper due to the falling water levels, the groundwater is no longer drinkable.
Whether because of agriculture, or because, according to WWII, the bomb disposal stun was filled with waste oil barrels, paint cans and similar debris, and today no politician dares to tear away the resulting group (and large employers of the region) in order to rehabilitate the old load.
Not to mention the dozens of “pits” and embankments in each municipality, which were used as garbage dumps, whose positions are well known thanks to measuring helicopters, but no one dares to touch it, because otherwise the communities would be immediately bankrupt.
Streams and rivers? Full of sewage from overrun house pits, failing municipal sewage treatment plants, unwaited oil separators from petrol stations?
Food: Huge problem in the worst case.
Today, 10 calories of oil are in every calorie of food. Without oil no food.
The oil doesn’t even need to “finish.” It is enough if we can no longer afford it or if the funding countries simply no longer want or can no longer deliver.
Or the transport routes fail, the farmers go bankrupt, the freighters no longer drive, the JIT logistics fails, etc.
The greatest danger: On the one hand, hunger does not kill immediately (i.e. the hungry man goes in search) and on the other hand the stomach then takes control of its evolutionary biological prolongation (aka. brain).
This offers ample space for scenarios, nature shows how little simplistical “hungry” treat each other without stocking.
The only consolation is that if we are going to have a resource in abundance in the crisis, it will be a ‘long pig’.
Accommodation: The small cottage with garden in the desert, in it the “Sweden oven” bouncing in front of it, a sign of civilization in a dehumanized world, a source of warmth and life energy, the little dream of every serious “preppers” and “survivalists”, on it delicious chicken soup from your own chickens …
In short: A gigantic target, visible from afar thanks to the column of smoke and also to smell for miles in the desert, attracts uninvited guests like the flies and these will usually be in abundance and most likely better armed.
The owner of the oven could well end up on the same as a “long pig”.
You can see, I don’t get any more “constructive”.
If you don’t have any obligations, you might want a shotgun, one shot is enough.
Probably better than being slain in the fight for one of the fat rats BBs. This time we get Game Over … but really and not just monetary.
The main problem is a caloric, we can print money like hay .. but no hay, no potato, no drop of oil.
But that probably doesn’t read so spectacularly at the end of the day with red wine.
Comparatively unspectacular would probably only be Captain Trips, but here too a large number of “system holders” (unequal bankers and lawyers) should go along with many of the above consequences.
mfG
offthspc
Saludos
el mar
Einverstanden!
Very true.
Stay Stoical, el Mar.
Thanks for posting this. We lose sight of the fact that we need to keep the basics.
I keep reading, from the ‘green’ lobby, that offshore wind is now the cheapest source of electricity and therefore we should rapidly switch from fossil fuel and nuclear. And, oh yes, we may need a few batteries for backup. The cost of the ‘few’ batteries is never discussed as the price is going to plummet – sometime – we don’t actually know when. Also not discussed is why these ‘cheap’ renewables continue to need subsidies which increase the price of electricity to the consumer. I think someone is telling porkies.
There is also the issue of all of the transmission lines that are needed. These are as much of a weak link as anything else. For instance, getting adequate electricity to Stockholm is a problem, because there is not sufficient transmission coming from the North into the city. Also, the major transmission lines between countries are already filled to capacity.
There is also an issue of even knowing how to build adequate transmission lines that will hold up in the wind and waves of an offshore environment. This article talks about the medium-voltage transmission lines between wind farms not being built to adequate standards, because it was unclear how robust these transmission lines needed to be. https://energypost.eu/14694-2/
We have found from experience that there can be shortages of offshore wind that last for many weeks. This is an article about shortages of wind in Britain in summer.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/aug/27/uk-summer-wind-drought-puts-green-revolution-into-reverse
Europe has had the luxury of having Norway’s hydroelectric for balancing intermittent renewables. At this point, Norway’s hydroelectric is pretty well tapped out. Its hydroelectric capacity is quite variable from year to year. Transmission line capability is lacking as well. There truly will need to be something else, like batteries, for balancing. This will be a huge problem.
> There is also an issue of even knowing how to build adequate transmission lines that will hold up in the wind and waves of an offshore environment.
Nobody even tries. It’s all done with cables on the seafloor, and for technical reasons is mostly DC.
Buried cables on land are a pain in the ass because they get hot and it is hard to get the heat out as the dirt dries out. This causes problems if the cables are heavily loaded. Sunk in the ocean with all that water to carry off the heat, the cables never have heating problems.
I have not looked at it for years, but there was a proposal to lay a cable from Iceland (with lots of cheap geothermal power) to the UK.
> There truly will need to be something else, like batteries, for balancing. This will be a huge problem.
Of course. But that’s what engineers are for.
I recommend a viewing of “Incredible Engineering Blunders'”, Episode 4. It is about a offshore wind farm that is collapsing after only 20% of its claimed lifetime. Especially interesting is the great expense (and some serious risks) involved in even going out to inspect the windmills, much less try to repair them.
Offshore wind may look cheap if (a) you count only running costs without adding maintenance cost, and (b) you ignore most of the building cost, installation cost, and cost of connecting to the grid, and (c) you believe the grossly inflated claims of how long they will survive when their very operation means they will be perpetually battered by corrosive salt water.
“The effect of the virus on the retail and services sectors has hammered China’s consumption, with official retail sales down 11.4 per cent in the first half… That has prompted Beijing to boost growth through debt-fuelled investment, as it did in the wake of the global financial crisis.
“A decade ago, some economists liked to describe the Chinese economy as a bicycle that needed to maintain a certain speed or it would tip over and crash. Today it is more like a bicycle laden with enormous boxes of debt, ridden by a drunk and with strategic competitors such as the US trying to knock it over.”
https://www.ft.com/content/ef2ac2d3-6389-4ac6-8608-90dbc3e68465
“The pandemic has forced Beijing to prop up sectors, including exports and tourism, where demand has been hit hard and unemployment rising.
“Regulators, who had been working to deleverage the financial system, have been busy pushing banks to extend credit to riskier borrowers and roll over loans. They complied: in the first half of 2020, lenders issued a record $1.7 trillion in fresh loans.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-china-gdp-breakingviews/breakingviews-chinas-jobless-recovery-risks-debt-indigestion-idUKKCN24H0RD
“Chinese regulators have seized control of nine troubled insurers, trust companies and securities brokers, in a sign that the government is still grappling to contain hidden risks within the financial sector.
“The state intervention, announced on Friday, represents one of the largest financial takeover operations in recent memory.”
https://www.ft.com/content/d9d25a72-bec2-4b6b-95d0-b2e6ee782d7b
“Paying top dollar for land when money’s cheap and then selling apartments at a premium seems like a viable business model. Until a global pandemic brings both housing and capital markets to a standstill. China’s developers are learning this the hard way.
“Tahoe Group Co. is a case in point. The Fuzhou-based home builder, known for its luxury villas, last week became the first large residential developer in China to default on a bond in five years.
“Market watchers say there may be more to come.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-15/a-luxury-developer-s-stumble-shows-rising-default-risks-in-china
“The United States’ decision this week to terminate Hong Kong’s preferential status and sanction officials deemed to be obstructing the city’s democratic development is already prompting exporters to look for alternative markets to mitigate their risks…
“Hong Kong is now exposed to the exact same punitive tariffs the US has imposed in mainland China.”
https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/hong-kong-economy/article/3093508/battered-covid-19-and-ongoing-trade-war-hong-kongs
Extend and pretend!
I like the Chinese economy comparison!
“The world is facing a staggering jobs challenge with a quarter of a billion people set to lose their job this year, the president of Microsoft has said.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53444823
“The UK’s unemployment rate barely changed between March and May over lockdown [due to the furlough scheme]. But below the surface, it is clear there are signs of an unemployment crisis ahead.”
https://www.cityam.com/how-badly-will-the-uk-unemployment-rate-spike-when-furlough-ends/
“Shutdowns to prevent the spread of coronavirus from Melbourne have set back chances of a rebound in the nation’s jobs market, as figures revealed almost 1 million Australians were without paid work.”
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/almost-1-million-australians-unemployed-abs-20200716-p55cio.html
It sounds like the problem is a whole lot worse than 1 million unemployed. The article says:
“almost 1 million people unemployed and another 3.5 million on JobKeeper”
Jobkeeper is some sort of government program that keeps people from being called unemployed.
AU’s has a slightly unusual age demographic with what seems to be a relatively low count of elderly people who may mostly be retired. About 3.5 million of a population of circa 25 million.
With about 6 million under the age of 20 and presumably most of those in education or pre-school, that means there are about 15 ish million people of ‘working age’. One might assume perhaps 1 to 2 million may not work but have partners providing funding. So perhaps 13 million workers.
Of those 1 million are unemployed and a larger number are on some support scheme.
Allow for government employees too.
So there are maybe 10 million people supporting 25 million.
If one eliminates labour saving energy from the mix would such support still be viable? How much of modern world expectations could be provided?
“The recovery in global oil demand looks like it’s going to be slower than expected, as a resurgence in Covid-19 cases forces the re-imposition of lockdowns.
“All three of the world’s main oil forecasting agencies — the International Energy Agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration and OPEC — have increased their assessments of demand destruction in the third quarter of 2020…”
https://www.rigzone.com/news/wire/forecasters_see_more_oil_demand_destruction-16-jul-2020-162743-article/
“California Resources Corp, the state’s biggest oil and gas producer, has filed for bankruptcy, becoming the latest US energy group to buckle under a crash in crude prices triggered by the coronavirus pandemic.”
https://www.ft.com/content/ba8bf8d7-3f50-4243-8344-52f2f1c1125f
Now California has its largest oil and gas company bankrupt besides its larges electricity provider. I wonder how high tech will survive without either of these!
> Now California has its largest oil and gas company bankrupt besides its larges electricity provider. I wonder how high tech will survive without either of these!
I live in LA. There is no reason to think either electricity or gasoline will be in short supply. At least not this year.
“Global public debt is now the highest in recorded history… central bankers could ignite another financial crisis when the combination of unsustainable debt levels and swollen bubbles in equity markets collide…”
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/post-pandemic-world-a-frightening-mix-of-financial-bubbles-and-massive-debt-20200716-p55clj.html
“The Nasdaq is on its final run and is going vertical, a classic end of bubble move… The attempts by the government to pump up the economy with new money is resulting in it going straight into equities and straight into the tip of the equity spear, the giant high beta story stocks.
“This is a malfunction of the QE mechanism that supports asset prices and slowly trickles the benefits of this support down the pyramid of wealth.
“Now the game is up because the new money is going straight into this bubble of financial assets that are spiralling up out of control.
“If we now get a Nasdaq bull vertical that is the end of the chapter of the process, it will be followed by a devastating crash as everyone dashes to the exit in a blaze of wealth destruction.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/investor/2020/07/16/stock-market-crash-2020-welcome-to-the-end-game/#7d6370945782
“The Nasdaq is on its final run and is going vertical, a classic end of bubble move…”
Totally incorrect. The NASDQ is not going vertical. While it has broke to new highs, the chart is a classic bull trend. Albeit fueled by the FED and buying stimulation from Blackrock (The FED’s stock buying arm).
This could could be over in a few months or it could go for 2 years.
Previous stock market action shows that most prognosticators are little more that tarot card readers.
I tend to agree. I can envision stock markets remaining artificially elevated almost until the bitter end.
“European leaders’ attempt to agree a €750bn economic recovery package to overcome the damage wrought by Covid-19 was in disarray in the early hours of Saturday morning after a summit in Brussels was suspended in acrimony.”
https://www.ft.com/content/52d64224-736b-49a1-b62a-03fc5dcb43f3
“The food sector’s resilience during the coronavirus crisis does not mean the UK won’t face food shortages if it fails to agree a trade deal with the EU by the end of the year, Arla’s UK boss has warned.”
https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/dairy/arla-warns-against-brexit-overconfidence-following-food-sectors-coronavirus-resilience/646433.article
“New passenger-car registrations fell 24% yoy in June, the European Automobile Manufacturers Association said Thursday.
“That’s an improvement on May’s 57% slump and April’s 78% drop. With sales still well below last year’s levels, hopes are fading for a V-shaped recovery.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-16/europe-s-car-sales-slump-slowly-eases-with-24-drop-for-june
“Natalia, 34, had a good job in a Paris bakery, but when the coronavirus lockdown forced it to shut, she was furloughed. With loans to pay and a family of four to support, she found herself where she thought she’d never wind up: the food bank.”
https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2020/07/17/i-never-thought-i-would-have-to-come-here-crisis-drives-french-to-food-banks.html
Re the EU summit, FWIW my prediction is that at the end of the weekend they will not have agreed on the recovery package but will have instead agreed to agree at the next summit, and be making lots of positive noises about progress.
The EU kicks cans with the best of them.
Here, do you think the EU has reached peak summit yet?
Oh, dear!
“What starts an economic collapse? It doesn’t begin across the board. One sector, sufficiently large and intertwined with others, historically has been enough. Job losses in that area create people unable to spend money in others.
“An increasing number of companies in more and more industries see slower business and reduce headcount, which means more people out of a job who can’t spend money.
“Eventually the economic problems hit bottom, but there’s no way to tell how far down that could be. Until then, you have a vicious circle in which downturns reinforce themselves…”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman/2020/07/16/american-airlines-layoffs-economy-collapse/#14723c303e08
“An important source of income for roughly 30 million unemployed people in the United States is set to end, threatening their ability to meet rent and pay bills and potentially undercutting the fragile economic recovery.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/ajimpact/30-million-americans-set-lose-600-jobless-benefit-200717194339506.html
“The Mortgage Bankers Association reports 4.1 million households were in forbearance as of July 5.”
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4358943-banks-and-borrowers-not-in-quick-recovery
A survey… found that 22 million [US] adults put off buying a home as a direct result of the national crisis.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/brendarichardson/2020/07/15/coronavirus-recession-delays-homeownership-prospects-for-22-million-americans/#26b3598d4bd5
“The next, terrifying phase of the coronavirus recession is here: a damaged economy, a virus spreading faster than it was in March.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/terrifying-next-phase-coronavirus-recession/614140/
What! There have been more buyers than people who want to sell their homes. Lots of people want to add a second home.
I am afraid this will be a big deal, if this is not extended.
The Cougar scene from L’Ours (The Bear).
There’s a definite moral in this. Watch it and see if you can still cry.
https://youtu.be/TjLCJKoot4U
“Dozens of emerging and frontier markets are likely to face mass protests in the coming months as lockdowns imposed to control the coronavirus pandemic ease and the dire economic impact of the virus hits home, according to new research…
““The total number of protests in frontier and emerging markets has almost rebounded to pre-pandemic levels,” said Verisk Maplecroft Principal Analyst Miha Hribernik.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-emerging-unrest/emerging-markets-face-wave-of-unrest-as-lockdowns-ease-risk-study-idUKKCN24H3GK
“Protesters in Santiago defied a citywide lockdown meant to combat the spread of the coronavirus, barricading roads and looting early into the morning on Wednesday in support of a proposal to allow Chileans to withdraw part of their pensions amid the crisis.”
https://en.mercopress.com/2020/07/16/riots-in-santiago-as-congress-considers-bill-to-allow-chileans-to-withdraw-part-of-their-pension-funds
“Demonstrators have shut a major oil pumping station in southern Tunisia, escalating weeks of protests for jobs and economic development in the deprived region.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/07/tunisia-protesters-shut-main-oil-production-site-south-200717071254691.html
“Iranian police have said they will deal “decisively” with further protests over economic hardship, a day after security forces fired tear gas to disperse demonstrators in the southwestern city of Behbahan.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/07/iran-police-vow-deal-decisively-protests-200717140209490.html
“Russia’s far east is bracing itself for new mass protests this weekend following unprecedented demonstrations demanding that the Kremlin return a local governor charged with murder.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/17/russia-far-east-fresh-protests-arrest-governor-khabarovsk-sergei-furgal
^^^This is probably not helping:
“Russian incomes in the second quarter plunged by the most since the country’s 1998 default as the economy of the world’s biggest energy exporter took a double blow from the pandemic and slump in global oil demand.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-17/russia-incomes-plunged-most-since-1998-as-virus-rocked-economy
Low energy prices are a huge problem for Russia, if it is the “world’s largest energy exporter.” Another article gave Russia that title. With oil, gas and coal exports, the title may be true. It also may export wood.
Dear Gail
First, I confess to an immediate hostile reaction to the word “Green”. It seems to have just two uses. One is by people who insist we can simply “go green” by wishing it so. The fact that our current green technology cannot support our present civilisation, and that its construction and maintenance require large amount of fossil fuel energy and generate large amounts of pollution, completely escapes them.
The second use is by companies who believe the word “green” will increase their revenue. As a marketing ploy, well and good; one of the purposes of a marketing manager is to invent slogans that suit the Zeitgeist. But as a way to extract free money from philanthropists or, even worse, taxpayers, it is plain old fraud.
So rather than continue this debate, I should like to look at the broader picture: is any “Reset”, green or otherwise, currently possible? I believe not, which means arguing over whether we are hunting red or green unicorns becomes pointless. What, then, are the feasible alternatives to the impossible reset? I hope to talk about that a little later, but this post is already long enough.
Well, besides symbolizing nature, the environment and ecology, green is also the color of money, of growth(fresh spring leaves) and of decay (mold and gangrene).
As human traits, there’s green with envy and then there’s green with naivety, neither of which has much going for it as a strategy for success in life. You find plenty of people of both persuasions among members of the Green movement.
And then there’s England’s green and pleasant land, where Blake was striving to build Jerusalem, there’s the color of spring that Kermit the Frog found it not easy being, and there7s the green, green grass of home so beloved of Tom Jones, who hails from the land where Richard Llewellyn’s character How Morgan declared, “How green was my valley then”, not as a question but as a statement.
Please forgive me a couple of typos. I’ll try to be less sloppy in future, but my eyesight and attention to detail are not what they were.
There7s => there’s, How Morgan => Huw Morgan
Green seems to be shorthand, at least in the general public perception, for “at no, or at least minimal, environmental cost”.
When you look in any detail at the products and technologies to which it is applied, it becomes clear that “green” is essentially a lie, not least because those products and technologies can only exist within the framework of a fossil fuel-powered and biosphere-destroying civilisation.
And when you are talking about 7+ billion humans attempting to reconfigure this civilisation via a “green industrial revolution” so that it is no longer harmful to the biosphere and yet somehow miraculously still prosperous then you have not only a lie but an absurd oxymoron that should embarrass anyone through whose lips it passes.
I am afraid the reset may be to a very low level. Humans were hunter-gatherers for far longer than humans have had fossil fuels.
We don’t entirely know. There may be intermediate stops, on the way down, in which some parts of the world do much better than others.
“Commodity prices are set by the laws of physics”??
The markets are even rational or efficient, let alone scientific. The stock market is the closest to being so, but even it has inefficiencies, demonstrated for example and easily in the asymmetry of markets or securities having lower slopes on ascent but sharp dropping slopes on descents.
Which laws? You didn’t cite specific ones. Indeed, you were using analogies and equivocating. Where’s your math? Even the standard diffusion of innovations curve is mathematical. It shows for example that when penetration is about 10%, rather than the innovation being neglectible, it”a about to eat the established market’s breakfast lunch and dinner. It’s a logistic curve.
Solar and wind and storage are about to go super linear. The logistic curve predicts their drop in price over time pretty well. This is why despite everything ETFs like ICLN still show a positive 30% year over year whereas USO KOL And natural gas ETFs all show y)y of negative 30%, 50%, or even 70%.
It’s not that zero Carbon will win as much as fossil fuels will die, because they can no longer compete on sheer price, let alone environmental impacts.
Oh, and by the way, no amount of energy could have stopped SARS-CoV-2’s emergence. It’s 30,000 RNA base pairs of infection which is amazingly well suited to transmit during human retail activity and all the things people like to do. And it contains proteins we are discovering which shut down DNA replication in immune cells that eat it. And there may be no long term immunity, rendering vaccines useless.
This is now obsolete. A comment on this blog post has been published at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/comment-why-great-reset-based-green-energy-isnt-jan-galkowski
Ecosystems in general are dissipative structures. An economy can be understood as a specialized kind of ecosystem.
I have written about some of the issues in some previous posts. For example, in 2016, I wrote the post The Physics of Energy and the Economy. My recent post Understanding Our Pandemic-Economy Predicament also touches on the issue.
I am a co-author of an article published in the journal Energy that talks about this issue. It is called, An Oil Production Forecast for China Considering Economic Limits. See Section 2.
The physicist Francois Roddier has written a book in French related to the physics of the economy, called “Thermodynamique de l’évolution.” An English translation became available in April 2020.
There is a disconnect, because physicists and economists tend to work in different ivory towers. There are fair number of physicists who write about the economy being operated by physics, but the physicists generally do not understand the economy. When they write about the economy, they to call it something else, like “society.” Eric Chaisson, in his 2001 book, Cosmic Evolution: The Rise of Complexity in Nature talks about human society as being the most energy dense and complex structure to evolve since the big bang.
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/chaisson-energy-density.png
I just want to conclude my thoughts with my deebate opponnennt:
I was wrong.
“john Eardley on July 15, 2020 at 3:14 am said:
Florida – these are the seven day moving average recorded cases and corresponding deaths 21 days later (Worldometer data).
Date Cases Date + 21 days Death %
07-Jun 1111 28-Jun 36 3.2%
11-Jun 1269 02-Jul 42 3.3%
15-Jun 1774 06-Jul 48 2.7%
19-Jun 2682 10-Jul 59 2.2%
23-Jun 3342 14-Jul 81 2.4%
Average 2.8%
Across the developed world over the last four months this has been roughly constant at 2.4%.
Note that this has nothing to do with actual infections which may be much much higher but rather gives you a way of calculating how many deaths there will be reported in 21 days time given the number of cases reported today.”
yes, I was wrong about future deaths being 0.26% of cases. The CFR will always be much higher than the IFR.
while the CDC science says 0.26% will die, there is a human element that overrides much of the science, and that is that most people won’t bother to get tested, to take the time and make the effort, especially since most cases are mild or even asymptomatic.
so:
the death rate will always appear to be at least 5x or so higher, perhaps never appearing to be lower than 1.0 to 1.5 %.
I was wrong.
but:
in NY, daily cases peaking at 11,000 and daily deaths at about 1,000 suggests a CFR of about 10%, which we also saw in the early outbreaks in Europe, and which we now know is nowhere near the reality of what the actual death rate is.
then, in the FL data above, we see the CFR dropping from over 3% to under 2.5%.
I was wrong, but I will leave it to my debate opponnennt to decide if he was also wrong.
Florida 26th June cases were 4745, deaths yesterday (21 days later) were 101. That’s 2.1%.
As you say the % is clearly dropping (3.3% to now 2.1%) but I assume this is because testing between the 7th June and 27th June has risen from 27,000 to 40,000 per day.
The 10% rate of peak deaths/cases in NY you observe is probably because testing was 1/3rd of what it is today and most tests were of already sick people in hospital. One thing we do know is that the chances of surviving once in hospital is quite low.
So the premise is that it costs too much to extract a resource that no one wants? I’m having a hard time to see how this leads to the downturn of society. If there is a downturn it is due to inadequate leadership and rampant inequality.
As you eloquently point out production and consumption of energy is always in a delicate balance. The scenario where we de-globalize and repair, replacement, and growth of renewable energy sources being restricted by lack of access to overseas production capacity seems very solvable with domestic manufacturing and resources.
More specifically if we lost 300B extracting fossil fuels in the last decade, doesn’t it stand to reason we could spend lose 300B building renewable energy platforms at a loss for the next?
Mike
The problem is too much wage disparity, when there is as much specialization as there is today. Also, poor countries have much lower wages than the people in the rich countries. The many poor people of the world cannot buy the output of the economy. This is what sends commodity prices too low.
There have been a lot of collapses over the years. What has tended to happen is the top levels of government tend to disappear. This can happen in many ways:
(1) They lose a war to another stronger country that does not have as many problems as this country does.
(2) Unhappy citizens (probably because their wages are too low) overthrow the current government.
(3) The government just gives up, because it cannot collect enough taxes from its citizens and it has too much debt. The Soviet Union disappeared in this way.
I can imagine the European Union giving up because it doesn’t collect enough revenue from its members, and there being too much fighting among members. I can imagine China breaking up into provinces that are doing reasonably well financially, and ones that are having real problems. I can imagine the US breaking up, perhaps along US COVID restriction lines. Each area would get to figure out its own currency and its own retirement benefit plan to replace Social Security and Medicare.
We need a huge amount of fossil fuels for globalization. The fact that these are likely to disappear is a huge problem. We cannot make solar panels and wind turbines without fossil fuels and globalization. In fact, we cannot grow crops, as we do today, without fossil fuels.
I am concerned about the near-term breakup of many economies. The excuse may be COVID, but the underlying problem will be not enough cheap-to-extract fossil fuels.
Gail, the glorious leaders of the European Union have just spent an entire weekend “giving up”. That revolting experiment in totalitarianism is now almost certainly doomed.
a barrel of oil or ton of coal carries within it xxx calories of energy
this is fixed by the laws of physics.
but the calorific energy needed to extract the coal or oil depends where it is.
200 years ago, such fossil fuels were very close to the surface, so needed very little energy to extract them. So (surplus) fossil fuels provided more and more (distributed) employment for everybody.
That employment essentially meant extracting fossil fuels at a faster and faster rate to keep up with demand for ‘new jobs’ and increasing population.
Without exception, employment (our commercial existence) depends on fuelburning somewhere.
That holds true for brain surgeon or garbage collector.
now we are drilling 5 miles down for oil, or trying to squeeze it out of cracked rocks, which requires far more extractive energy.
if we have to use more energy for extraction, then by definition there is less available for distribution.
Meaning less is available to create employment, pay wages and provide us all with luxuries we think we need.
But we go on extracting fuels, under the delusion that people will go on using it to give themselves employment. This is called BAU.
Until the Covid thing hit, we kept the Ponzi pyramid up by running faster and faster, in a collective state of denial that we had a problem at all.
( we called it infinite growth )
But now there isn’t sufficient surplus to keep the Ponzi scheme going.
When Covid shut down the economic system on a world scale, it yanked the underlying foundation from under the Ponzi pyramid.
We all bought into the 200 year scam of energy/job creation. The stability of nations depends on the security of their (cheap surplus) energy resources. Politics is just window dressing to hold the proletariat in awe of ‘great men’.
we used to be able offord all the goodies on display in the window. Now entire nations are finding they can’t afford to eat.
Spending ever increasing amounts of money will not alter the energy-balance weighted against us.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/health/article/With-coronavirus-antibodies-fading-fast-focus-15414533.php
All the hype and hope of a viable vaccine for Covid-19 may be for naught.
‘With coronavirus antibodies fading fast, vaccine hopes fade, too’
“Disturbing new revelations that permanent immunity to the coronavirus may not be possible have jeopardized vaccine development and reinforced a decision by scientists at UCSF and affiliated laboratories to focus exclusively on treatments.”
“Molecular biologists fear the only way left to control the disease may be to treat the symptoms after people are infected to prevent the most debilitating effects, including inflammation, blood clots and death.”
“Where natural immunity doesn’t really develop or last, then vaccine programs are not likely to be easily successful or achievable.”
“I’ve never seen a virus get its fingers in so many biological processes all at once,” Krogan said. “It’s a very fascinating, horrifying, complicated virus.”
The problem with a lack of antibodies certainly raises questions about how well a vaccine could work. COVID-19 seems to be too similar to the common cold, when it comes to antibodies that don’t really last.
Yes Gail, similar to the common cold in that way. And the numbers of cases which didn’t seem all that much early on has just eclipsed 1 million new cases in just 4 days.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-global-cases/for-first-time-world-records-one-million-coronavirus-cases-in-100-hours-reuters-tally-idUSKCN24I2W9
“The first case was reported in China in early January and it took three months to reach 1 million cases. It has taken just four days to climb to 14 million cases from 13 million recorded on July 13.”
“The number of cases globally is around TRIPLE that of severe influenza illnesses recorded annually, according to the World Health Organization.”
And that’s just so far for a virus still just several months going and it isn’t seasonal.
“The number of cases globally is around TRIPLE that of severe influenza illnesses recorded annually, according to the World Health Organization.”
Leaving aside the reliability of tests at this time, remember that nobody tests for exposure to annual flu (that I know of), in which case the numbers will not in any way be comparable.
Also why is the the comparison between ALL coronavirus cases and SEVERE influenza cases. Why not all coronavirus cases vs all influenza cases or severe coronavirus cases vs severe influenza cases? Either of these would be a more valid comparison.
The fake data are “according to the World Health Organisation”. That is why they are fake.
“All the hype and hope of a viable vaccine for Covid-19 may be for naught.”
I was guessing that it was mostly hype and mostly hopeless.
perhaps there will be a viable vaccine soon, with the necessity of booster shots, or even annual like flu shots.
Get Your Free Covid-19 Shot Today at…
anyway, another hope is that the CDC is correct that the IFR is only 0.26%, in which case only about 1 in 400 will die from it.
“… treat the symptoms after people are infected to prevent the most debilitating effects, including inflammation, blood clots and death.”
this is another hope, that treatments improve and the IFR is reduced, as well as debilitating effects for survivors of severe cases.
in relation to today’s OFW article, all Covid-19 hopes rely on the “Great Reset” allowing the continuation of all of these medical expenditures, which is not guaranteed even in the short term.
it would be brrutal if an excellent vaccine was created, but then the economy resets at such a low level that it won’t be affordable to mass produce and distribute it.
This is all very interesting if vaccines are not going ahead then depopulation via vaccine may not be part of the GREAT RESET plan the real culprit may be an agenda to bring in AGENDA 2030 which means quite simply we are dealing with elites that are dumb and dumber who knows what unconventional monetary tools could keep IMPLOSION of our system from occurring .
yes, “they” want bAU to continue past 2030.
their plan is BAU LITE
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/07/future-nature-business-action-agenda-blueprint-climate-change-biodiversity-loss/
I guess we ALL want that, no?
According to the World Economic Forum (referenced by a previous poster) we must move to a “Policy with People and Planet at the Core”. Another piece of pious (and very expensive) rubbish. No such policy exists or can exist, because the choice before us is People *or* Planet. I hope it is the planet that chooses, not the people.
Regardless of the reset, I have a hard time believing that poor countries will be able to afford the vaccine, even if it works wonderfully and is fairly inexpensive. Countries are getting poorer and poorer. Resources spent on making and distributing vaccine cannot go to other needed projects.
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Thank you Gail for doing a post on this topic.I am not sure of it’s claims so thank you once again.
Gail, reading the pre release of Dalio’s book, wonderful find, thank you.
Dennis L.
I don’t think that he makes the connection with energy, however. A reader sent me a link to his introduction.
As some of you know, I spent years (sometimes with Gail’s help) working on power satellites. This effort made me very sensitive to cost. Recently the projected cost of lifting parts into space gives a cost of around !.5 cents per kWh. About a year ago, ground solar in the Mid East got down to 1.69 cents per kWh, and more recently to 1.35 cents per kWh.
If you use electric power at this cost to make synthetic fuels, the cost is around $60/bbl, not all that far from what we pay today (but leaving little or no government revenue).
If there are no further advances in technology, the future could be kind of bleak. With a lot of advances, the future might be brighter, or the advances could spell the end of the entire human race. It’s really hard to tell.
Quite and contrast we are saved or we are dead! I do not see why the energy industry has to pay for bloated government. We can have energy and small government sounds like a win win to me.
It would be good if we had a lot more time than we seem to have. The economy is terribly dependent on growth. The pandemic has been pulling the economy down, when the economy was already not doing very well. It is hard to see the impact of the pandemic disappearing in any short term. The world economy is dependent on just in time deliveries, and many supply lines are breaking, with the pandemic and the shutdowns.
I am not sure how sustainable the 1.5 cents per kWh lifting cost is, or the ground solar cost of 1.35 cents per kWh. But you are right, those prices are awfully good. If we could get non-intermittent electricity, it would be a huge improvement over the intermittent ground solar electricity that we have been dealing with.
> It would be good if we had a lot more time than we seem to have.
I agree. The best estimate of the singularity hitting is the mid-2040s. That’s from Ray Kurzweil who has given the topic more thought than anyone else.
> The economy is terribly dependent on growth. The pandemic has been pulling the economy down, when the economy was already not doing very well. It is hard to see the impact of the pandemic disappearing in any short term. The world economy is dependent on just in time deliveries, and many supply lines are breaking, with the pandemic and the shutdowns.
Again, I agree. One of the things you might not think of is the restaurants being closed making it hard for truckers to operate. I was in a Walmart early this week (breathing filtered air) and the place looked like the aftermath of a locust plague. Still, the food shelves were not that empty and you could get toilet paper. It seems a lot of choice beef cuts are being processed into hamburger. The news indicates that people will eat less meat this year, but I kind of doubt many people will go hungry.
People and the supply chains are making adjustments, so the broken supply chains are being repaired, bypassed, etc.
> I am not sure how sustainable the 1.5 cents per kWh lifting cost is, or the ground solar cost of 1.35 cents per kWh. But you are right, those prices are awfully good. If we could get non-intermittent electricity, it would be a huge improvement over the intermittent ground solar electricity that we have been dealing with.
Power satellites (at 1.5 cents per kWh) are non-intermittent by their nature and if you take Musk seriously, they should be sustainable (two-month energy payback). It will take at least ten years for power satellites to come online, much robotics development is required (because of radiation humans can’t work in space where the satellites would be constructed.). In the meantime, you can buy GW scale PV in the Mid-East for 1.35 cents per kWh. That just boggles me. It’s cheap enough that we could replace fossil fuels with synthetics for about the same price we pay now.
Not saying things are looking up, the political situation is bad and getting worse. I could see violence breaking out between local police and the feds who have been kidnapping people off the streets in Portland.
But we might get through it. One of the most hopeful things I have seen in a long time was on the front page of the NYT yesterday. A small-town woman of color was just amazed at all the white folk who came out in force to demonstrate in the BLM protests.
cheap surplus energy allows you to have advances in technology
advances in technology do not allow you to have cheap surplus energy
it is a very simple rule, easily confirmed by comparing the last 300 years of human history with the previous 10k years of human history
it seems very difficult to understand and accept
Well, yes technology does indeed allow for cheap and high EROEI energy. Case in point: Hydro power.
But even hydroelectricity is intermittent. This is especially the case when seasonal rains are used to power the hydroelectricity. It is feast or famine. An area really needs a lot of fossil fuels to go with the hydroelectric, if the area plans to have industry that depends on the hydroelectric. Also, the long transmission lines to the hydroelectric power plants are one of the sources of forest fires. The need to constantly fight these forest fires has not been factored into EROEI calculations. It was hydro related fires that caused the loss of electric power in Venezuela. California’s power outages and fires related to hydroelectric wire caused fires.
These are some old hydroelectric charts I have on hand:
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/california-annual-hydroelectric-production.png
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/electricity-generated-by-hydroelectric-europe.png
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/washington-state-hydroelectric-generation-by-month.png
From a beaver’s point of view, trees are cheap surplus energy. Without surplus trees, beavers can’t build dams
a modern dam (as opposed to logs put across a stream) can only be built through access to cheap surplus energy in the first place.
After that, the electrical energy extracted from the dam needs cheap surplus energy input to provide all the ancillary devices ‘downstream’ from complex turbines to bulbs and lightswitches.
the stored energy behind the dam, has no practical use without all those other products of cheap surplus energy.
We use the energy built up in the dam, to change our environment and improve our living conditions.
Which is what the beaver does. But without lightbulbs, wiring and switches.
With an EROEI of over 1:100, far better than any fossil fuels. No such argument holds for scrutiny.
It depends a whole lot. Where water supply is very intermittent, hydroelectric is only an extender of fossil fuels. You need fossil fuels if you are to have any kind of year-around industry. Long transmission lines seem to start a lot of fires as well.
> Long transmission lines seem to start a lot of fires as well
I think it is poorly maintained and relatively low power lines that cause the fires. The Pacific Intertie is 846 miles long. While a number of fires (most started by lightning) have burned under the line, I can’t find information that the line has caused a fire.
Of course, it gets frequent inspections and maintenance as needed. It is a major transmission line bringing hydropower from the Pacific Northwest to Los Angeles.
If for some strange reason you want to dig into the details . . . https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/05/f16/EA-1937-DEA-2014.pdf
The issue seems to be aluminum wires that anneal under not-very-high temperatures. They tend to sag and stretch. Connections come apart. Broken connections sparked fires leading to major outages in both in Venezuela and in California. It turns out the wires involved were to hydroelectric facilities. I have put up links to these in the comments before. Some of them may be in articles, too.
Your link is to a 2014 EIA document, which I didn’t read. There is a lot of newer research on the issue.
I can assure you, water as in the form of rain is pretty much 100% reliable and when stored in large reservoirs it is impeccable.
Specially compared with failure prone and depleting fossil fuels with supply chains. A bit of flooding here, some minor disruption and all those fossil burners will inevitably grind to a halt. While the only 100% renewable and reliable energy source of the future thunders on until the era when Gaia stretches her clutches into the great beyond as an intergalactic synthetic organism.
EROEI of 100:1, in the worst case. Hydro power reigns supreme. The undisputed power production regime on planet earth.
Dams do degrade over time and sometimes collapse completely, however. They need maintenance over time, or they fall apart. The US began building hydroelectric dams in 1882, so some of our dams are getting pretty old. You can see from this EIA chart that a significant share of our dams is over 90 years old.
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/images/2017.03.13/main.png
Name one other power production type with lesser cost of operation and maintenance than hydroelectric.
I’ll save you some work. There isn’t any.
As you noted, a properly built dam last more than a century. How many nukes and fossil burners have lasted that long? The “green” gimmicks is not even worth mentioning. What a silly natgas peddling racket those are.
Norman wrote:
> cheap surplus energy allows you to have advances in technology
> advances in technology do not allow you to have cheap surplus energy
That is demonstrably not the case. PV is certainly the result of advanced technology and it is currently down to less than the cheapest hydro that has happened over the last 100 years, not even counting inflation. If you find 1.35 cents per kWh hard to believe, I understand. I was just astounded when I saw it, but it’s real.
> it is a very simple rule, easily confirmed by comparing the last 300 years of human history with the previous 10k years of human history
Please expand. I would very much like to see how you “easily confirm” this.
> it seems very difficult to understand and accept
I don’t believe you have a technical background. If I am wrong, please correct me.
I do have a technical background, but when intellects of the level of Hawking advocate planetary colonisation as being critical to the survival of humankind, I fall back on common sense to make and clarify points of contention.
As I do to advocates of power satellites beaming energy back to Earth.
I write stuff down to explain things to myself mainly. If others agree, well and good. If they don’t I’m open to corrections that are based on common sense and reason.
I spent my working life saying ‘yes–but’ to wild and wacky bits of engineering.
I stay clear of wish science, and present what is, not offer as fact what we all wish for
when examining energy and the usage of it, it is critical to examine it in its broadest field.
Taking one example, PV panels, does not expand our energy usage (other than temporarily) beyond a very narrow spectrum. That has been well explained by others on OFW.
One cannot use that example as some kind of ‘proof’ to debunk the rest.
What I do try to debunk is the odd insistence that if we devote our human existence to developing ‘infinite’ energy sources, all will be well.
I strip energy use, (and everything else I put into words) to fundamentals, and try to delete all irrelevant side issues, of which PV is one.
The prime ‘fundamental’ is how humankind has converted one energy form into another. Every aspect of our existence depends on that, and in common with all other life forms, continues to depend on it.
Until 300 years ago, humankind existed in an economic system based on the energy output of agriculture
ie–98% of workers produced food. The rest lived off that production. We converted the muscle of the horse into bread, the grass in the field into meat. really very easy to understand. For thousands of years (since the start of agriculture itself) that equation limited what we could do.
It also limited our numbers.
Then 300 years ago, everything changed. Iron became cheap as chips. Iron formed the basic tools with which we altered the world.
Before 1709, If you wanted an axe, a blacksmith had to make one
In the years after 1709, axes, (and everything else) became cheaper and cheaper to produce in human labour terms.
And so did humans themselves. Cheap iron became the human accellerator.
Now there’s 6.5 bn too many of us.
That is your easy confirmation.
Cheap iron gave everyone wheels, and allowed the dreams of the science wishers to come true. (or so it seemed)
Cheap iron allowed us to have solar panels. I can assure you that solar panels will never produce cheap iron. Solar panels will not refill cruise ships or keep a million people in the air, all going nowhere.
For 300 years we have paid wages to each other this year on the promise of energy production next year. (or 20 years from now) ie…. we convert one form of energy into another, and sell that ‘production’ in commercial enterprise. Or promise ourselves that it will still be available 20 years hence.
Try to accept that our entire current existence depends on converting explosive force into rotary motion. Your world reduced to six words. I feel cheated by not getting a Nobel science prize for coming up with that NP original…
(doomsters are free to submit my name btw)
> I do have a technical background, but when intellects of the level of Hawking advocate planetary colonization as being critical to the survival of humankind, I fall back on common sense to make and clarify points of contention.
I find it hard to believe someone with a technical background would dispute what Hawking says. Are you aware that the sun will go nova in the long run?
BTW, common sense says the earth is flat. How do you feel about that?
The world is a better place without the zero division “physics” of hawking.
Hydro power is by far superior to any “green” gimmicks.
> Hydro power is by far superior to any “green” gimmicks.
I agree, but there isn’t enough of it.
I have come close to going over the edge on numerous occasions
my significant other (so far) has always been there to pull me back from the brink
such moments are almost always brought about when comments are so devoid of substance that they select isolated sentences and try to use them to diminish the truth of the full comment
being Lucasian professor of Mathematics does not endow one with unquestionable intellect. There are no inhabitable planets in our solar system, therefore one must assume Hawking infers emigration to some other system xx light years away.
(Mars is waste of my limited brainpower and patience–I leave that to Musk and his rocket men.)
taking this daftness to its logical conclusion, we must imagine power systems as yet unconceived (let alone invented) created by a human society reduced to using the final dregs of its current energy forms, with nothing available to replace them.
Bear in mind that as yet we know of no viable energy force to overcome gravity that is improved on the physics of Chinese fireworks of 1000 years ago
If space elevators come into this, I promise to go to the edge of the world and jump.
Ignoring that minor difficulty we must imagine a world that as yet we know nothing of, a world devoid of hostile life forms, yet able to offer us a benign welcome in our thousands, as we show up in space ships and begin breeding like crazy, and slaughtering anything that moved.
We are still living with the after effects of when that happened before.
Disputing Hawking does not require a technical background. It requires reason. Hawking was what I describe as a tunnel vision genius.
The fact that he proved the ‘singularity’ did not stamp his authority of ‘proof’ on any pronouncement he cared to make.
snip
> There are no inhabitable planets in our solar system, therefore one must assume Hawking infers emigration to some other system xx light years away.
Sort of agreeing on uninhabitable, though it is possible to make a case for floating in the Venus and Saturn atmospheres. Local planet surfaces except for Earth are generally not the best place for unmodified humans to live. Dr. O’Neill figured this out in 1974 when he wrote about Space Colonies. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder Have you ever heard of the idea before?
snip
> taking this daftness to its logical conclusion, we must imagine power systems as yet unconceived (let alone invented) created by a human society reduced to using the final dregs of its current energy forms, with nothing available to replace them.
That’s nonsense. Have you ever considered what fraction of the output of the Sun the Earth intercepts?
> Bear in mind that as yet we know of no viable energy force to overcome gravity that is improved on the physics of Chinese fireworks of 1000 years ago
Rockets are enough to accomplish the task. There is also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylon_(spacecraft)
> If space elevators come into this, I promise to go to the edge of the world and jump.
Space elevators are *probably* not feasible, though I have used them for story background. https://htyp.org/UpLift (The story was written a long time ago and there are a bunch of technical errors plus the problems of a novice author). On the other hand, Lunar elevators can be constructed with existing materials. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_space_elevator
> Ignoring that minor difficulty we must imagine a world that as yet we know nothing of, a world devoid of hostile life forms, yet able to offer us a benign welcome in our thousands, as we show up in space ships and begin breeding like crazy, and slaughtering anything that moved.
We are still living with the after effects of when that happened before.
Not likely. People are not likely to go to the stars this side of the singularity. After that point who know if there will be conventional breeding? We may just construct new people as needed. In any case, chances are technological life is so rare that we are likely to be the only ones in our galaxy. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1806.02404.pdf Eric Drexler, one of the authors of this paper, thinks biological type life may be fairly common on water planets. But if we want to know for sure, we are going to have to go there. Google “Far edge Party.”
> Disputing Hawking does not require a technical background. It requires reason. Hawking was what I describe as a tunnel vision genius.
He was much sharper than I am.
> The fact that he proved the ‘singularity’ did not stamp his authority of ‘proof’ on any pronouncement he cared to make.
I don’t think any of us, not even Hawking, can predict the future in detail. From what we do know about the universe and its laws, it seems really unlikely that FTL or time travel will happen. On the other hand, we can get subjective fast travel by slowering down our perception of time.
I have proved the singularity myself, or rather showed how it is just about impossible to avoid. Do you have a pointer to where Hawkins proved it?
by the time you read this HK, I will have jumped off the edge of the earth, A–in order to prove that it’s flat, and B) escape from such a load of garbled verbal nonsense. Just about the worst I’ve seen anywhere other than the WH press conferences
even Eddy made more sense (I never expected to find myself saying that) Though in that respect, I sometimes felt he too was engaged in a long term windup. I sometimes get the same impression here.
I quote:
///People are not likely to go to the stars this side of the singularity. ///
///// We may just construct new people as needed.///
////we can get subjective fast travel by slowering down our perception of time.// (that’s a classic mind bender. not even Hawking came up with that one))
///though it is possible to make a case for floating in the Venus and Saturn atmospheres///
I have to ask HK : do you ever read back through stuff you write, and question any of it? i do, all the time, with my own writing. I delete like crazy. At least I admit that it is.
As I said, I now intend to leap off the edge of the world and consign myself to the outer darkness, so there will be no more insane exchanges on this thread.
Future comments that purport to come from me on OFW (on other subjects) will in fact be the work of an artificial sentient being, constructed for that specific purpose, floating in the atmosphere of Saturn.
In that respect I feel sure OFW commenters and fellow travellers will excuse difficulties due to unavoidable time delay in signal transmissions between Saturn and Earth
https://medium.com/@End_of_More/mission-to-mars-d57055fa6f34
///People are not likely to go to the stars this side of the singularity. ///
People such as Robert Forward have proposed to send probes pushed by TW laser beams which could be done with conventional technology. But the probes don’t include people. I think current technology is not up to the task but nanotech (when and if we get it) should be.
///// We may just construct new people as needed.///
No problem if you have nanotechnology. This was discussed in detail back in the early 90s on the Extropian list and in Accelerando by Charles Stross. The technology required is on a par with uploading people, something I have talked able in detail, for example in “The Clinic Seed.”
////we can get subjective fast travel by slowing down our perception of time.// (that’s a classic mind-bender. not even Hawking came up with that one))
I didn’t originate the idea, Charles Sheffield did in a 1985 story https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Between_the_Strokes_of_Night At 0.1 c and 10 exp -9 slowdown, you can cross the galaxy in a subjective 8 hours while you watch the supernova twinkle.
///though it is possible to make a case for floating in the Venus and Saturn atmospheres///
I am not a big fan of the idea of floating in the Venus atmosphere, but Steve Nixon (someone I know) is. Living on top of the Saturn atmosphere is in the last part of Accelerando.
I think spinning O’Neill cylinders are the way to go if you want earth normal conditions.
I agree with you that Mars is not suited for unmodified people. I do know people who are working out the details of terraforming Mars by hauling in nitrogen from Pluto and giving Mars a magnetic field.
Norman,
I have come close to going over the edge on numerous occasions
I hope your long-suffering spouse was able to keep you away from kitchen knives, axes and power tools. 🙂
Frankly, Hawking was a reasonable physicist when he was younger—as a mere layman, I can’t judge how much of a genius he was—but after his decease got going that was the end of his intellectual career.
He did, however, have a second career as a stage artist, playing an incapacitated genius trapped in a body that he could no longer move. That went on until he died and was replaced by a series of not very convincing lookalikes (observe the many photos Hawking available online from different periods in his career if you believe me or if you don’t), who kept the Hawking scam going for around 30 years after his death.
How much suspension of common sense does it take to accept the tall tale of a man suffering from ALS, which in the vast majority of cases causes paralysis and dementia leading to death within four years, going on for decade after decade producing cutting-edge ideas on cosmology?
The Hawking scam is similar in nature to the Glen Keller scam, in which a girl who was both blind and death from infancy was supposedly taught to read, write and reason, gained a degree and went on to become a best-selling author, political activist, and lecturer.
So why do so many ostensibly intelligent people swallow such impossible stories whole, and without so much of a burp of incredulity? What makes them so gullible? Are they hypnotized by consensus trance? Are they incapable of working things out for themselves? Do they believe that anything they see no TV or read about in the press must be true? Or could it be all the above?
https://youtu.be/hPYQEJ21XgE
I also have a technical background (and a PhD in theoretical physics), and dispute much of what Hawking says. And the probability any of us will be around to watch the Sun go nova is zero. Planetary colonisation is also an absurd idea, not least because the only planet even remotely suitable, Mars, does not have a magnetic field, so any humans on its surface will fry pretty quickly.
Planetary colonization by humans is delusional. If anything are to “colonize” space it is machines or radiation hardened life. Probably a combination. We are neither.
Earth is our home, and will so be. Question is how “welcome” we are in the biosphere given the last millennia of rapacious activity by soulless opportunism and overpopulation.
Tim
I offer you the generosity of a reply in the hope and assumption that your comment about Helen Keller was meant as a joke, albeit a joke in the worst possible taste.
(Hawking only marginally less so)
I grant that it is difficult to tell sometimes online. I have a sinking feeling that you were serious
Perhaps it is my naivety that holds me back from believing that anyone holding themselves as intelligent enough to exchange views on OFW could be so crass
but perhaps gullibility is one of those conditions where the only person immune to it is oneself
(en route to A Saturn moon)
Gee, Norman, you mean that when Heron of Alexandria invented the steam engine 2000 years ago, we didn’t have an industrial revolution? And when printing was invented in Anatolia in about 1700BC, we didn’t have an explosion of literacy? I’m afraid you talk far too much sense for the servants of the technocracy.
forgot to add:
That if we should discover unlimited veins of hopium ore at some remote uncharted spot on the planet, or even on one of the moons of Jupiter, we run into the next law of biological existence:
that all life exists through the conversion of one energy form into another
produce as much electrical energy as you like. it is useless until it is converted into something else
I thought hopium was the one thing that springs internal.
“Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never Is, but always To be blest.”
Alexander Pope (1688 to 1744), An Essay on Man
Gail, do you have data on China’s stimulus packages over the years after 2009, also in comparison to China’s oil import bills.I came across this problem when writing my latest post
30/6/2020
Peak oil in Asia Update June 2020 (part 1)
http://crudeoilpeak.info/peak-oil-in-asia-update-june-2020-part-1
I am currently writing part 2. I’ll be showing that China’s oil consumption growth was driven by debt.
“The rise in China’s total debt in the years since the 2008 global financial crisis has been unprecedented, from around 172% of GDP to over 300% in 2019.This rapidly escalating leverage has been a major engine of global growth—but has also accounted for more than 40% of the rise in global debt since 2007.”
https://www.iif.com/Portals/0/Files/content/1_200514%20Weekly%20Insight.pdf
In 2007 we wrote our article:
9/10/2007
Did Katrina hide the real peak in world oil production?
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3052
That was the conventional peak, causing the 2008 oil price shock, the subprime mortgage crisis and the financial crisis in 2009. The response of the system was quantitative easing. The money which had become available in this way was used by Wall St to finance the shale oil boom, cleverly promoted as “energy revolution”. But this gets unstuck, accelerated by COVID19 (how are you doing in Georgia?)
U.S. Shale Has Lost $300 Billion In 15 Years
• In the 15 years since the first U.S. shale boom, the industry as a whole has failed to return a profit.
• Deloitte estimates that the coming wave of write-downs could amount to $300 billion.
• The next stage for U.S. shale is going to be consolidation, but over half of all shale companies may be superfluous
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/US-Shale-Has-Lost-300-Billion-In-15-Years.html
I expect military conflicts along China’s oil import routes from the Middle East. I have written a submission on this to a standing committee of the Australian Parliament
https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Foreign_Affairs_Defence_and_Trade/FADTandglobalpandemic
In a hearing of this committee:
Australia Needs to Decouple From China as ‘Second Cold War’ Looms: Expert
An international strategist has told a parliamentary inquiry that *Australia will need to build stronger “resilience” and less “dependence” on China, as in the near future, the world will likely fracture into two major geopolitical blocs akin to the Cold War* – one bloc centered around Washington and the other Beijing.
Speaking to the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence, and Trade on July 2, *Alan Dupont, CEO of the Cognoscenti Group, said increased economic and political tensions between Washington and Beijing (particularly related to the trade war, Taiwan, and the South China Sea) would accelerate a “decoupling” of the world’s economies and see the formation of two geopolitical blocs.
*Dupont, who is an expert in international affairs, said Beijing would likely lead an “authoritarian” bloc, which would include countries such as Russia, Iran, North Korea, and countries from Central Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and South America.
*The other bloc would include democracies from North America, Europe, and parts of Latin America and Africa. He noted that Australia would “certainly” side with the United States.*
Dupont acknowledged that trading relations would be “fluid” in what he called “the second Cold War, the one we’re going into now.” There will be “a lot of movement across the divisions” compared to the original Cold War (1947–1991), which saw trade limited to within each political bloc.
However, in the event that a split does occur, Dupont noted that it was unlikely countries could “straddle” both factions; and aligning with one side was inevitable.
“The more entrenched and rigid these divisions become, the more
difficult it will be for countries to have choices and to remain in
both camps.
“You will get to a point at some stage where you do have to make a
strategic decision about which one you are going with.
“I think most countries do not want to be in that position, and I think that would include Australia too. We don’t want to go down that track, but the risk is that we will.”
https://www.theepochtimes.com/australia-needs-to-decouple-from-china-as-second-cold-war-looms-expert_3422015.html
I will need to take time to read the links you give.
This is one article about China’s stimulus effort in 2016. https://marketrealist.com/2016/06/china-unleashing-massive-stimulus-boost-economy/
China’s debt has been growing rapidly, but I don’t think I have good data on how the debt really has been growing. There seem to be many pieces to the debt.
The IIF report about China is a good find. I notice it says, “a recent academic study by Horn et al. suggests that up to 50% of Chinese overseas loans to developing countries are not reflected in the official statistics, largely due to incomplete reporting on SOE debt.” There is clearly a lot of debt out there, including the debt Venezuela and Ecuador owe to China. China’s lending to these countries helped stimulate economies around the world. This is part of what has helped the world economy.
50% of the power in my area comes from Hydro and 25% from geothermal. I know it won’t help feed everyone or keep the trucks rolling, but it might help the transition? Hard to tell.
In the video game “The last of us” (zombie collapse) there was small community that set up next to a hydro damn and kept it operational. Wonder if that would work for awhile.
The interesting thing about Zombie apocalypse scenarios is that the Zombies don’t eat all the human food. The survivors are able to scavenge for years as long as they can avoid zombies and warlords.
I think the big thing we will be lacking is imported goods and imported spare parts. As long as nothing breaks, things work. If you have a bad storm, hope that repairs are available as needed.
I saw a YouTube video where a prepper admitted that he had a very modest solar system, not to try to reproduce or maintain his admittedly extravagant current use of electricity while the grid was up, and not because it would EVER be cost effective, but rather to provide him with just a basic amount of electricity to do some vital things if the grid actually went down. A very unpleasant and inconvenient situation but at least maybe workable for him. In other words, his EV system would be better than nothing. And the implication was that his backup system had a limited life expectancy as well.
The general gist is to accumulate energy storage devices like solar, batteries, etc knowing that they will only extend your wiggle room in the event of a reset, but only for so long.
Other forms of indirect energy storage:
Pressure cooked food. Energy inputs in the jars, pressure cooker, the meat and vegetables, the propane to cook them have already been spoken for in adavnce You can just eat the contents. Same with freeze dried.
Silver and Gold. All the energy inputs in mining, labor, purification, stamping, distribution have been spoken for. Physical PMs IMO will have a role in localized communities as store of value and medium of exchange, but for NOT for long distance commerce or big ticket items. You can’t hide a house or car whose payments have been made in gold or silver from the taxman.
I have two 55 gallon fuel barrels and 20 Nato Jerry 20L cans for fuel storage purchased 12 years stored away, and never used-yet. The cold reality now is that such gasoline fuel storage capability would be a one time use- that is, fuel to allow me to make a one way trip from point A to Point B, and after that any storage capability and my vehicle, would be useless if gas were not available to refill these.
Just as a gun is useless without ammo.
I am coming to my “not so fast buster” and “maybe you’d better rethink this” realizations.
The main use for my solar post-collapse will be to keep my fridge running as long as I can and play some music/movies. Hope that will ease the transition.
I think the taxman will be the least of your problems unless you are talking about paying off the local warlord.
Its surviving the initial wave of hungry who want all my canned goods that will be the real challenge.
Aloha my friend Gail
Hawaii has subsidized wind and solar by more than $600 million so far. On the Big Island we have geothermal available as base load power. Our group Sustainable Energy Hawaii, (SEH) is encouraging our electric utility to absorb the excess intermittent power and balance the grid with the 24/7 geothermal. By implementing a special hydrogen rate, we can make hydrogen available to anyone within reach of an electrical outlet to plug into an electrolyzer.
This will allow us to replace oil burning Internal Combustion Engine vehicles with electric vehicles as well as hydrogen fuel celled vehicles. Instead of hauling the hydrogen in trucks, we send the electricity in the lines and generate the hydrogen at the site. This will help the electric utility sell more electricity to replace transportation fuel. And, this can help the solar and wind folks sell the excess electricity instead of throwing it away.
Hopefully, this can help the Big Island cope into the future post Covid 19.
Thanks for writing Richard. I have visited you on the Big Island of Hawaii. The Big Island has a population of a little under 200,000, and an area of 4,000 square miles.
I think what we are losing is complexity–things like international trade, and even flights to the Big Island. The things you are describing are high tech solutions. They will be increasingly difficult to maintain as we lose complexity. As you add new fancy devices, they will need repairs and spare parts. If nothing else, electric transmission lines will need constant upkeep. So will roads. It is these things that you cannot count on.
What I would be most concerned about is growing food locally, for the local population. You can’t count on imported food from around the world for the long term. Think about the total calorie needs for the population.
An early form of transportation was small boats that could be used to transport goods around the edge of the island many years ago. These would be a good idea as well. They can be made locally, on the Big Island. They are more sustainable for the long term than electric cars.
Everyone thinks that high-tech answers are the solution. They may work for a few years, but eventually the systems they are part of will tend to break. If you cannot manufacture replacement parts on the Big Island, these systems will be as good as gone on a few years.
Like getting covered with Lava like what happened to the Geothermal plant in 2018. I had front row seats…
In a previous post there was a mention of Joseph Tainter. I remembered something in a book I read in the past by Joseph Tainter but it was all a bit foggy so I searched Tainter and one of the links was to an OFW post from 2011 that was guest written by Ugo Bardi. https://ourfiniteworld.com/2011/03/31/tainters-law-where-is-the-physics/
The post seems to be about the position of Tainter that when civilizations collapse it is not so much from limited resources as it is from the failure of the civilization to respond correctly to the limited resources. Societies become more complex and use more resources with decreasing returns.
“The idea of decreasing returns to complexity looks consistent and reasonable. But, why do societies behave in this way?”
Why do societies behave this way?
Is it that there is a failure of the majority to grasp the concept of infinite/finite? We behave as if we don’t live on a finite planet in an infinite universe.
Our top physicists tell us that the Universe began with The Big Bang. In his book, A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME, Steven Hawking states,
”As far as we are concerned, events before the big bang can have no consequences, so they should not form part of the scientific model of the universe.” (pg.46)
The anointed ones declare what is the scientific truth and the masses follow. If you don’t follow the mass fear mongering of the MSM then you are rejecting science. But the truth is that we have science and then we have science-styled marketing. Modern medicine is primarily science styled marketing of patented chemicals by the Pharma Industry. US health is the lowest rated of all the industrial nations but we pay more than the next two highest cost countries combined.
Why does our society behave this way?
It would seem to be clear that “Uni” means one, so Universe means one thing which would be EVERYTHING. If we dodge newspeak, Universe means one thing. There is nothing outside the Universe. It is one thing. No beginning, as that would make two things, before the beginning and after the beginning. Infinite has no boundaries. Finite has boundaries.
The anointed ones say the Universe began. How can we not ask what was here the day before the big bang?
The Human defect is to see A Big Bang and think it is The Big Bang.
The post from 2011 is pretty interesting. The comments are “academic” and there are only 26 total.
I very much agree that our problem now is the level of complexity to which the economy has risen is too much; it leads to too much wage and wealth disparity. I know both Joe Tainter and Ugo Bardi.
I don’t see all this as depressing–in fact, it should solve a lot of problems–but then, I’m thinking about the likely effects on the environment. (Should probably do something about the nuke plants, though.)
Anyway, look at the bright side–we may get to see WW3 soon!
We probably won’t see WW3 for very long, however. It will have an adverse impact on population.
Hi Gail,
In a recent interview with James Howard Kunstler, geologist Art Bermen predicts that before the end of 2020, a substantial portion of the oil industry, including refineries, will likely become nationalized. We know that the cost of oil compared to the price of oil is a problem. Bermen points out that the value of oil to society needs to be considered also, estimated by professor Nate Hagens to be about $120,000 per barrel or the equivalent of 4.5 years of 1 workers output. My question to you Gail is, can nationalizing the oil industry help our energy situation by removing the capatalist profit motive? We need oil, that’s all there is to it.
Regards,
D3G
I was going to ask her the same thing about the Art Berman interview. Isn’t part of the issue that as it approaches $120,000 to extract a barrel of oil, the remaining value is less and less to the rest of society?
I think consolidation happens before nationalization, in the USA anyway.
first, there will be too many refineries in the USA as production drops, especially higher cost production. The industry should be self-organizing and soon shutting down a refinery or two to keep things more balanced, at least by 2021.
but it seems to make sense for the USA to produce even the higher cost domestic reserves rather than importing.
what is better, to buy a pound of strawberries for $7 from your relative’s farmstand or for $5 from the city supermarket?
in the long run, it might be better to keep the money in the family.
so, in the long run, if the oil industry fails to keep domestic production from plunging to where imports are rising much higher, then it would be an economic benefit to nationalize production to meet domestic needs.
it probably is TRUE that a barrel of oil really does the work of 4+ years of human labor, in which case a nationalized oil industry producing oil at $70 or $90 or $110 a barrel is still a no brainer win win win.
we need oil.
The least I could do is to provide a link to the interview of Art Berman by James Howard Kunstler. I always try to do the least I can do.
https://kunstler.com/podcast/kunstlercast-329-chatting-with-art-berman-about-trouble-in-the-oil-patch/
Thanks Gail.
Cheers, D3G
‘I always try to do the least I can do.’
Why are you so lazy? Trying being ambitious and doing the most you can do. 😉
Resources will have to be diverted and prioritized from the rest of the economy to maintain the energy lifeblood to the economy. Schools will be shut down and public schoolbus transportation will be curtailed for example. Just as during hypothermia, the body shuts down the peripheral circulation and heat radiation from the extremities to maintain the central core body temperature in the heart and brain, other aspects of the economy will need to shut down.
That sounds a lot like a covid-19 lockdown.
I wonder if the lockdowns are meant to cover up the likelihood that the largest oil fields in operation are past peak production.
we built a (temporary) industrial civilisation using oil which was always cheap to extract and always surplus to our needs.
That simple equation allowed our cleverness to flourish, built our factories, fought our wars, built our cities and paid our wages.
It also gave us the insanity of infinite growth and formed a delusional value of our world.
But
it isn’t possible to support that world on oil which costs more to extract than our civilsation is worth.
This is your law no matter how much money is printed or however much oil is extracted from this point on.
Thanks Norman. I understand and agree with the points you are making here, but always imagined collapse to happen sometime beyond my statitsical expiration date 10 years out. That doesn’t look likely anymore.
Cheers,
D3G
Hint:
Market fundamentalism, or capitalist realism, is an ideology with a death toll that rises every day.
May I suggest Cuba?
@Duncan Idaho
Alternatives are even worse. Cuba is suffering a lot right now since Venezuela imploded.
yup
people remain convinced that the laws of physics can be altered by fresh ideology
As if the laws of thermodynamics would be interested in the politics, ideology, thoughts, trials and tribulations of the rapacious primate. Not one bit.
I think the collapse mistake is thinking it hasn’t happened yet
but of course if you’re living in tent city somewhere–either in LA or Syria, collapse has already happened,
Its all relative
you see your collapse as 10 years away, and it might even be 20. But in a country with no saftey net, it could be next week if you fall ill or lose your job
And in now, in the UK for instance, it’s common for people who lose their jobs to find out that the welfare state ‘safety net’ is rather full of holes.
Merkel famously said of Greece that ‘we left a sufficient net.’ And I suppose we could accept that as true, in that mass starvation does not seem to have occurred, yet.
I, for one, am tired of waiting. I was promised a collapse, and will be leaving scathing Yelp reviews of this site and others like it if I don’t get to see laypeople killing each other in the streets sooner than later. ;>)
I am afraid my crystal ball is a little cloudy. I am guessing that nationalizing the oil industry would take a Republican congress and a Republican president. I would imagine it would take more than this, with the need for a 60% vote to overcome a filibuster. There is so much confusion about how helpful renewables are that I expect that it would be hard to get a vote that would pass to bail out oil. If there is an authoritarian leader, it might be nationalized.
The cost to extract oil is fairly low, probably less than $60 per barrel. Companies have to pay taxes (royalties and other taxes) that raise the cost. It also has to pay dividends and invest in new drilling operations. The total cost of extraction is nowhere near $120,000 per barrel, however..
Gail. Just wanted to comment to say thank you for the great content. I discovered your work last month and have been slowly reading everything. Good reading during a pandemic. I’ve followed Peak Oil off and on since 2003. I enjoy reading your take and the comments from others.
Glad to have you as a reader. I seem to have a fairly wide audience.
Another good but somewhat depressing article. Oh well I suppose it is better to be armed with the facts than to proceed blindly. I think perhaps I should not have had children because it seems their future will be one of declining living standards. I think there is one possible outcome that is understated in Dalio’s chart in that the decline could be much more abrupt for many people due to human actions (riots, looting, arson, war) as we are already seeing, whereas in other areas the rich may just hoard an increasing share of the resources for themselves for as long as they can.
Given the propensity for the poorest and most unintelligent people to riot and commit arson in their own neighbourhoods, thereby truly trashing them, that may be so.
Even more disquieting is the tendency of many irresponsible and ambitious politicians to encourage this as ‘legitimate political protest’.
We may well imagine that this will only become more frequent and severe as conditions worsen.
Biden has promised to use HUD, zoning laws and federal money to ensure that those same peope live in every area. No more white flight for you! Enjoy!
A good example of the non-reversability of the energy economy came to me in my in-box this morning. It was an auction notice for all the machines and equipment in a huge oil field equipment factory in Oklahoma. This was a place that built much of the specialized components used in the oil well business. It is ( or was) a subsidiary of the largest oil field servicing company in the world. In about a weeks time all those huge machine tools, specialized machines, skilled employees, and knowledge will be scattered to the winds in an auction. To ramp production of these essential products back up again later could take years , if not a decade.
I am very concerned about broken supply lines through China and India. China now has the problem with flooding and the Three Gorges Dam, among other things. India has huge problems, coming from its shutdowns. I understand that Wuhan was a big maker of generic medicines.
Anything that has parts that come from China or India needs to be something that we may not be able to get in the future.
“I am very concerned about broken supply lines through China and India. China now has the problem with flooding…”
“Large parts of China were reeling on Friday from the worst floods in decades, as disruption mounted for supply chains, including for personal protective equipment (PPE), vital in the fight against the novel coronavirus.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-weather-floods/chinas-wuhan-declares-red-alert-as-floods-disrupt-supply-chains-idUSKCN24I0G0
A substantial share of the non woven fabric used in masks comes from this area.
Nice article and I completely agree with the entire thing. It appears now more than ever our system is going to demand universal basic income from Biden should he likely win the election. Obviously digital currency and a bunch of other games will be enacted to extend and pretend. Politicians and bankers will do everything they can to reinflate the global financial bubble. And the US is having the worst Covid 19 numbers in 3 states that makeup a massive portion of the economy (CA, TX, FL). Weather folks believe Covid19 is real or not makes absolutely no difference since the economic and psychological damage is going to be devastating either way.
I see that politicians are set to vote on a new stimulus package next week upon returning and the Federal Reserve stands at the ready to expand the balance sheet. The unemployment numbers that came out yesterday if you removed the seasonal adjustment, which you should anyhow because it was never meant to deal with unemployment numbers in the millions, it actually increased by 100,000 folks from last week. This marks the first week since April that initial unemployment claims has begun increasing again. There’s also around 32 million folks total on some form of continuing claims government unemployment benefits.
Q2 GDP is set to print in 2 weeks and is estimated to be around -35%. I believe the worst quarterly contraction during the GFC was around -8%. This puts the current crisis in terms of GDP at least 4 times as bad in terms of actual measurable economic output. I don’t recall what the numbers got down to during the Great Depression but I’m sure this crisis is comparable or worse. Bank of America’s CEO said during the earnings call yesterday something about comparing this situation and data to the Great Depression as well. Furthermore big banks earnings are down massively, JPM down 51% year over year, Citigroup down 71%, and Wells Fargo managed a loss of around $3 Billion dollars. Loan loss reserves are still building from the last quarter which doesn’t exactly leave anyone feeling that things are going to be at all better in Q3.
I’m still working from home as I imagine much of corporate America is at this point. Our company has shed a few employees but truck and train traffic coming over the US/Canada border is holding steady and has improved a lot from the lows of March/April, particularly things like steel, lumber, asphalt, coal, diesel, and plastics. I’m watching in fascination as assets are wildly swinging in prices and things like inflation/deflation begin to wreak havoc in the marketplace. How long that can continue if things keep getting worse is anyone’s guess but this is certainly much more interesting than the Great Financial Crisis and I’m ordering more popcorn right after I post this. Hope everyone is doing well, my tomato garden is just starting to bear fruit now.
Thanks for your observations. Second quarter is going to look terrible. I worry that third and fourth quarters will be worse yet. All of the stimulus so far still leaves a lot of people out of work and commodity prices too low.
I am getting lots of tomatoes from my two tomato plants this year. It is nice to have a few growing things to look at. My eggplants and jalapeño pepper plant are doing well too.
Even a non-productive house plant seems to contribute to mental well-being: although the sickening feeling when pests or blight hit one’s garden can be hard to take.
A desolate, incredibly wet, winter here, followed by months of drought (with blue skies thankfully!) have certainly stressed every living thing in my garden and led to all sorts of trouble even for the long-established and deep-rooted plants.
But you just have to watch over the fruit trees like a mother and hope for the best.
It’s a Catch 22 for Uncle Sam and the Federal Reserve. If the extra money from the government stops going out we have another few violent steps down the ladder almost instantly. If they don’t stop printing money every 3 months and running up the debt, then an inevitable hyperinflation meltdown is in the cards. Now add a pandemic, an election, and a trade war on top for good measure.
As I percieve it, with the ageing world, we live more and more in the demented world. Our siblings, friends, neighbours etc. who once were smart, are becoming less and less able to cope with the rising complexity.
I find I always dread “product upgrades.”
Sad isn’t it. What is life without hope? The ridiculous antics give some hope to a deluded population. Anyone who finds that entertaining is truly sick.
I find it strange that people really believe the things that they seem to be saying. There seems to be a common sense disconnect.
A big issue is the fact that once a subject moves to the abstract, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that the model a group is constructing really does not include the relevant variables. A person can prove almost anything with a model. Models are 21st century fairy tales.
If all we have is physical.
Governments seem to need to provide a substitute for religious beliefs.
Replacement for. And elimination of.
Hope is another delusion for the belief in a positive outcome.
Hope is indeed for suckers.
On a national scale a purely RE based economy might be difficult, but at the household level? A mix of solar PV for electricity and solar thermal for heat (evacuated tubes work in the winter), or a ground source heat pump driven by PV. Add to that some battery storage and it’s not unfeasible to live off grid, e.g. https://energysavingtrust.org.uk/blog/home-energy-storage-right-me
If people want to try living off grid, I have no problem with that. You probably want to think through what you do when things go wrong, such as an injury that puts you out of commission for a couple of weeks or a spare part that cannot be obtained. Don’t expect to have repair people available when you need them either.
Our problem will not be high-cost electricity or oil; it will be unavailable products of all kinds. If some device you are using breaks, expect to fix it yourself or do without.
I would make certain that whatever is needed is in place, pretty much already. The things you talk about are not things that necessarily will be available three or six months from now. If you need a second one of whatever you are using for spare parts, be sure to get it now.
One thing to think about is how you will pay your property taxes. Also, if you buy these devices using debt, how do you expect to repay the debt?
Gail, you are very understated and matter of fact in your writing style. It seems readers better listen carefully. Are you really saying time to act is that short?…. “The things you talk about are not things that necessarily will be available three or six months from now. If you need a second one of whatever you are using for spare parts, be sure to get it now.” Is our planning horizon that short?
After the shutdowns that happened in March, I can see that products can disappear very quickly off the shelf. Banks can close and just leave a note: call for an appointment if you would like to talk to a banker.
I talked to someone a couple of days ago who told me that she couldn’t get a replacement dishwasher until August. I don’t know whether the problem was the particular model or if it was dishwashers in general. She also said the sewing machines are not available. I can believe this.
My planning horizon is very short. It is better to be safe than sorry.
Hi Gail. Thank you for your latest post. I enjoy reading these commentaries. Contributors at OFW seem to have more clues than most governments.
In this thread, you talk about short planing horizons. If you had a limited budget say $23.000, and you believed we were facing general shortages, war/ uprisings and hyperinflation, what priority items and areas would you think about addressing first. Assuming you already have some food security? Will having something to trade be as important as defence. Which skills would serve best and what type of collective should one join or form?
I think gold and silver will perform well if the collapse is slow. Which means you may be able to buy gold/silver cheap now and trade it later for more stuff.
What roll PMs will play post crash is hard to tell. They still had value in the dark ages, but they have no value to hunter/gatherers.
Sewing machines are selling like hotcakes. Because self-reliance.
Getting spare parts can be difficult now. When our last boiler broke down, it was in good nick, it was less than 10 years old. But one essential item broke that the manufacturer no longer made for that model, so we were forced to fork out £4,000 for a new boiler. An awful lot of people here in the UK are approaching a situation where they could not possibly afford to replace a boiler. The boilers themselves, incidentally, typically cost less than £1000. The rest is the plumber’s fee.
The problem is personal time, there aren’t enough hours in the day. The combination of PV and thermal solar is complicated, ground source heat pumps are difficult to implement, there have been attempts in that direction(combining with solar) over the years, most have been abandoned.
Unmentioned is theft by others. It is a real issue and only if it only happens once, that will be a major, personal event.
In the end it is tough to beat a good wood stove that both heats and cooks – now if a man sell that to your wife. Hard sell.
Dennis L.
I believe that there is a lot you can do to improve energy efficiency and energy conservation by the design of the house. Once it is built it is too late. Here in the UK we are still pretty useless at building energy / heat efficient houses.
Minority,
I would like to believe it is possible to improve efficiency, and indeed it can be done, but it is terribly expensive and requires an incredible crew with attention to detail. Practically speaking, it cannot be done at a reasonable cost.
FIW, I have built a fair amount of structures, commercial and residential, it is tough and one mistake makes things an issue. Like Mike below, I have had the assistance of registered architects and PE’s, it is still tough.
If you are interested in such things, see Matt Risinger on YouTube. He comes close to doing it right with the help of registered architects, PE engineers, and damn good subcontractors. He has a series on building his own house, this stuff is beyond expensive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuUxUt6MwIU
Dennis L.
If you need a good house built. The Scandinavians are happy to help. The Anglo Saxons are fantastic industrialists, but just cant build houses worth a cr@p.
I lived off-grid for 5 years in Hawaii. Great place to live off-grid. I still had to get propane for cooking though.
Problem isn’t the solar panels, they last forever. Its everything else. The batteries, inverters, and backup generators don’t last. Even the appliances that run off the solar don’t last that long.
Without a FF industry whats the point of even generating that electricity?
I guess the survivors can scavenge for parts for a while?
The problem with most of this stuff is one part goes out and your entire system goes down. My father in law and I assembled a 100% off grid electricity system with about 40 solar panels, 2 battery banks on steel pallets, 2 backup generators, charge controllers, and more. We had an inverter go down one time and it took 3 weeks for the replacement part (came from Asia somewhere) to reach us and that’s when the system was working at 100% capacity in like 2015. Imagine how bad that would be now or in 6 months? You may never get that replacement part and your entire system goes dark.
Then there’s the backup generators. We had a diesel one and a natural gas one we kept at least 1 full of fuel but if you were to ever run out of fuel you would eventually run out of power on a string of dark/rainy days which could push the entire system to the bring unless you shut everything down while waiting on the sun to come back.
Oh but wait, there’s more. Then you need to juggle the cost. We spent about $50,000 on our system to power 2 houses so I would imagine a single family home to be able to have a nice electric system you would need to spend at least $20-30 thousand dollars. You want a saltwater battery bank and not the traditional lead acid. The maintenance cycle of the old batteries will drive you nuts all this water adding and balancing.
You describe exactly the problem with a very high-tech solution. If works for a little while, until it doesn’t.
Our chance of getting replacement parts is going downhill rapidly.
Can you estimate the NET energy of solar and wind when the Fossil energy necessary to build and maintain it is accounted for ? (That is – total fossil energy contributes quite a large percentage of the total energy in doing so, which should be subtracted from the total W+S energy shown in Fig 6 -I assume the true net is near or below ZERO!)
Thanks
To me, intermittent electricity has essentially no value. Thus, the big problem is that fact that the energy out is close to worthless. If the energy return is really close to zero, any amount of input is effectively lost.
The amounts I show are based on BP calculations. BP calculates the output of wind and solar in a very generous manner. It calculates the amount of fossil fuels it would take to burn to provide the same electrical output as the device. This is a far more generous approach than IEA uses. It looks at the heat equivalence of the output.
I am not trusting of the EROI calculations done on wind and solar, but I don’t have a way to calculate different amounts.
Dear Gail
Thank you once again for a clear, cogent, and compelling article. However, might I request some further remarks. I think we all noticed that the comments on your previous article became increasingly about politics, even partisan politics, and not about energy or economy. And I was one of the worst offenders. In retrospect, this was an insult to you, and a disservice to the readers of OFW, for which I now apologise without reservation. Please, therefore, give us some explicit guidelines that can in future temper my enthusiasm; and that I hope others will also find helpful in maintaining this forum on an even keel.
With best wishes
Robert
Robert,
One of the wonderful things about this site, Gail, and us is we explore ideas, sometimes we are right sometimes wrong. In doing so, we respect one another even if privately we say to ourselves, “That doesn’t seem like a very good idea.”
We don’t yell.
We do not silo, we recognize a dissipative structure, we live bounded by that but within the bounds a number of paths are possible.
You are too smart for explicit guidelines, it would be a poorer day without one of your Latin quotes which causes many of us to Google a translation.
Dennis L.
True, and with FE gone, we can make the odd wrong assumption without being made to feel like an idiot or a member of Delusiatan.
Politics has become a divisive topic. I expect that going forward, the real answer will be overthrown governments. It is possible that none of the current major parties who will end up in power. Healthcare is too expensive; education is too expensive. Power needs to somehow move to young people, not to people in their 70s and 80s.
I personally do not follow politics to any significant extent. My immediate family members are all liberal Democrats. I have many other relatives who are conservative Republicans. I find I need to stay out of political discussions, to keep the peace. I find that saying, “Oh, who is he?” is a reasonable answer to political discussions.
I am not sure what guidelines to give. I wish people would give leaders at least some benefit of the doubt. I don’t like the “Trump always bad” opinions. There may some particular policies that don’t seem to work. It probably makes more sense to focus on policies than on personalities.
Hi:
Gail, based on your work, I’m coming to the conclusion “we are all in this [dissipative system] together” and it matters little whether Trump or Biden. Thermodynamics will have the ultimate say how life unfolds. It’s fruitless to put our faith in either Dems or R’s. Better off imagining how we will live in the 1800s again and get the requisite skills to survive and even…..thrive?
I agree. It doesn’t really matter if we put our faith in Democrats or Republicans.
I am not sure that 1800s is the right time frame for going back to. It could be a lot further. It is better to work on living today.
I think ‘to go back to’ the 1800s, we would need a hell of a lot of horses. Here in the UK I can’t remember the exact figure but it was either a quarter or a fifth of all agricultural land was for feeding / looking after horses. There will be horses, but not many and damned few trained for farming.
For most old, hardy and useful breeds of all kinds of animals – both draught and edible – the gene pool is now far too small.
I met someone with a beautiful and now rare breed of shooting dog just before lock-down and was so taken with the animal that I thought about acquiring one.
But after some research I found that there are so few pure-breds left now that most die of cancer within a mere 4-5 years – it’s quite criminal to breed them.
And will those horses survive if there is a massive food shortages? Not a great thought, but in Venezuela they started to eat their cats and dogs.
Gail, I’ve been reading these articles for several years now and it’s scary after a while. What about solutions? What should someone do if they want to survive until the new normal?
We don’t really know what the new normal will look like. It is possible that there will be “plateaus” on the way down, and some economies will be able to go on much as before, at least for a while, at the same time that others have major problems.
On the other hand, we could end up with hunting and gathering, or perhaps subsistence farming with few tools, being the new normal. Different people are trying different approaches. Perhaps some will work. I hesitate to criticize.
One thing I notice is that groups of people need to work together. Even in hunting and gathering, there seemed to some specialization. Some made primitive tools; some hunted and some gathered. Perhaps grandmothers specialized in childcare. Some way of making fire was necessary, among the specializations.
We have lost the ability to farm as our grandparent farmed. We don’t have the tools and we don’t have the skills. We don’t have the stores providing the products they depended on. This makes it hard to say, “Go back to what your grandparents did.”
Gail, great article, as usual. seems that there may be a lot of dead people laying about between now and the New Normal, if we are in overshoot. not sure of the severity of the psychological impact of that, but it may make the current pandemic scare look like a high school dress rehearsal. besides of course, the actual overtaxing of the services now available. i guess we could look at the MENA countries for examples of what to expect, e.g., Syria or Yemen.
>>i guess we could look at the MENA countries for examples of what to expect
These days I am reminded of Lebanon and Venezuela.
Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world if you believe BP’s compilation of “proved reserves.” If prices are too low, it means nothing at all.
I meant Lebanon and Venezuela for pretty good examples of what collapse looks like.
I have mentioned it before. The top two countries for reserves are Venezuela and Canada. Canada’s ‘reserves’ are largely tar sands which are not oil at all, and Venezuelan ‘oil’ is so viscous it needs steam to process. Neither have any future, and to label them as ‘reserves’ is a scam.
They should have kept the machinery and have tourists pay to come learn how they were used. Students of all kinds too. That way, you have some income going and a skill set going for whenever, if ever “production of these essential products” has a future roll.