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Page added on April 2, 2014
Energy Slaves
Our command of energy resources has created amazing technologies and social systems at a grand scale, but at what cost? Where past societies shackled human muscle with force and subjugation to create an energy surplus, beginning in the late 19th century we have used coal, oil & gas to create an unprecedented energy abundance. As the era of surplus energy comes to an end, how will our systems reliant on energy slaves for mechanical and cognitive work adapt? How is the energy transition moving forward?
In Extraenvironmentalist #76 we discuss our global energy systems with Andrew Nikiforuk as we discuss his new book, The Energy of Slaves: Oil and the New Servitude. Andrew discusses ways of understanding our use and abuse of cheap energy. Then, Chris Nelder joins us to talk about the ongoing energy transition and how it is reaching a tipping point through the recognition of a financial carbon bubble, the German Energiewende and the decline of the traditional oil majors.
As Terence McKenna once said, “Reason, and science, and the practice of unbridled capitalism, have not delivered us into an angelic realm. Quite the contrary: they’ve delivered 3% of us into an angelic realm, completely overshadowed by guilt about what’s happening to the other 97% of us who are eating it!”
24 Comments on "Energy Slaves"
Davy, Hermann, MO on Wed, 2nd Apr 2014 11:33 am
We will see population 1/2 and 1/2 of that remaining population will be forced on to the land to grow and mange a post carbon food supply…..all that is dependent on a stable climate……if climate deteriorates then 2/3 of that population will decline and we will go back to hunter gathers on the fringes of the habitable range of the new climate. Sound pessimistic? well it is better than extinction!
Dave Thompson on Wed, 2nd Apr 2014 12:47 pm
We have over 400 nuke power plants around the world. When industrial civilization comes to a point of collapse, those nukes will fail. The entire planet will be a waste land.
Makati1 on Wed, 2nd Apr 2014 12:55 pm
Dave, I see the same fate occurring. Radiation will just prolong the extinction event and make it very painful and difficult for our great grand kids. They may be the last generation of homo sapiens ever.
The last time I checked, there are over 300,000 TONS of spent fuel laying in pools around the world and we produce millions of tons of other radioactive waste every year. Think about all of the equipment used to process the ores, in hospitals, industry, etc. It adds up. And we have been producing those millions of tons for at least 7 decades.
Thompson Dave on Wed, 2nd Apr 2014 1:18 pm
Dave.
We’ve had over 2000+ nuclear tests on earth since 1945, over half of which have been atmospheric.
So what effects have we really seen? Let’s begin with the modern economist…..
Thompson Dave on Wed, 2nd Apr 2014 1:20 pm
2053 to be exact, and this is only up until 1998:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAnqRQg-W0k
Arthur on Wed, 2nd Apr 2014 1:21 pm
Did not listen to the podcast, but…
As the era of surplus energy comes to an end
That’s not going to happen. What will happen is a steady decline of ‘virtual energy slaves per capita’ (currently US ca 150, Europe ca. 100), because we reacted too late to warnings from scientists as early as 40+ years ago.
Because Europe takes the coming end of the fossil fuel age the most serious of all, Europe will be the first to bottom out and pick up again. My wild guestimate would be that western Europe will gradually decline from 100 to 50 virtual energy slaves per capita in 2040 and pick up from there, absent of war.
Davy, Hermann, MO on Wed, 2nd Apr 2014 2:04 pm
Arthur you are too optimist about Europe. Europe has proven when times get hard they destroy themselves!
Arthur on Wed, 2nd Apr 2014 2:12 pm
Europe has proven when times get hard they destroy themselves!
Without kind, benevolent help from Anglosphere this ‘self’-destruction would not have happened.
As I said… absent of war.
Davy, Hermann, MO on Wed, 2nd Apr 2014 2:32 pm
Yeap and Germanic efficiency
Makati1 on Wed, 2nd Apr 2014 3:10 pm
Since all of the Western ‘colonialism’ greed started in Europe, you are correct Davy. Europe will not recover from the decline. And it will be a lot lower than 50, Arthur. Maybe to 5 or even 1.
Ditto for the US. When oil goes, so goes any renewables within 10 years. The engineered life-time of the converter on your alternate energy source. Not that you will have much use for electric by then as all of your other toys will be dead also. Nothing is made to last more than 10 years today. And there will be no new ones to buy even if you do have some gold stashed. We are about to become energy paupers, all of us.
Davey on Wed, 2nd Apr 2014 3:28 pm
Here in the ozarks of Missouri Maki many are poor but proud. Many live like white trash compared to Europe and don’t give a rat’s ass about hard times cause hard times are here now. So sure times will get a whole lot worse but when you are already near the bottom hey what’s another short step down
J-Gav on Wed, 2nd Apr 2014 3:29 pm
Push-ups, sit-ups, pumpin’ iron … if we’re gonna be our own energy slaves, a lot of us will have to fill out our musculature a bit … Tha
J-Gav on Wed, 2nd Apr 2014 3:30 pm
That won’t sit very well with a vegan diet though …
steveo on Wed, 2nd Apr 2014 4:06 pm
“We have over 400 nuke power plants around the world. When industrial civilization comes to a point of collapse, those nukes will fail. The entire planet will be a waste land.”
Not true at all. Look at the videos from the Chernobyl exclusion zone. The plant life is thriving along with many animal species. It’s only human life that too fragile to survive.
Arthur on Wed, 2nd Apr 2014 5:16 pm
Since all of the Western ‘colonialism’ greed started in Europe, you are correct Davy. Europe will not recover from the decline. And it will be a lot lower than 50, Arthur. Maybe to 5 or even 1.
Basically you are saying that the Great Supreme One is going to punish the greedy Europeans for teaching the noble savages to stop being cannibals and eat with knife and fork to the tune of having no more than 1-5 virtual Fridays. OK, I see you are an adherent of the moral world order, where sinners sooner or later are going to be punished for misdeeds in the past. I am a little skeptical about that idea though. I wonder what is going to happen to all these wind turbines and solar panels that Europeans are frantically installing as we speak. Probably going up in smoke like the first best Manhattan high rise building on a sunny September morning. 😉
Davey on Wed, 2nd Apr 2014 5:28 pm
Arthur us Americans will descend into savagery espcially considering the guns and ammo normal people have. Yet, you Europeans have demonstrated over and over through history your deep desire of conquest and sunjagation of your neighbors and the savage 3rd world. I doubt a few years of plenty and prosperity will change this demon in your souls. As for Maki and his kin on an island with massive overshoot and environmental degradation that will be where we see cannibalism!
Arthur on Wed, 2nd Apr 2014 6:57 pm
Deepest doomerism wherever you look, where I was looking forward to a revival of the fifties, the time when I was born, according to many ‘the happiest time in their lives’. A calm carless (not to be confused with careless) life with chess, scrabble, crossword puzzles and a modest holiday by train to the Dutch coast, 100 miles from where I live, rather than the Maldives.
Apparently no such luck.
(But I’m not buying that over-pessimistic vision.)
Joe Clarkson on Wed, 2nd Apr 2014 7:17 pm
Makati1,
Even paleolithic hunter gatherers had about 4 energy slaves, mostly due to fire, plus the odd domesticated animal (think dog pulling travois. The use of fire was a bigger change than even horticulture since it greatly increased the efficiency of food consumption.
Davy, Hermann, MO on Wed, 2nd Apr 2014 7:17 pm
Me too Art, early 60’s were great too. I hope you are right and NR wrong but I always error towards reality
Bandits on Wed, 2nd Apr 2014 8:11 pm
Steveo……..
The comment was when the nukes fail. When Chernobyl and Fukushima failed billions of dollars and lives were sacrificed to contain the outpouring of contamination. Can you begin to imagine the damage if just one nuke fails and there is no attempt at containment.
jedrider on Wed, 2nd Apr 2014 11:23 pm
Maybe, miniskirts will make a big comeback due to warm weather and shortage of materials. We can always hope.
Makati1 on Thu, 3rd Apr 2014 3:18 pm
Ah, the put down of the Philippines. A land where people manage just fine on 1/20 the energy of the US. Do you prefer the drug deprived zombies of the US to the Filipino native people who still know how to live without electric or the ‘modern conveniences’? They don’t have to worry about freezing half the year or Air conditioning the other half.
Here families still are close and mutually supportive. Extended family homes are more the norm than the exception. yes, maybe 20% of the Filipinos live in cities, but 60% live in cities in the US. That is twice the total population of the Philippines that will be looking for food when the SHTF.
As for food, the Philippines is not as ‘degraded’ as you might think. Remember, your view is probably from the MSM and not reality. There is still many hundreds of square miles of usable land not even tilled and the water supply is going to remain good for a very long time. Not so much in the Us. But, think what you will. I made my choice.
Davy, Hermann, MO on Thu, 3rd Apr 2014 3:28 pm
Maki, overshoot is overshoot. The Philippians is one of the most densely populated Islands and country on earth with little resources to support it through a contraction. It has an ecosystem severely degraded from deforestation. The sea has been over exploited. It doesn’t look good for you sorry.
Arthur on Thu, 3rd Apr 2014 9:05 pm
Here is a map from a global food security study, carried out by the Bundeswehr (German army):
http://deepresource.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/food-security.jpg
Philippines are in the red.
Be glad you have a US passport, Makati. The West is the Best, if you have a ‘rumble in your tummy’ (©Neneh Cherry)