General discussions of the systemic, societal and civilisational effects of depletion.
by MonteQuest » Tue 13 Jun 2006, 23:57:07
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('matt21811', ' ')Now acording to your calculations I can cut out my wastefull trips to the beach and generate a maximum $1000 for 100 litres. Thats it. We are at 100% efficiency. The economy has no more to give. We are all doomed.
Except that I change to my motor cycle which only uses 25 litres to do my weeks work.
PS. And if you look here, the freed up energy came from exactly where I said it would: from
your standard of living. Fine you say, tell that to the people who were dependent upon
your standard of living and consumption for
their standard of living.
What if everyone stopped going to the beach or parked their car for a motorcycle?
We'd use less energy, you say?
Sure, but at whose expense?
Who doesn't now get paid?
A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
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by matt21811 » Wed 14 Jun 2006, 00:05:49
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '
')Hogwash! So, you are going to build nuclear plants with wood? Oil and other fossil fuels are the only game in town.
Coal is going to last 50 to 100 years. Nuclear could last another 200. The only thing stopping wind in my area today are the Nimby's. I have heard someone here say that solar is energy positive but its not economically viable at todays market prices. The only reason fossil fuel is the only game in town is because of price.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'H')ogwash! Nobody gets energy for free. All wasted energy gets bought and paid for before it is wasted. People spend money while they are out wasting energy.
Yes. I'd like to refrase your last statement to say people make money off others who are out wasting energy. But some people make more money than others from the same amount of (wasted) energy. Lots more. Those are the jobs that will grow. All energy use is not equal.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')Jevon's Paradox. We are not looking to increase economic output. We are looking to find the energy to build nuclear plants, wind farms, solar arrays, etc.
Where will it come from if x + y is needed to produce them and you cannot increase x? To get y, you must take from x.
Then you take it from x (using normal market price mechanisms). And next year you have more x than you did last year. I'm not sure what is so hard about that.
CUT - long counter example of how we get the same work done with less oil.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')nd now you cut revenue to all those who support your car use. 1 in 6 jobs.
Like I said, They can join the buggy whip manufacturers, exchange operators and any other jobs that have become unviable. Real world examples keep getting in the way of your doomsday senarios.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he problem is you don't think your arguments through. Switching use to more conservative or efficient means just cuts jobs or increases the use. Somebody, somewhere has to absorb the loss.
If the loss is defined as changing jobs then I agree. If the loss involves using less energy to do the same or similar thing then, I agree. If loss is not doing activities that burn lots of energy with only a small economic gain then I agree.
If you think the loss is a reduction in the world economy on a percentage for percentage basis with the reduction in availability of oil then I dont agree. The doomsday/ mad max senario is not going to play out.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TonyPrep', '
')So what energy can you use instead of energy? Yes, you can switch (to some degree) between energy sources but you still need energy.
Energy is a needed input for modern economic activity but Peak oil and peak fossil energy are about a reduction in supply, not the total dissappearence.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')ould you give an example? (of non economic energy use)
by MonteQuest » Wed 14 Jun 2006, 02:25:14
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('matt21811', ' ')Also, If the example of a letter courier isnt a counter example then I dont know what is.
That's right . You don't.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')hen you take it from x (using normal market price mechanisms). And next year you have more x than you did last year. I'm not sure what is so hard about that.
Yep, each year, the standard of living declines precisely as I have pointed out. When you take from x, someone loses their job. Who does without their share of energy so you can do other things?
A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
by MonteQuest » Wed 14 Jun 2006, 02:29:22
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('matt21811', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')ould you give an example? (of non economic energy use)
Buring off gas on an oil rig.
I want you to think about that answer. They burn it off because it is
uneconomical under those circumstances not to. In other areas, the gas is stranded.
A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
by MonteQuest » Wed 14 Jun 2006, 02:40:07
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('matt21811', 'E')nergy is a needed input for modern economic activity but Peak oil and peak fossil energy are about a reduction in supply, not the total dissappearence.
Who said it was going to disappear? The trouble is that it isn't going to increase in
supply post-peak. All energy will have to come from one of two places:
declining production or from current use.
New energy for
growth is going to disappear. New energy for alternative energy mitigation is going to disappear.
The law of diminishing returns nips conservation and efficiency gains in the bud rather quickly, if not increasing demand by lowering the price.
We have to tap the standard of living. Only place left.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he idea that a positive energy project can't out bid a non positive activity for available energy resources in a market where energy prices are high but energy is still readily available is proposterous.
Re-read my initial post, my premise was post-peak when energy is
not readily available.
Besides, tell that to all those millions of people who depend upon those--what you call--non-positive activities for their livelyhood.
Who will feed them?
A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
by TonyPrep » Wed 14 Jun 2006, 02:53:40
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('matt21811', 'A')nd next year you have more x than you did last year. I'm not sure what is so hard about that.
It's very easy to say that we'll have more x (the amount of energy) next year but soon it will be very difficult to achieve.$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('matt21811', 'E')nergy is a needed input for modern economic activity but Peak oil and peak fossil energy are about a reduction in supply, not the total dissappearence.
Which is exactly what we're discussing and you're challenging. Bizarre.$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')ould you give an example? (of non economic energy use)$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('matt21811', 'B')uring off gas on an oil rig.
Nice one, so that's the great example on which you based your previously unsubstantiated claim? Even this could have economic consequences though. I don't know the mechanism for burning off that gas (though isn't it done less these days?) but presumably there are parts of a rig manufactured to do just that. Burning off gas could also said to reduce supply of gas, thereby increasing price. But what happens when this possible waste is stopped? How are people affected, if at all?$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('matt21811', 'M')y point was that there is no maximum ratio to the amount of money you can make from a litre of petrol.So infinite economic activity is possible from one litre of petrol? Hooray, we're all saved. Now let us all in on the secret please. Of course there is a maximum ratio; you just don't know what it is. Neither do I, but there is a limit. And you are giving an ideal scenario, which never exists anyway.$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('matt21811', 'Y')ou do seem to have trouble recognising my sarcasmNot really; you were trying to make a point in your sarcasm, something that you failed in.$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('matt21811', 'A')lso, If the example of a letter courier isnt a counter example then I dont know what is.Exactly.$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('matt21811', 'I') could reduce my petrol consumtion to 20% of what I use at the moment with a little change to my life style and no change to economic output.Then do so and report back within a year. Or does "little change" mean more than you are prepared to make? In which case, that is precisely Monte's point.$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('matt21811', 'T')he idea that a positive energy project can't out bid a non positive activity for available energy resources in a market where energy prices are high but energy is still readily available is proposterous.Do you mean positive economic activity? Well, you haven't given us a good example of non-positive economic activity, so this remains just an opinion.
by MonteQuest » Wed 14 Jun 2006, 12:59:49
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Comp_Lex', 'M')onteQuest,
what will happen with the energy that is availabe postPO?
Edit:
This question is too stupid. Which sectors are going to take away all the enery?
Remember, the premise here is a fairly rapid decline in oil production within a few years, not decades, creating a competition for available energy. If it is slow, (say 2% or less) we will see a slow decline in the standard of living and a shift in energy use priorities.
No one knows what the rate of decline will be.
The rich will outbid the poor for available supplies of energy and conservation methods. Unemployment will increase. People will lose their homes. There will be a major transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class to the rich, much like what took place in the 1930's. Stagflation will occur where you have an inability to grow the economy in the face of rising inflation and interest rates driven by a declining dollar or a rise in energy prices. And then the cycle repeats.
If the government steps in and pushes the free market aside, then energy priorities will be food, utilities, and government functions.
Depending upon who is in the White House, war footing support or a crash renewable energy program. Or both.
A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
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by MonteQuest » Mon 03 Jul 2006, 12:49:19
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('captain_planet', ' ') I can see us building nuclear power plant, solar, wind, hydro plants with no oil. Our society is powered by humans not oil, why would a nuclear, solar, wind, hydro plant need oil?
To even ask such a question speaks volumes about you don't yet grasp. Please spend some time reading the forum.
The title of this thread is "Energy" and the Mother of Invention.
A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
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by captain_planet » Mon 03 Jul 2006, 15:52:08
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TonyPrep', 'T')here is no alternative to oil for the amount of energy it contains and in the volumes we consume it.
If there was no oil then the volumes we would consume it is zero. Alternative energy supply will not meet the current oil energy demand, forcing us to demand less. If we was able to create 2 million barrels of ethanol a day that is 84 gallons of ethanol per 300 people in America or .28 gallon per person. A scooter that can get 70mile per gallon can achieve 19.6 miles from .28 gallon. Scooters are the most effiecient liquid fuel device I can think of, but bicycles are even more effiecient. So the alternative will not replace the volumes we consume it, but instead alternatives will power our basic needs.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', 'T')o even ask such a question speaks volumes about you don't yet grasp. Please spend some time reading the forum.
The title of this thread is "Energy" and the Mother of Invention.
Although I am new to this forum, I am not new to this topic. You are a doomist, I am not. It is not that I don't grasp what you are saying, it is more like I don't agree with what you say. Again I would like to ask why does nuclear, solar, hydro, wind need oil? Millions of unemployed workers will build these alternatives. Maybe you doomist are the ones that don't grasp what humans are capable of in the past, present, and future.
I don't know if any of you have heard of a game called civilization, but the 4th version of this game is currently out. Oil is not discovered in the game until late, you doomist have to grasp the idea that oil is not the end of civilization.
Last edited by
captain_planet on Mon 03 Jul 2006, 17:58:24, edited 1 time in total.
by rwwff » Mon 03 Jul 2006, 15:54:57
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('captain_planet', ' ')I can see us building nuclear power plant, solar, wind, hydro plants with no oil. Our society is powered by humans not oil, why would a nuclear, solar, wind, hydro plant need oil?
To even ask such a question speaks volumes about you don't yet grasp. Please spend some time reading the forum.
The title of this thread is "Energy" and the Mother of Invention.
Just to save him some time, I'm definately pro-nuclear, and think we should build as many of them as we can, as fast as we can, regardless of cost, pollution, or lost EROEI.
But the idea that they realisticly could be built without using oil is silly. Fortunately, the US does produce enough oil to make these things happen; but it will, in the process strip half the population of their comfortable standard of living. Even then, its still worth it. Just having enough power to run an efficient chest freezer and a window fan or two may be seen as luxuries in the future; and building nuke plants now will insure the grid is substantial enough and stable enough to provide at least that much power to Americans through the 21'st century. It may even provide enough power to aide in getting enough solar and wind deployed to where we can all have a chest freezer and a window fan in the 22'nd century.
But this thread makes an important point, unless we get fabulously lucky, the time of serious innovation is drawing to a close; if something's going to happen, it needs to happen in the next decade or two. Personally, I wouldn't bet on it.
by MonteQuest » Mon 03 Jul 2006, 16:27:03
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('captain_planet', ' ')Although I am new to this forum, I am not new to this topic. You are a doomist, I am not. It is not that I don't grasp what you are saying, it is more like I don't agree with what you say.
You don't agree that it takes energy to bring inventions to fruition? Energy that may not be available?
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')gain I would like to ask why does nuclear, solar, hydro, wind need oil? Millions of unemployed workers will build these alternatives.
Using what source of energy? Their bare hands? Taking centuries to construct? Who will pay their wages? When will this start? Did you not read what has been written already in this thread?
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') don't know if any of you have heard of a game called civilization, but the 4th version of this game is currently out. Oil is not discovered in the game until late, you doomist have to grasp the idea that oil is not the end of civilization.
I am not a doomer, but a realist. I don't deal in ideology, but what the environment and physics dictates that is possible to do.
I have not said that the peaking of oil is the end of civilization, but it is the end of civilization as we have come to expect and demand. That is a given.
As to oil coming late to civilization, please read:
The Freedom to Breed$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Montequest', 'A')fter 10,000 years with no significant sustained population growth, the world population grew from about 1 billion in 1850 to 2 billion by 1930, 3 billion by 1960, 4 billion by 1974, 5 billion by the late 1980's, and 6.4 billion in 2005, changing the ecology of the entire planet in less than 200 years. And without the advent of fossil fuels, these populations
could not have been sustained, and would have gone the way of Malthus.
A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
by MonteQuest » Mon 03 Jul 2006, 16:38:48
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rwwff', ' ')But this thread makes an important point, unless we get fabulously lucky, the time of serious innovation is drawing to a close; if something's going to happen, it needs to happen in the next decade or two. Personally, I wouldn't bet on it.
Precisely. And if peak oil is at hand, it is already too late. What would it take to get people to live in third-world conditions while we build nuclear plants and wind farms that won't produce any power for years?
Personally, if it comes to that, nothing will get built. People will demand the availabile energy be used to meet current basic needs.
A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
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MonteQuest
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by rwwff » Mon 03 Jul 2006, 17:04:41
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rwwff', ' ')But this thread makes an important point, unless we get fabulously lucky, the time of serious innovation is drawing to a close; if something's going to happen, it needs to happen in the next decade or two. Personally, I wouldn't bet on it.
Precisely. And if peak oil is at hand, it is already too late. What would it take to get people to live in third-world conditions while we build nuclear plants and wind farms that won't produce any power for years?
I don't think peak is the actual problem. The problem is figuring out at what point 50%+1 of the people get badly screwed by its effects. I tend to think that point starts to arrive when our internal consumption is forced down by price to 80% of current consumption levels; till then you get Jane Hairdresser selling me her F150 so she can go buy a scooter to get to work, after having realized that its been two years since she last put anything in the bed of that truck that needed to be in the bed of a truck. You get Joe Lawyer Expedition Driver parking the expedition, and buying a sexy new two seater BMW diesel that gets 50 mpg. (he'll say he bought it because its cool, in his heart he felt a twinge of fear, and responded appropriately) You get Bob Middleclass bailing on his house, and moving near his job to a 500 sq ft apartment. Those are all what I considere comfortable responses to the market. Uncomfortable occurs when you have to leave the AC off because its to expensive to feed. Badly Screwed happens when the grocery shelves seem a bit, um, boring, and a 25 pound bag of rice costs Joe Average a full day's wages.
Till that point, people will become more and more supportive of additional energy generation and production; but the inflection past that point could be *very* steep. Its that steep downslope that makes my support of building nukes now so intense. If you're willing to run them till they fail, and then bury them in place, nukes provide a very long term, stable baseline of power, giving people a chance to come to their senses and at least try to do something reasonable.
OTOH, "reasonable" and "human" rarely go together.
