[MrBill]

Personally, I would sooner read posts by two clever individuals that have obviously different opinions, and attack the same argument from different perspectives, than to have everyone agree on our own conventional peak oil wisdom as handed down to us by its founders and high priests of the movement.

There were or are some icons on peak oil dot com on the geological realities of peak oil that totally fall on their faces when it comes to the economics of post peak oil resource depletion. Mostly because they do not have a very good grasp of economics and finance in the first place.

I assume 'endless growth' to mean that 'we have to work for our daily bread'. If I could keep getting paid for work I did years ago, and use my free time for non-productive hobbies, then what would I be? A retired Baby Boomer on a pension? ; - )

But seriously, if we live and depend on nature - or inputs from nature - then our endless growth has to be ultimately sustainable. As anything that is unsustainable must by definition eventually come to an end.

So endless growth is possible. That is the same land under agricultural production for over a 1000+ years by multiple generations like in parts of Europe. Or well-managed forests. Your so-called return on investment is your surplus production that can then be spent or re-invested.

But not unsustainable growth in excess of our ability to regenerate that land or harvesting faster than the trees can re-grow. That would be unsustainable. Eventually your ROI would become negative.

Just like we have long given up on slash and burn agriculture because we found it ultimately unsustainable for a growing population's needs. But that was not the end of agriculture or forestry. Or profits (ROI) generated from agriculture and forestry.

When you remove petroleum from your current energy mix then if there is no sustitute your total energy will decline. Naturally. If you do not then rationalize the economy in-line with your new energy supply mix then the size of the remaining economy must also shrink. But it does not mean that the total economy disappears. Or that a new one will not emerge that is eventually in equilibrium with your new energy mix including those energy alternatives that become economically viable now that petroleum has been removed completely from your energy mix.

Your new energy mix may be more expensive in real terms and less efficient than the petroluem based economy it replaced. There is no economic law that states this cannot happen. If so, then living standards, as currently measured, may have to fall to that new equilibrium or new reality.

But as petroleum disappears from your current energy mix it makes all remaining energy in that mix economically more valuable. At least until new technology is able to find better substitutes than currently exist, or are currently uneconomical, so they have not been properly researched and exploited due to a lack of immediate demand.

I am not half as worried about the economics of resource depletion per se as I am really worried about disruptive external events - such as resource wars and rioting that destroys needed infrastructure - as a wholly human reaction to those falling living standards and the transition to a new reality that will surely create geographic winners and losers. Or perhaps stability and instability as I do not expect many winners to thrive and others struggle to survive.

[Duende]

LoneSnark wrote:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')ut stop making up myths about "our total and utter dependence upon finite natural resources" when there is no dependence. We are not 'addicted' as as some politician once said.

[MrBill]

Duende wrote:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'Y')es, I agree with all of this - I really do. I think the disconnect is coming from my misunderstanding of how economic principles such as supply and demand (which are commonsensical) are intertwined with the purely quantitative metrics of "progress" that economists rely on, such as GDP (which I believe to be grossly shortsighted and narrowminded).

[LoneSnark]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')n North America, we are dependent on it primarily as transportation fuel

[yeahbut]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Duende', '[')b]LoneSnark wrote:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')e would still have a technological civilization if there had never been any oil to discover.

[Duende]

Lonesnark wrote:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')ut to say we are dependent upon 'oil' is to skip a crucial question: is oil the only way to fuel these dependencies? The answer is no. Oil is just our current means of attaining our ends, but other means exist.

[UncoveringTruths]

Here is how the economic markets are fairing in the opening salvo of what is either Peak Oil or a precursor.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')all Street Falls Amid Economic Worries- AP
Wall Street fell but came off its lows Wednesday as investors searched for anything to placate their worries about the wilting mortgage market and the health of the overall economy.
Oil Hesitates on Drive to $100 a Barrel- AP $100 Oil Will Hit Gas and Airfares- CNNMoney.com Home Sales Declined in 47 States in 3Q- AP Economy Likely to Keep Slowing

[LoneSnark]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'L')oneSnark, are you as confident as you seem in your assertion? I'm not discounting alternatives, but you're gonna have to do better than just saying "other means exist." Show me something - anything - that's demonstrable and scalable.

[UncoveringTruths]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'E')asy. The tropical regions of this planet can be cleared and sugarcane planted in its place. Sugarcane is capable of an 8% solar to chemical conversion rate, four times that of corn, high enough to challenge solar voltaics. This sugar can then be fed to bacteria for producing Ethanol. Or, if LS9 Inc. finishes its genetic engineering work, the sugarcane can be fed to bacteria which turn it directly into gasoline.

[yeahbut]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('UncoveringTruths', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'E')asy. The tropical regions of this planet can be cleared and sugarcane planted in its place. Sugarcane is capable of an 8% solar to chemical conversion rate, four times that of corn, high enough to challenge solar voltaics. This sugar can then be fed to bacteria for producing Ethanol. Or, if LS9 Inc. finishes its genetic engineering work, the sugarcane can be fed to bacteria which turn it directly into gasoline.

[LoneSnark]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')'m sorry this is ridiculous!

[TheDude]

yeahbut - there's a fiction genre built around technological progress that doesn't include oil, called steampunk. Might be up your alley.

Some TOD discussions of LS9: link, link. Heavily dismissive; second one casts doubts on the people involved too. Might be of interest.

Innumerable discussions of sugarcane ethanol, PHEVs, etc. there and here if you want more to chew on. Not the primary focus of this thread of course but scalability is definitely an issue. Brazil supplying 85 mbd out of sugar would take up a lot of land to say the least; and the most dire external factor we face is global warming, which won't be mitigated by cutting down the rest of the Amazon rain forests.

[Gandalf_the_White]

Why do we need sugar cane when we have ethanol? Did I miss something?

[MrBill]

I love the discussion. It brought this thread back from the dead. But I could do with less personal invective. We are here to debate not slur. Thanks.

I think it is clear to most posters here that we do not have a readily available substitute to power our existing infrastructure as it is now being run without petroleum.

However, there are also many people who believe that our present economic system is in any case unsustainable due to the demands it currently places on our environment.

Whatever is unsustainable must end eventually. Perhaps that is a good thing for society in the run long. We can in any case strive to waste less without forfeiting our current very high standard of living as, let us say, measured by the UN Human Development Index, and not by the number of cars in our pots and chickens in our driveways.

That is not wealth, but conspicuous consumption. I am not going to tell anyone to power down, but I certainly do not have a problem if the economics of more expensive or scarce energy forces them to either.

It does seem to me that technological innovation is a push-pull dilemma. We have not fully explored the limits of alternative sources of energy, yet, because so far our rudimentary attempts have proven uneconomical in our current energy mix.

For all I know cellulosic ethanol using bio-mass may become far more efficient than current methods used to produce ethanol. This is both a source of food and fodder. So it really would represent an increase in productivity. Will it be enough? Enough for what? To run a system that many agree is unsustainable in the first place? Or enough to mitigate the transition to a new equilibrium without all that nasty rapid die-off stuff?

I certainly do not know, but Africa, for example, is a very big place for one. And secondly their development problems seem to be largely due to bureacracy, incompetence and corruption, and not due to some inherent lack of resources. They could make a large economic contribution to the world's fuel needs, and help themselves to economically develop, if the science of cellulosic ethanol is improved substantially. That is just one what if scenario. It may never come to pass. But we certainly will not know if we do not try.

I know for a fact that I can heat and light the house on our farm using far less natural gas or electric than we currently use. Some of those efficiency gains require upfront investments. When energy prices were low they did not seem worth it. But now the economics are changing. Geo-thermal being the most expensive technology at the moment, but the one with the highest payback over the life of the house as we already have hot water heating throughout.

UPDATE: on geothermal
Whiskey and Gunpowder Geothermal Energy Report

The house is already well-insulated, but it can none the less be improved. If worse comes to worse I will stack strawbales around the exterior and then plaster the outside walls. Especially on the north side. A good friend and neighbor of mine lives in a beautiful strawhouse that he built. Its warm and toasty. The building materials came out of his own fields. It isn't any hippy retreat, but a well-crafted home.

Pehaps a few naive examples, but the Internet was also a pipe dream once upon a time as well as everything else we have managed not just to invent, but to commercially develop and distribute on a global scale.

That is not to say that we, collectively, do not face very serious economic challenges. In some case we are still fighting ethnic wars and conflicts over ideology that make little sense. Never mind the resource wars that may happen. So we are really not even focussed on the problems ahead of us. But the sooner we get started the better. The alternative to the future is not much better.

UPDATE: climate change and conflict
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'G')lobal warming is one of the most significant threats facing humankind, researchers warned, as they unveiled a study showing how climate changes in the past led to famine, wars and population declines.

The world's growing population may be unable to adequately adapt to ecological changes brought about by the expected rise in global temperatures, scientists in China, Hong Kong, the United States and Britain wrote in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[LoneSnark]

Finally, someone that is not a budding hitler or stalin eager to dictate all our lives by whatever means necessary.

[yeahbut]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('LoneSnark', 'F')inally, someone that is not a budding hitler or stalin eager to dictate all our lives by whatever means necessary.

[LoneSnark]

You are absolutely right. That is a forum rule. But in my own defense, Duende was suggesting he would dictate how the rest of us would be allowed to live under his rule. I guess I should have just stuck to explaining how I would raise up an army against him. Thanks for the correction

[TamaraC]

All of the above wasn't a choice?

We live very close to the edge of our income, (and no, we don't buy extras) so a rise in gas prices hits us pretty hard. Fortunately, we can reduce our gas consumption by not going anywhere. My job requires me to drive right now, but the cost calculus will make buying a bike attractive soon. I think I can make it to work in a timely manner reasonably safely on a bike.

We're actually trying to move away from the DC area (heck, who isn't) and the extreme frugality we're practicing right now is helping us to save money to facilitate moving out of here.

Tamara

[Duende]

LoneSnark wrote:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he farmers will see the profit opportunity and if they can supply sugar reliably (and thus sustainably) they will. If they cannot then someone else will.

[LoneSnark]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'P')lease consider the scale necessary to accomplish this. Then consider the environmental impacts of monocropping such a large, ecologically sensitive area.