PeakOil is You
Vaclav Smil: Grand Transitions, How the Modern World WasMade
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Vaclav Smil: Grand Transitions, How the Modern World WasMade
by Tuike » Sun 01 Jun 2025, 12:44:02
This book reviews how economic growth suddenly begun to rise when it was always 0.01% until 18th century. Author thinks natural gas will rise in popularity thanks to LNG. Electriticy is greater transitiotor than fossil fuels. Car without any kind of electriticy is hard to use. Fossil fuels have great impact on GDP thanks to it's low price and high energy density. In 1896 Svante Arrhenius made calculations how carbon dioxide rises global mean temperature, when set loose. Arrheius'es calculations are in line with modern computer models. With all that said, the author thinks repetive catastrophism whenever it's about natural resources or climate, it's frustrating and not very convincing. Later he adds that techno optimisim, where humanity reaches signularity and becomes demi gods are equally dumb. Author says if it would be possible to commercially utilize all fossil fuels, they would last 500 years. Sounds like alot. But it's not much when compared to overall history of mankind. If power use of fossil fuels had begun when Ivan the Terrible was at large, the world would have been sucked dry of fossil energy by now.
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Tuike - Tar Sands
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Re: Vaclav Smil: Grand Transitions, How the Modern World Was
by AgentR11 » Sun 01 Jun 2025, 13:14:26
I'm always drawn in by the odd timespans of humanity, homo sapiens being no more than 300k years old, and civilization less than 15k years, industrial civilization... 150 years or so. We have a "lot" of time left with fossil fuels, or fossil fuels will have only lasted a blink of an eye; depending on how it is looked at. Can we get off them in such a way that industry can survive post FF? Will the climate continue to permit global distribution of homo sapiens? I think about it from time to time, but... I'll die before anything is known. Frustrating.
Yes we are, as we are,
And so shall we remain,
Until the end.
And so shall we remain,
Until the end.
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Re: Vaclav Smil: Grand Transitions, How the Modern World Was
by theluckycountry » Fri 06 Jun 2025, 15:42:26
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AgentR11', 'C')an we get off them in such a way that industry can survive post FF? Will the climate continue to permit global distribution of homo sapiens? I think about it from time to time, but... I'll die before anything is known. Frustrating.
I see the decline already in the cheap houses we build, the cheap consumer products. The Cheap Chinese phenomena is as much about what people can afford based on the energy available to society as it is about Chinese greed. This gutting of the industrial economy accelerates because we aren't slowing our consumption, aside from the actual limits of Oil and Gas extraction. Every decade since the first gusher, we as a global civilization have consumed more and more oil in an exponential race to empty the fields. I can't remember the actual dates but it was around the 1950's that we were discovering less oil than we were consuming. That would have been a good time to reverse course, but we plowed ahead and consumed more and more at a faster rate. India and China came on board in a big way 25 years ago and that quickly brought us to the peak.
You don't need oil field stats to work this out, in fact they are misleading, even the best data. They don't take into account all the escalating downstream costs nor the actual energy costs to extract the oil and gas itself. The shale/tight oil/gas is a good example of this. The fields couldn't exist without massive ongoing capital infusions and vast volumes of oil taken from other productive uses to make them viable. No you don't need to look at any of that. Just look at your civilization and it's infrastructure. All through the early and mid 20th century our nations built fantastic road networks with bridges and power networks linking every home. Now all that and much more is crumbling around our ears.
We can tend to focus on mobile phone technology and the internet as proof we are moving forward industrially but the cost of all that is insignificant compared to the cost of say rebuilding the road network back to the standard it was in 1970. We could never afford that now, the oil we used to build it has a much lower return on investment now. The return has gone from 100:1 to around 12:1 and that's too low to build like we did. It will keep dropping too of course, and with it the quality of our industrial society. Some sectors are still quality and still growing, like earth moving and the personal automobile, but we have robbed Peter to pay Paul by skimping on those other networks listed above.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')ith all that said, the author thinks repetitive catastrophism whenever it's about natural resources or climate, it's frustrating and not very convincing. Later he adds that techno optimism, where humanity reaches singularity and becomes demi gods are equally dumb.
It's easy to miss the forest for the trees, especially when you live an affluent life in an affluent part of town. Catastrophism, or the utter collapse of advanced societies, is not a theory but a proven fact. We have dozens of examples all recorded in stone and vellum. It's a case of when, not if. The two differences this time are that the advanced society is actually global, and that it was built entirely on Oil. It's quite easy to project its collapse, easier probably than the earlier ones which the doomsayers back then based on dwindling food and slave inputs. Energy in other words. That's what you need to build and maintain an advanced society, abundant cheap energy.
We're 17 years past the peak now and the 3rd World is going hungry and dark. We'll be next, we're well on the way in fact.
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Re: Vaclav Smil: Grand Transitions, How the Modern World Was
by theluckycountry » Fri 06 Jun 2025, 15:47:19
Feds Say California Bullet Train Has 'No Viable Path', Threaten To Pull $4 Billion
The US was a bit late to the Game as far as these go. They blew their wad before the 1970's. Anyway, what's the point of building one line? When you update your infrastructure you expand it across the nation, like Japan and China have. Building one show pony is pointless.
The US was a bit late to the Game as far as these go. They blew their wad before the 1970's. Anyway, what's the point of building one line? When you update your infrastructure you expand it across the nation, like Japan and China have. Building one show pony is pointless.
We're 17 years past the peak now and the 3rd World is going hungry and dark. We'll be next, we're well on the way in fact.
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