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#Post#: 312--------------------------------------------------
Re: Climate Doom
By: K-Dog Date: May 14, 2021, 5:04 am
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[quote author=John of Wallan link=topic=14.msg301#msg301
date=1620934906]
What ?
This forum sensors my posts?
****
****
Bastard
There goes half my vocabulary.
Pricks!
JOW
[/quote]
I know it sucks.
#Post#: 315--------------------------------------------------
Re: Climate Doom
By: John of Wallan Date: May 16, 2021, 2:35 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Energy decline is a big short term problem. Its the reason we
will visit Little House on the Prairie on the way to Mad Max.
Quiote good articles on this site.
JOW
Link:
HTML https://ourfiniteworld.com/
Text:
How the World’s Energy Problem Has Been Hidden
Posted on May 4, 2021 by Gail Tverberg
We live in a world where words are very carefully chosen.
Companies hire public relations firms to give just the right
“spin” to what they are saying. Politicians make statements
which suggest that everything is going well. Newspapers would
like their advertisers to be happy; they certainly won’t suggest
that the automobile you purchase today may be of no use to you
in five years.
I believe that what has happened in recent years is that the
“truth” has become very dark. We live in a finite world; we are
rapidly approaching limits of many kinds. For example, there is
not enough fresh water for everyone, including agriculture and
businesses. This inadequate water supply is now tipping over
into inadequate food supply in quite a few places because
irrigation requires fresh water. This problem is, in a sense, an
energy problem, because adding more irrigation requires more
energy supplies used for digging deeper wells or making
desalination plants. We are reaching energy scarcity issues not
too different from those of World War I, World War II and the
Depression Era between the wars.
We now live in a strange world filled with half-truths, not too
different from the world of the 1930s. US newspapers leave out
the many stories that could be written about rising food
insecurity around the world, and even in the US. We see more
reports of conflicts among countries and increasing gaps between
the rich and the poor, but no one explains that such changes are
to be expected when energy consumption per capita starts falling
too low.
The majority of people seem to believe that all of these
problems can be fixed simply by increasingly taxing the rich and
using the proceeds to help the poor. They also believe that the
biggest problem we are facing is climate change. Very few are
even aware of the food scarcity problems occurring in many parts
of the world already.
Our political leaders started down the wrong path long ago, when
they chose to rely on economists rather than physicists. The
economists created the fiction that the economy could expand
endlessly, even with falling energy supplies. The physicists
understood that the economy requires energy for growth, but
didn’t really understand the financial system, so they weren’t
in a position to explain which parts of economic theory were
incorrect. Even as the true story becomes increasingly clear,
politicians stick to their belief that our only energy problem
is the possibility of using too much fossil fuel, with the
result of rising world temperatures and disrupted weather
patterns. This can be interpreted as a relatively distant
problem that can be corrected over a fairly long future period.
In this post, I will explain why it appears to me that, right
now, we are dealing with an energy problem as severe as that
which seems to have led to World War I, World War II, and the
Great Depression. We really need a solution to our energy
problems right now, not in the year 2050 or 2100. Scientists
modeled the wrong problem: a fairly distant energy problem which
would be associated with high energy prices. The real issue is a
very close-at-hand energy shortage problem, associated with
relatively low energy prices. It should not be surprising that
the solutions scientists have found are mostly absurd, given the
true nature of the problem we are facing.
[1] There is a great deal of confusion with respect to which
energy problem we are dealing with. Are we dealing with a
near-at-hand problem featuring inadequate prices for producers
or a more distant problem featuring high prices for consumers?
It makes a huge difference in finding a solution, if any.
Business leaders would like us to believe that the problem to be
concerned with is a fairly distant one: climate change. In fact,
this is the problem most scientists are working on. There is a
common misbelief that fossil fuel prices will jump to high
levels if they are in short supply. These high prices will allow
the extraction of a huge amount of coal, oil and natural gas
from the ground. The rising prices will also allow high-priced
alternatives to become competitive. Thus, it makes sense to
start down the long road of trying to substitute “renewables”
for fossil fuels.
If business leaders had stopped to look at the history of coal
depletion, they would have discovered that expecting high prices
when energy limits are encountered is incorrect. The issue that
really happens is a wage problem: too many workers discover that
their wages are too low. Indirectly, these low-wage workers need
to cut back on purchases of goods of many types, including coal
to heat workers’ homes. This loss of purchasing power tends to
hold coal prices down to a level that is too low for producers.
We can see this situation if we look at the historical problems
with coal depletion in the UK and in Germany.
Coal played an outsized role in the time leading up to, and
including, World War II.
Figure 1. Figure by author describing peak coal timing.
History shows that as early coal mines became depleted, the
number of hours of labor required to extract a given amount of
coal tended to rise significantly. This happened because deeper
mines were needed, or mines were needed in areas where there
were only thin coal seams. The problem owners of mines
experienced was that coal prices did not rise enough to cover
their higher labor costs, related to depletion. The issue was
really that prices fell too low for coal producers.
Owners of mines found that they needed to cut the wages of
miners. This led to strikes and lower coal production.
Indirectly, other coal-using industries, such as iron production
and bread baking, were adversely affected, leading these
industries to cut jobs and wages, as well. In a sense, the big
issue was growing wage disparity, because many higher-wage
workers and property owners were not affected.
Today, the issue we see is very similar, especially when we look
at wages worldwide, because markets are now worldwide. Many
workers around the world have very low wages, or no wages at
all. As a result, the number of workers worldwide who can afford
to purchase goods that require large amounts of oil and coal
products for their manufacture and operation, such as vehicles,
tends to fall. For example, peak sales of private passenger
automobile, worldwide, occurred in 2017. With fewer auto sales
(as well as fewer sales of other high-priced goods), it is
difficult to keep oil and coal prices high enough for producers.
This is very similar to the problems of the 1914 to 1945 era.
Everything that I can see indicates that we are now reaching a
time that is parallel to the period between 1914 and 1945.
Conflict is one of the major things that a person would expect
because each country wants to protect its jobs. Each country
also wants to add new jobs that pay well.
In a period parallel to the 1914 to 1945 period, we can also
expect pandemics. This happens because the many poor people
often cannot afford adequate diets, making them more susceptible
to diseases that are easily transmitted. In the Spanish Flu
epidemic of 1918-1919, more than 50 million people worldwide
died. The equivalent number with today’s world population would
be about 260 million. This hugely dwarfs the 3.2 million
COVID-19 deaths around the world that we have experienced to
date.
[2] If we look at growth in energy supply, relative to the
growth in population, precisely the same type of “squeeze” is
occurring now as was occurring in the 1914 to 1945 period. This
squeeze particularly affects coal and oil supplies.
Figure 2. The sum of red and blue areas on the chart represent
average annual world energy consumption growth by 10-year
periods. Blue areas represent average annual population growth
percentages during these 10-year periods. The red area is
determined by subtraction. It represents the amount of energy
consumption growth that is “left over” for growth in people’s
standards of living. Chart by Gail Tverberg using energy data
from Vaclav Smil’s estimates shown in Energy Transitions:
History, Requirements and Prospects, together with BP
Statistical Data for 1965 and subsequent years.
The chart above is somewhat complex. It looks at how quickly
energy consumption has been growing historically, over ten-year
periods (sum of red and blue areas). This amount is divided into
two parts. The blue area shows how much of this growth in energy
consumption was required to provide food, housing and
transportation to the growing world population, based on the
standards at that time. The red area shows how much growth in
energy consumption was “left over” for growth in the standard of
living, such as better roads, more vehicles, and nicer homes.
Note that GDP growth is not shown in the chart. It likely
corresponds fairly closely to total energy consumption growth.
Figure 3, below, shows energy consumption by type of fuel
between 1820 and 2010. From this, it is clear that the world’s
energy consumption was tiny back in 1820, when most of the
world’s energy came from burned biomass. Even at that time,
there was a huge problem with deforestation.
Figure 3. World Energy Consumption by Source, based on Vaclav
Smil estimates from Energy Transitions: History, Requirements
and Prospects and together with BP’s Statistical Review of World
Energy data for 1965 and subsequent years. (Wind and solar are
included with biofuels.)
Clearly, the addition of coal, starting shortly after 1820,
allowed huge changes in the world economy. But by 1910, this
growth in coal consumption was flattening out, leading quite
possibly to the problems of the 1914-1945 era. The growth in oil
consumption after World War II allowed the world economy to
recover. Natural gas, hydroelectric and nuclear have been added
in recent years, as well, but the amounts have been less
significant than those of coal and oil.
We can see how coal and oil have dominated growth in energy
supplies in other ways, as well. This is a chart of energy
supplies, with a projection of expected energy supplies through
2021 based on estimates of the IEA’s Global Energy Review 2021.
Figure 4. World energy consumption by fuel. Data through 2019
based on information from BP’s Statistical Review of World
Energy 2020. Amounts for 2020 and 2021 based on percentage
change estimates from IEA’s Global Energy Review 2021.
Oil supplies became a problem in the 1970s. There was briefly a
dip in the demand for oil supplies as the world switched from
burning oil to the use of other fuels in applications where this
could easily be done, such as producing electricity and heating
homes. Also, private passenger automobiles became smaller and
more fuel efficient. There has been a continued push for fuel
efficiency since then. In 2020, oil consumption was greatly
affected by the reduction in personal travel associated with the
COVID-19 epidemic.
Figure 4, above, shows that world coal consumption has been
close to flat since about 2012. This is also evident in Figure
5, below.
Figure 5. World coal production by part of the world, based on
data of BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy, 2020.
Figure 5 shows that coal production for the United States and
Europe has been declining for a very long time, since about
1988. Before China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in
2001, its coal production grew at a moderate pace. After joining
the WTO in 2001, China’s coal production grew very rapidly for
about 10 years. In about 2011, China’s coal production leveled
off, leading to the leveling of world coal production.
Figure 6 shows that recently, growth in the sum of oil and coal
consumption has been lagging total energy consumption.
Figure 6. Three-year average annual increase in oil and coal
consumption versus three-year average increase in total energy
consumption, based on a combination of BP data through 2019 from
BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy, 2010 and IEA’s 2020 and
2021 percentage change forecasts, from its Global Energy Review
2021.
We can see from Figure 6 that the only recent time when oil and
coal supplies grew faster than energy consumption in total was
during a brief period between 2002 and 2007. More recently, oil
and coal consumption has been increasingly lagging total energy
consumption. For both coal and oil, the problem has been that
low prices for producers cause producers to voluntarily drop out
of coal or oil production. The reason for this is two-fold: (1)
With less oil (or coal) production, perhaps prices might rise,
making production more profitable, and (2) Unprofitable oil (or
coal) production isn’t really satisfactory for producers.
When determining the required level of profitability for these
fuels, there is a need to include the tax revenue that
governments require in order to maintain adequate services. This
is especially the case with oil exporters, but it is also true
in general. Energy products, to be useful, produce an energy
surplus that can be used to benefit the rest of the economy. The
way that this energy surplus can be transferred to the rest of
the economy is by paying relatively high taxes. These taxes
allow changes that aid economic growth, such as improvements in
roads and schools.
If energy prices are chronically too low (so that an energy
product requires a subsidy, rather than paying taxes), this is a
sign that the energy product is most likely an energy “sink.”
Such a product acts in the direction of pulling the economy down
through ever-lower productivity.
[3] Governments have chosen to focus on preventing climate
change because, in theory, the changes that are needed to
prevent climate change seem to be the same ones needed to cover
the contingency of “running out.” The catch is that the
indicated changes don’t really work in the scarcity situation we
are already facing.
It turns out that the very fuels that we seem to be running out
of (coal and oil) are the very ones most associated with high
carbon dioxide emissions. Thus, focusing on climate change seems
to please everyone. Those who were concerned that we could keep
extracting fossil fuels for hundreds of years and, because of
this, completely ruin the climate, would be happy. Those who
were concerned about running out of fossil fuels would be happy,
as well. This is precisely the kind of solution that politicians
prefer.
The catch is that we used coal and oil first because, in a very
real sense, they are the “best” fuels for our needs. All of the
other fuels, even natural gas, are in many senses inferior.
Natural gas has the problem that it is very expensive to
transport and store. Also, methane, which makes up the majority
of natural gas, is itself a gas that contributes to global
warming. It tends to leak from pipelines and from ships
attempting to transport it. Thus, it is doubtful that it is much
better from a global warming perspective than coal or oil.
So-called renewable fuels tend to be very damaging to the
environment in ways other than CO2 emissions. This point is made
very well in the new book Bright Green Lies by Derrick Jensen,
Lierre Keith and Max Wilbert. It makes the point that renewable
fuels are not an attempt to save the environment. Instead, they
are trying to save our current industrial civilization using
approaches that tend to destroy the environment. Cutting down
forests, even if new trees are planted in their place, is
especially detrimental. Alice Friedemann, in her new book, Life
after Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative Fuels, points
out the high cost of these alternatives and their dependence on
fossil fuel energy.
We are right now in a huge scarcity situation which is starting
to cause conflicts of many kinds. Even if there were a way of
producing these types of alternative energy cheaply enough, they
are coming far too late and in far too small quantities to make
a difference. They also don’t match up with our current coal and
oil uses, adding a layer of time and expense for conversion that
needs to be included in any model.
[4] What we really have is a huge conflict problem due to
inadequate energy supplies for today’s world population. The
powers that be are trying to hide this problem by publishing
only their preferred version of the truth.
The situation that we are really facing is one that often goes
under the name of “collapse.” It is a problem that many
civilizations have faced in the past when a given population has
outgrown its resource base.
Needless to say, the issue of collapse is not a story any
politician wants to tell its citizens. Instead, we are told over
and over, “Everything is fine. Any energy problem will be
handled by the solutions scientists are finding.” The catch is
that scientists were not told the correct problem to solve. They
were told about a distant problem. To make the problem easier to
solve, high prices and subsidies seemed to be acceptable. The
problem they were asked to solve is very different from our real
energy problem today.
Many people think that taxing the rich and giving the proceeds
to the poor can solve our problem, but this doesn’t really solve
the problem for a couple of reasons. One of the issues is that
our scarcity issue is really a worldwide problem. Higher
taxation of the rich in a few rich countries does nothing for
the many problems of poor people in countries such as Lebanon,
Yemen, Venezuela and India. Furthermore, taking money from the
rich doesn’t really fix scarcity problems. Rich people don’t
really eat a vastly disproportionate amount of food or drink
more water, for example.
A detail that most of us don’t think about is that the military
of many different countries has been very much aware of the
potential conflict situation that is now occurring. They are
aware that a “hot war” would require huge use of fossil fuel
energy, so they have been trying to find alternative approaches.
One approach military groups have been working on is the use of
bioweapons of various kinds. In fact, some groups might even
contemplate starting a pandemic. Another approach that might be
used is computer viruses to disrupt the systems of other
countries.
Needless to say, the powers that be do not want the general
population to hear about issues of these kinds. We find
ourselves with narrower and narrower news reports that provide
only the version of the truth that politicians and news media
want us to read. Citizens who have developed the view, “All I
need to do to find out the truth is read my home town
newspaper,” are likely to encounter more and more surprises, as
conflict situations escalate.
#Post#: 317--------------------------------------------------
Re: Climate Doom
By: John of Wallan Date: May 16, 2021, 2:29 pm
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[quote author=BuddyJ link=topic=14.msg316#msg316
date=1621174676]
Gail doesn't do a particularly good job, in terms of
consistency, when it comes to energy topics. From her 2008 peak
oil call to claiming that high prices cause doom, and then low
prices cause doom, and then any prices cause doom, it just
doesn't hang together when taken in context of what she has been
saying for quite some time now.
She appears to be a weather vane, with all wind directions
blowing towards an energy collapse of some sort. Demand
collapse, supply collapse, price increase collapse, price
decrease collapse, the only outcome can be a collapse, and she
began calling it 13 years ago and we are all here, still
waiting. A weather vane. Price high? The wind is blowing to
collapse. Pipeline down? Wind is blowing to collapse.
[/quote]
Its simple really:
All the easy to get oil is gone. Thats why we have deep water
drilling and tar sands, fracking, shale oil etc...
Low oil prices send oil companies broke. See whats happening
with all the fracking miracle companies... Only thing that has
allowed them to last this long is crazy low interest rates
giving almost free money to sink into it. Its a blip on the way
down the peak oil bell curve.
High oil prices send economies into recession.
We have no substitute for oil. We have some small scale
alternatives which will allow us to survive at a much lower
energy consumption level, and most probably lower population.
JOW
#Post#: 318--------------------------------------------------
Re: Climate Doom
By: K-Dog Date: May 16, 2021, 5:06 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[spoiler][quote author=BuddyJ link=topic=14.msg316#msg316
date=1621174676]
Gail doesn't do a particularly good job, in terms of
consistency, when it comes to energy topics. From her 2008 peak
oil call to claiming that high prices cause doom, and then low
prices cause doom, and then any prices cause doom, it just
doesn't hang together when taken in context of what she has been
saying for quite some time now.
She appears to be a weather vane, with all wind directions
blowing towards an energy collapse of some sort. Demand
collapse, supply collapse, price increase collapse, price
decrease collapse, the only outcome can be a collapse, and she
began calling it 13 years ago and we are all here, still
waiting. A weather vane. Price high? The wind is blowing to
collapse. Pipeline down? Wind is blowing to collapse.
[/quote][/spoiler]
[quote]we are all here, still waiting[/quote]
Some of us with hardly a pot to **** in. In those 13 years
there have been two severe economic downturns. Go back a few
more years and there have been three crashes. Those who those
economic clusterfucks killed are not here to disagree with you.
Therefore you are right.
[img]
HTML https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2F474x%2F25%2Feb%2F7f%2F25eb7f5967fc95c272434d49b661cdb9.jpg&f=1&nofb=1[/img]
What remains is concentrated in fewer hands. Not to be confused
with:
[center][img]
HTML https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fpng-3.findicons.com%2Ffiles%2Ficons%2F1200%2Findiana_jones_and_the_last_crusade%2F256%2Ffalse_grail.png&f=1&nofb=1[/img]
GROWTH[/center]
#Post#: 319--------------------------------------------------
Re: Climate Doom
By: Phil Potts Date: May 16, 2021, 8:15 pm
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I can't fault her work here and its consistent with everything
else I've read from her
#Post#: 322--------------------------------------------------
Re: Climate Doom
By: John of Wallan Date: May 17, 2021, 3:32 am
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Energy Return on Energy Invested.
Tar sands are plentiful but deliver very low energy yield. Like
burning peat or shitty brown coal (Like we do) instead of black
coal or natural gas....
Watch this:
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOMWzjrRiBg
Best short and entertaining documentary I have seen which sums
it all up nicely.
JOW
#Post#: 323--------------------------------------------------
Re: Climate Doom
By: John of Wallan Date: May 17, 2021, 4:20 am
---------------------------------------------------------
First this:
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MawR-tA61dM
Followed by this;
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y75h8_QyOlg
JOW
#Post#: 325--------------------------------------------------
Re: Climate Doom
By: Digwe Must Date: May 17, 2021, 11:20 am
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JOW is correct. It's all about the EROEI. Fracking in the US
is only viable as long as a series of government subsidies and
Ponzi financing remain in place. I expect the government to
MANDATE fossil fuel production in this country when the next
economic crash sets in. As you all know nitrogen fertilizer is
made from gas.
The people perpetrating tar sands extraction should be jailed.
The damage will take many lifetimes to heal - if ever, and a
terrible EROEI.
I confess to having a bit of difficulty taking the Little House
On the Prairie thing seriously... I get it that it serves as a
metaphor or idealized vision of a simpler animal and human
powered society where everyone is clean, white, well-fed,
modestly dressed and where there is an abundance of shiny, well
trained equines ready to do the necessary work to feed you.
The basic missing ingredient for such a vision is the frontier.
Those humans who survive collapse will live in an age of
salvage. They will face completely different challenges. There
will be no vast expanse of prairie with topsoil 6 feet deep,
free for the taking (once those pesky natives and the bison are
removed). There are no virgin forests of old growth timber or
creeks thick with the redfish.
A practical note on animal power: There are 3.5 - 5 million
horses in the US today. (depending on which estimate you use)
How many are trained for work? I don't mean taking a saddle and
a rider - I mean work. The gestation period for horses is 11 -
12 months. The best estimate I can find for mules puts the
current count at under 30,000. In 1920 there were 25 million.
Even with a dramatically reduced human population you will still
face an immediate shortage of working animals.
There are about 10 million dairy cows in the US. Half of their
calves will be bulls. Fortunately, Holsteins are among the most
trainable cattle out there. An inexperienced handler can start
with small calves and within a year have a trained team capable
of doing useful work. As they mature, of course, they are
capable of doing immense amounts of critical work in
agriculture, forestry, construction, etc. Oxen have advantages
and disadvantages when compared to horses and mules. Until
white people spread past the Appalachians oxen were common among
settlers in the east. For that matter, many an acre was plowed
with the family cow. They are still found - and going strong -
in New England and the upper Midwest.
If there is a shift to animal power and a slow increase in the
working equine population there will be a need for farriers and
harness makers. This will take as long as it takes to build the
equine population. I'm aware of farriers around, but saddle and
harness makers are a rare breed.
One advantage of oxen is that if you have a team with a yoke and
a chain you can go logging or plowing. The necessary rig for
horses to do the same work is much more complex. I had a single
(huge ) ox and his rig was closer to that of a horse.
Gail T has been much closer to the real Peak Oil story than many
other folks in that camp.
The collapse is here. It may be a little off script, but it is
making an entrance stage right.
#Post#: 326--------------------------------------------------
Re: Climate Doom
By: K-Dog Date: May 17, 2021, 12:35 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=Digwe Must link=topic=14.msg325#msg325
date=1621268401]no vast expanse of prairie with topsoil 6 feet
deep[/quote]
Every time it gets plowed without new organic matter added,
topsoil is lost. I learned that last week 8)
#Post#: 327--------------------------------------------------
Re: Climate Doom
By: K-Dog Date: May 17, 2021, 12:50 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=John of Wallan link=topic=14.msg289#msg289
date=1620807860]
HTML https://projects.propublica.org/climate-migration/
Interesting article on expected climate refugees in North
America.....
JOW
[/quote]
Yes, Fascinating. The fact there is no energy supply to
accomplish migration on a large scale with is left out. As
always.
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