Luis - thank you for including me as co-author on this piece of work. I think I need to clarify for all that you have done 99% of this work that has taken many months to produce.
Many, many months ago now I did some data analysis and noticed that the per capita energy consumption from FF was rising. I also observed that gas and coal production may continue to rise for a number of years yet and on this basis concluded that Duncan's Olduvai theory failed the empirical test. Nate sent this to Duncan who was furious. I submitted the post for publication on TOD - but failing to sleep rose at about 3 am and withdrew the work. A year or so later we have this much more refined product from Luis. Richard Duncan's seminal work on this topic still stands - all we have done here is refine the time scale in light of new data and the benefit of time passing. Without VERY urgent action on building alternative energy sources (that exist - they just need to be built) and on energy efficiency Mankind will stroll back down the path towards Olduvai.
This work is an attempt to quantify what needs to be done to avoid this path. Whether or not it is within our capacity to achieve this both physically and behaviorally is open to debate. If we do not rise to the challenge the future is very bleak 2012 peak oil, 2018 peak FF energy.
Getting politicians, policy makers, leading academics and decision makers to grasp these issues has to be a major priority. The fact that this work is being conducted in the twilight world of The Oil Drum is really astounding. Although I am really encouraged by the number of senior academics who contribute to the work presented here. This twilight world will one day very soon be the mainstream.
I would like everyone to note the absolute importance that energy efficiency plays in the path away from Olduvai. Without that we are screwed - TOTALLY. Every action and policy we implement from now on must be based on the premise of energy efficiency - both consumption and production.
Hear hear! Nice work fellas. And Euan, when you say energy efficiency on the consumption side, I assume that means changing the conspicuous consumption paradigm, at least gradually, for if we get really efficient at producing profligate energy wasting toys, what have we done but buy a few extra years? We need it all - more oil and gas exploration, full investment into the highest energy gain/lowest environmental externality renewable sources (meaning there will be sources that should and shouldn't be accepted), smart building and efficiency improvements, and a gradual change away from consipicuous consumption as our cultural carrot. It can be done - but we can't sit on our arses until Olduvai, or something like it, wakes us up.
I know the 'twilight zone' of theoildrum is making a difference, yet am discouraged by how vociferously we debunked corn ethanol for the last 18 months as a waste of time and resources given what we are facing, and still the government went pretty much full speed ahead with ethanol mandates as the major thrust of becoming energy independent. Perhaps in this situation, the US will have to take the lead from Europe, who, though in similar straights, seems to be taking energy descent more seriously.
I assume that means changing the conspicuous consumption paradigm
Yes, of course and no of course not. I think the efficiency of consumption maybe needs to be broken down into parts. Better insulation in homes, eating more vegetables, more efficient cars are all good things - consumption goes on whilst saving a lot of energy.
The next step would be persuading more people to share a home = less home building; to eat less food and to bicycle instead of drive. All good things as well involving less consumption.
Delivering the former efficiency gains I believe will be much easier than the latter consume less paradigm shift in attitudes. The problem is that hardly any of this is happening right now.
Luis' data on GDP per BOE I think is fascinating and quantifies what we already know. The USA along with Canada and surprisingly Germany and China need to get their acts together. There are likely two main messages in these data:
1. Manufacturing is an energy intensive way of generating GDP - so less manufacturing is good
2. The USA, Canada and Saudi Arabia simply piss away vast amounts of energy - and this will have to stop
"1. Manufacturing is an energy intensive way of generating GDP - so less manufacturing is good"
I'd strongly disagree with the blanket "less manufacturing is good".
Pehaps we should manufacture better quality more durable goods, what would stand for less manufacture, but not less wealth. Or pehaps we should manufacture more solar/wind/nuclear capcity to fill the gap, what would stand for more manufacturing. Or probably both.
Manufacturing may be more energy intensive than other wealth creating means, but we've developed no other way of generating the amount of wealth we have today.
"we've developed no other way of generating the amount of wealth we have today."
As a programmer I find fault with this statement.
As a programmer I find fault with the idea that you find fault with that statement. A simple logical path will lead you to manufacturing no matter what industry you "program" for. Let's start with the manufactured machinery you work upon shall we? Then try and find any service industry that isn't intimately linked to some form of manufacturing. Real-estate would be close to the only one, and even it requires the wealth generated through manufacturing to raise prices (and dare I say it population), as well as the results of manufacturing to produce houses and farm machinery etc etc to make the land worth buying in the first place.
Without the mass-production, specialisation-facilitating society we live in there would be no need for computers, much less programmers.
""we've developed no other way of generating the amount of wealth we have today. As a programmer I find fault with this statement." As a programmer I find fault with the idea that you find fault with that statement. A simple logical path will lead you to manufacturing no matter what industry you "program" for. "
He said manufacturing isn't the only source of wealth, you said that manufacturing is an essential base. Both are true.
He's saying that programming, for instance, isn't manufacturing, yet it is a valuable, productive thing to do. You'd agree, right?
I call the idea that manufacturing (or farming, etc) is the most important thing, and the only source of value, the "garbageman fallacy". In NYC, sanitation workers used to say that they were the most important workers of all, because the city couldn't run without them. We can see the flaw in that, I hope...
Programming cannot be done (for any useful purpose) by just thinking about it. It needs computers and power. Power needs power plants and transmission lines. Ultimately, increasing wealth (economic growth) requires more resources for making stuff or doing stuff.
Hey us programmers need to eat or at least drink beer :)
Last I looked although I work at home don't drive much etc I still use a lot of resources.
Its just that programmers and support could be made pretty green with some work.
Also if programming itself would start advancing again then the number of programmers needed at any one given time could be fairly static or decline quite a bit overtime.
"Last I looked although I work at home don't drive much etc I still use a lot of resources."
That's an interesting question - how does one factor in people's consumption into their work?
My point is that the work itself doesn't require significant energy or materials - 10 cents of electricity per day, and $2/day for computer capital costs (a $1,500 laptop every 3 years).
Of course it depends on the life style but providing fore employees is a fairly static cost regardless of what they do. A large amount of middle class Americans are engaged in paper pushing because others are engaged in paper pushing.
I can see it in programming you have the huge convoluted mess that at its center is caused by a simple problem say one piece of information was not recorded or shared. Or the company has some stupid rule that wastes incredible amounts of time.
From what I've seen most productivity games are a myth. Things are outsourced and look better just because you have a simpler accounting schema. Real productivity is in the toilet. And trust me the overseas worker working for slave wages is not the most motivated person on the planet. All this is hidden in bad business loans in china and pumping debt in the US.
As with anything the shorter the chain of responsibility and the more a person is correctly rewarded for success or failure the better the business. Incorrect accounting practices have managed to hide this basic truth of business.
This rolls right back into energy/resource accounting to determine real profitability and gdp. True growth is increased ownership and no debt.
This give people the freedom to explore innovative business ventures.
Speculation on borrowed money/energy/resources is the root of collapse from the personal level all the way up.
"Programming cannot be done (for any useful purpose) by just thinking about it. It needs computers and power. "
Yes, but it needs very, very little compared to manufacturing. Think smelting, metal stamping, transportation of parts, assembly lines, transportation of finished products, etc. vs.....a laptop, using as little as 50 watts.
Without all that "smelting, metal stamping, transportation of parts, assembly lines, transportation of finished products, etc." there is no reason to have a computer. Computers are not an end in themeselves. They make it easier for people to do the "real" work of making things. Manufactured things are what drives any economy. Services, such as programming, make it easier to make those things and get them to where people can use them, but they aren't really required in the process.
I have been having this discussion with sofistek for months. He is trying to prove that growth per se is bad. I have argued that it depends on the growth. That intellectual capital is different. He seems to deny that services are a real part of the economy even though they are becoming more and more dominant. This whole growth is bad topic is important but not very condusive to rational discussion. It is such an article of faith with that faction.
This whole growth is bad topic is important but not very condusive to rational discussion. It is such an article of faith with that faction.
This isn't logical. It's important, but not useful? Logical impossibility, no? Growth is the very core of the problem you are discussing. If there were no growth, there would essentially be no problem. You'd have a great deal more time to find solutions. Hell, to go back further, neither you nor I would exist. No, we must discuss growth in order to find solutions that are sustainable. By definition, a solution that is sustainable within limits is not sustainable.
If you are going to redesign civilization as we know it, you'd darned sure better pay attention to the future.
Sterling, I do not deny that services are a real part of the economy. I don't think you were saying that, anyway, so please don't misrepresent my position or the discussion we had. You were trying to say that parts of the economy that were represented by intellectual capital can grow without requiring more resources. I was pointing out that there is no real value in intellectual capital unless it is applied in some way. That application uses resources and so even that part of the economy would require more resources, if it was to grow in any meaningful way. I was also saying that parts of the economy don't represent the whole economy so, even if you could find part of the economy that can grow without using more resources, it would not the the same as sustainable economic growth overall.
You now try to portray services as the saviour that can allow the economy to grow indefinitely. What services are you talking about? Which ones use no energy or resources in their set up or delivery?
Why is it so hard to let go of economic growth? Growth in the use of resources cannot be sustained. It is not really hard to understand but it sure is hard to accept.
Because your formulation is too simplistic to be useful. Because you lump all kinds of economic growth together, kinds that are physical resource intensive and kinds that are not, you are targeting the wrong issue.
One can easily imagine a situation where you have strong economic growth but declining resource utilization, which is probably what would be best for the world. Let say I write some software that allows people to work at home two days a week and let's say people love it and are willing to pay more for it than they save in gas, etc. You rule that out it because it increases the economic. It is economic growth.
As long as we have people in the world, they have to do something. If the value of what they do increases in value, you have economic growth. Do you just want people to do nothing? They cannot think, write music and imagine?
Sustainablity is another too simplistic concept but I have to go out now. I hope to get back to that later.
Too simplistic? What matters to today's societies is economic growth as a whole. What does it matter that some parts of the economy are less resource intensive than others, if the other parts of the economy are needed for our survival and well-being, or at least perceived as being so? If we eliminate all parts of the economy except those where thought alone is necessary, do you think people would be happy with that?
I don't rule out efficiency gains but you seem to think that if we can be realise economic growth for some short period without more resource use, that means that economic growth can continue indefinitely without using more resources. If we can improve efficiency, that's great, but what is the long term sustainability plan? Without that, we would just be delaying an inevitable collapse.
However, even if you can imagine a fabulous future where no-one uses any more resources than they do now, and population is stable, do you think that would be a society that is remotely like what we have now?
Sustainability is certainly a simple concept but few people seem to realise what it means. Try reading Richard Heinberg's Five Axioms of Sustainability. But there is nothing simplistic about it; if a society is not sustainable, then it will end. Why is that so hard to understand?
Yes, but it matters if it would end before or after the earth is consumed by the sun.
The only level of consumption of a limited resource that is completely sustainable is 0. At current rates of consumption, it is not clear if fission fuel would run out before the Earth becomes unlivable for reasons that have nothing to do with people. So is that sustainable by any reasonable definition of the word? And if we increase the use of nuclear power and I am wrong and Uranium runs out in 5,000 to 10,000 years is that a problem if before that happens we harness fusion?
There is nothing magic about the level of how we currently value everything that people do (the world GDP). There is no reason to think that the current level of consumption of limited resource is OK and that a little more is impossible. It might be that the only way the world can survive is that we reduce our consumption of limited physical resources and that the only way we can do this is to increase the production of intellectual capital in figuring out how to do it. In other words, it might be that we count the value of everything that people do as rising (ie economic growth) but we reduce the things that impact the world in ways that threaten our survival.
Your idea that economic growth of any kind is bad puts you in the position of insisting that someone write a really shitty song instead of a really good one because the really good one would have too much economic value and therefore increase the economic value of everything too much (ie economic growth). Your fixation that the market value of everything that people do has to stay the same undermines the legitimate case that you are trying to make. We should limit the consumption of limited resources, including environmental quality, wild lands and other such intangibles. But economic growth is not a useful measure of how well or poorly we are treating the earth because it mixes high impact activities with low impact ones and people have to do something.
At current rates of consumption, it is not clear if fission fuel would run out before the Earth becomes unlivable for reasons that have nothing to do with people.
Of course it's not clear, but the reverse is also not clear. Unless one has certain beliefs.
And if we increase the use of nuclear power and I am wrong and Uranium runs out in 5,000 to 10,000 years is that a problem if before that happens we harness fusion?
That's a couple of "if"s in there. Which is part of my point.
There is no reason to think that the current level of consumption of limited resource is OK and that a little more is impossible.
Of course there are reasons. A good reason would be if the current level can be sustained for, let's say, several centuries without it causing problems, whilst a little more might not be sustained for a century. If we just assume that all of the resources we now consider vital are abundant enough and accessible enough to not worry about it for now, then that could turn out to be a fatal assumption.
In other words, it might be that we count the value of everything that people do as rising (ie economic growth) but we reduce the things that impact the world in ways that threaten our survival.
That sounds good. I can't see how that could happen without our society becoming very different from what we know today. Do you know if anyone has done any work on how this might play out?
Your idea that economic growth of any kind is bad puts you in the position of insisting that someone write a really shitty song instead of a really good one because the really good one would have too much economic value and therefore increase the economic value of everything too much (ie economic growth).
You're caught in the economic growth paradigm, with that analogy. Economic growth is bad because it uses increasing resources and, thus, is unsustainable. If we level out our use, as you suggest earlier, that would be a good starting point and it wouldn't be economic growth.
Your fixation that the market value of everything that people do has to stay the same undermines the legitimate case that you are trying to make.
Again, you are using the paradigm that we currently have. Why must everything have a "market value"? What has to, at least, stay the same is our level of resource consumption. Do you have any comments on the axioms of sustainability that I linked to earlier?
A good reason would be if the current level can be sustained for, let's say, several centuries without it causing problems, whilst a little more might not be sustained for a century
Like I said, there is nothing magic about the current rate of economic growth where the outlook would suddenly change, like in your example, if we increased it by say .1% per year.
I can't see how that could happen without our society becoming very different from what we know today.
So I am in favor of our society becoming different than it is today. Less resouce consumptive. More intellectual capital.
Why must everything have a "market value"?
You are the one who is obsessed with market value. The way you measure economic growth is to total up the market value of everything that people do in a year and compare it to the market value of the prior year. If it is greater, then you have “economic growth”. The reason that market value comes into play is that your measure is “economic” instead of “physical” or maybe “destructive”. That is my point.
What has to, at least, stay the same is our level of resource consumption.
OK then make that argument. Do not say economic growth has to stay the same. Say resource consumption has to say the same. Or limited resource consumption has to stay the same. I will debate that one with you too but at least there you are starting from a more defensible position.
I have never said that. Nor am I obsessed with market value. What I'd like is to achieve indefinite sustainability.
You appear to be claiming that economic growth (which people appear to need in order to have aspirations) can continue by only growing intellectual capital. I don't believe it, but that would be great because that increasing intellectual capital would never result in anything tangible.
Say resource consumption has to say the same.
Resource consumption must not exceed the renewal capacity of those resources. This is not the same as saying resource consumption must stay the same, though we will need to get to that point, at a lower rate of consumption for at least some resources. The five axioms described by Heinberg gives more details. That would be a good place to start from.
What I'd like is to achieve indefinite sustainability.
OK. I am with you for that with indefinately meaning a long time but not forever. I think we can achieve that by switching to a fission, wind and solar infrastructure and have contining economic growth as the economy shifts more to intellectual goods like arts, software and services. There are at least millions of years of fission fuel where the consumption rate is twenty times what it is now and fission supplies 60% of all energy. Well before that the world will almost certainly switch to fusion power, which would be sustainable at least through the time the Earth is consumed by the Sun.
For other limited resources we may have to have rising consumption until we can stabilize the world population since we know that development in the only thing that reliably stops population growth. At that point we will have to reduce consumption of scarce resources to maintain long term viability. But the world economy will continue to grow through changes to low physical resource consumption activities as noted above.
Sterling
Ha, ha, ha ,ha, cough, splutter..........
Verbal sewerage that's all you write!
You are one mentally deluded Richard Cranium.
I think Engineer-Poet would be the only person who would fall for your garbage, why don't you look him up, you can give each other some blog fellatio.
Well, there are some whose research shows uranium reserves may only sustain current fission for a few decades. Other fissionable fuel may be available for longer but, at least to some degree, it is wishful thinking that it will enable nuclear generation for centuries, never mind millions of years. That may turn out to be correct but it's a gamble.
Do you honestly think that the world can shift most of its economy to those things that use very little resources? Again, that would be wishful thinking, in my book. The only one of arts, software and services that uses few resources is arts (since anything to hand can be made into art). Software is not an end in itself and there are all sorts of services, with the meaningful ones either being resource hungry themselves (e.g. building services or freight services) or leading to the manufacture of resource-using goods (like houses). Manufacturing and agricultural industries will continue to be very large, especially as we are heading for billions more people.
Your hope that the consumption other limited resources can continue to rise until they don't need to is, again, wishful thinking. It seems that you hope that business as usual (more or less) can continue until nature takes its course, population stabilises and business no longer see profits as a reason to do business.
No, we are already unsustainable. That will become obvious not when we have consumed the entire solar system (which is an impossibility) but as soon as the supply of some vital resource can no longer meet the demand. There must be many resources that are vital to our societies, so the chances are quite good that scarcity will hit before too long.
The problem now is that growth itself is a goal. Economic growth for the sake of economic growth is a problem. Economic growth borne of need/survival is going to follow natural cycles. Slowing things down to a non-growth oriented paradigm will reduce the rate of use of resources. This should provide more time for development of technologies that aid this process.
Slowing things down to a non-growth oriented paradigm will reduce the rate of use of resources.
Only if the way you reduce economic growth slows down resource consumption. Since economic growth includes both high consumptive activities and low consumptive ones, it matters how you slow down growth. If you killed off all the low consumptive activities you could reduce overall economic growth while still increasing the use of limited physical resources.
People have to do something (unless you want to kill them all off). The economic level is just the market value of everything they do. It is possible to have an increasing market value of all that we do (economic growth) while at the same time that we reduce resource consumption. People just need to do more smart, creative, low resource consumptive things and less of the opposite.
The problem now is that growth itself is a goal. Economic growth for the sake of economic growth is a problem.
Precisely. Of course certain parts of the economy need to grow. We need growth in energy efficient housing, renewable energy, walkable/ bikeable urban spaces, public transportation, food production systems which preserve topsoil and recycle nutrients, etc. In purely physical terms the growth of this important, sustainable infrastructure could proceed much faster if we shrunk those parts of the economy which are wasteful and necessary (e.g. SUVs, jet skis, plasma screen televisions, etc). We could also free up production resources by putting emphasis on manufacturing long-lived repairable products and eliminating planned obsolescence. We need an economic system which can grow those parts of the economy which need to be grown, shrink those parts which need to shrunk, and maintain with maximum efficiency (i.e. without concern for sales volumes) those parts of the economy which only need maintenance. Instead we have a system of production in which every sector of the economy is striving to grow as fast a possible without any concern for long term consequences.
If it needs resources, then it needs resources. It's pointless wishing that resource use away or saying that it's tiny, compared with some other part of the economy. In any case, programming was just an example and it doesn't happen in isolation, it is done for a purpose and that other purpose may use more resources.
We just can't do stuff without using resources. The more stuff we do, and the more stuff we use, the more resources we use. The key is to figure out how to use resources sustainably and that can't be done with growth.
"If it needs resources, then it needs resources. It's pointless wishing that resource use away or saying that it's tiny, compared with some other part of the economy. "
Umm, no. If something takes very little resources, that's important. If a programmer/artist/writer/entertainer/medical researcher/doctor/poet/therapist/engineer/lawyer can do his/her work with only a laptop that lasts pretty much as long as you want it to, and can be powered by a $200 solar panel, that sounds pretty sustainable to me.
No it's not, because it is within the context of an unsustainable society. Programmers, medical researchers, doctors, engineers and lawyers don't do their work for no end. Artists, writers, poets and engineers do their work to be enjoyed by others, who can afford to enjoy them because of the rest of the economy. And all aspects of our society need to be taken as a whole. Even the aspects you mention add to resource use. Maybe if all parts of the economy could be as frugal in resource use, then our problems would be less. But that is wishful thinking and there is no reason to suppose that any pursuit, just because it is a low resource hog, can continue unchanged in a society that is suffering from being unsustainable as a whole.
There is a large tendency, even among the posters here, to treat aspects of the society in which they live as completely separate. Even the energy issue isn't the sum total of the problems we've accumulated by living unsustainably.
The next step would be persuading more people to share a home = less home building; to eat less food and to bicycle instead of drive. All good things as well involving less consumption.
Oh come on you guys. These kind of dramatic behavior changes aren't going to happen, no way. We didn't work so hard for our creature comforts just to give them all up voluntarily. If you think otherwise you haven't studied the human animal enough.
Even I am not going to share my home with someone or bicycle in the winter if I don't have to. I'll deforest the entire area for fire wood before I start sharing my living space.
We're screwed. It's written in our genome. Your time line is probably too optimistic too because declining oil production will lead to all kinds of cascading failures including declining coal and gas production.
Oh come on you guys. These kind of dramatic behavior changes aren't going to happen, no way. We didn't work so hard for our creature comforts just to give them all up voluntarily.
I think that SolarDude makes an excellent point, although perhaps a bit exaggerated for effect.
Middle class people in high occasionally share their houses to make the mortgage, but usually the sharing is done with some modification; i.e., putting together a bedroom/bath suite out of two bedrooms, or renovating a basement. People with less money will take in relatives, or share with a friend.
I would expect that many of today's mansions will become multiple unit dwellings, and that more townhomes and low-rise apartments may be built. However, this will require zoning changes that will come only when people are in pretty bad shape.
I would expect growth in bicycle traffic to occur first in places that are bike-friendly (have trails and vehicle drivers who are not out to massacre bike riders), but in many places, I would expect very small, possibly electric or hybrid, that do not go much more than 50 for around-town. Of course, there are car polling and ride sharing which were common in the '70s.
I think that things will move more gradually and less drastically at least for 10-20 here in the U.S. We have a lot of fat that can be cut in the form of discretionary spending and tolerable adaptation.
I think that giving up one's own dwelling, however small, and covered personal transportation, however small, will be some of the last things to go.
will be one of the last things that most people will do
Yes, but when ppl are screwed and understand that they turn to common sense on the ground. They double up, they share, they car-pool, they trade locally, don’t pay VAT, etc. To mention some hyper contemporary yet minor examples.
They finally do, all on their own, what they were sincerely advised to do 50, 60 years ago in some vague way by scientists, activists, while the pols trumpeted endless prosperity, growth, expansion, consumer Nirvana, domination though caring and humanitarianism, new colonialism, technotopia, human exceptionalism, with a good dose of war and hate to keep the ppl on board and chugging along.
So we are screwed but it is gonna take quite a while.
I also observed that gas and coal production may continue to rise for a number of years yet and on this basis concluded that Duncan's Olduvai theory failed the empirical test. Nate sent this to Duncan who was furious.
Could you expand on this? Why was Duncan furious? I have often seen this argument used to "debunk" the Olduvai theory and I have often wondered what Duncan's response was.
Most people don't enjoy viewing what they might construe as a refutation of their work. I'd hope, and expect, Euan's description of it as an update with better data is accurate and would smooth things with the originator of Olduvai.
Perhaps I am being presumptuous on all counts and should let Euan speak for himself.
Great work, guys.
Cheers
PS: I'll hopefully be riffing off this on my blog sometime soon. Let me know if there is any objection.
The original work I did was pretty incomplete and with a too short time horizon. Duncan has spent a huge amount of effort in quantifying future energy supplies and my initial analysis was admittedly unsound - but it never got published and has led on to this work.
The FF forecasting work presented here is all based on the work of others - so that part we are standing on the shoulders of giants. There is however a huge amount of work that Luis has done re-basing all systems to a common baseline and developing the population and GDP models and the various scenarios.
Duncan on the one hand I know has a pessimistic view of the future while DaveR I know believes that the expansion of new energy systems is well within our capabilities. The objective of this post was to try and quantify the scale of the problem that confronts us. At present I stand with the optimists and believe this is achievable - though ecologists among us will shiver at the thought. I am equally happy to take on board their holistic views about sustainability and build in a desire to have a lower future population on Earth - it makes the energy situation easier to handle.
The main problem we face is the intransigence of governments and corporations - and there is the distinct possibility that Mankind manages to snatch failure from the jaws of opportunity.
There was a documentary on the island nation of Tuvalu on one of the indy channels here last night.
The documentary started with the citizens of Tuvalu expressing their great concern that their island was "sinking" due to global warming. There were numerous shots illustrating the encroachment of the sea and consequent erosion of the island, and interviews describing recent floods beyond any the old-timers could remember.
Then the documentary went on to a $14 million windfall received by the residents of Tuvalu when a group of American businessmen bought the nation's ".tv" internet rights.
Of the $14 million, $1.5 million went for a seat at the UN, where a diplomat from Tuvalu tried to raise international concern about Tuvalu's global warming plight, and basically got nowhere.
The rest of the money went for roadbuilding and SUV's on the dinky island, as well as a small amount dedicated to attracting tourism.
When asked why they were building roads on a sinking island, the islanders asked what else they were supposed to do with the money? Why not make themselves more comfortable in their remaining years on the island?
I think people have very little actual free will and control over their own actions, especially when you get to large groups of people. Give them money, give them access to energy, and they will automatically pursue roads and SUVs. They can't help it.
You see it in the markets all the time. The way the pros make money in the markets is by betting against the hard-wired neuroeconomic tendencies of the masses. It's virtually impossible for the masses to overcome these tendencies, including on energy issues.
Or even better, they could use the islands while still above water as foundations for a raised platform like Sealand, only much larger, and with plenty of solar and wind - turn themselves into permanent energy islands. With the islands as foundations they could really build the things to be typhoon and tsunami proof. Design the things so that the upper surface is dedicated entirely to solar PV panels, solar water heaters, solar water distillation units, maybe a little CSP for some small scale industry (run a small forge so they can make a few repair parts, for example), and to gardens, orchards, livestock pasture, and recreational parks. All residences, offices, workshops, etc. are located underneath the top surface. They could really do something with this if they put their minds to it.
Oh yeah, I like that better. No sense leaving when you can adapt right where you are. Not to make light of GW and rising seas at all, but with enough money, they could do lots of very constructive things.
I would hope it is obvious anything is possible. That really is not the problem. There are too many instances in history where the setting of the group mind to a goal has resulted in amazing achievements. OR, perhaps more often(and as sort of noted), the setting of rulers' (in all their varied and sundry forms) minds led to the marshalling of resources, by force or otherwise, to achieve things we now view as amazing. The US industrial base and WWII and the Great Wall are two good examples on opposite sides of the spectrum. (However, history is not rife with examples of collapse/decline being avoided.) I think we can safely dispense with what is not possible.
Our real concern is with what is probable. However, that discussion requires going into areas of debate that take us away from the practical discussion of solutions and into, and as far as, the murky world of conspiracy. Even when people are made aware of such things as the Gulf of Tonkin and GM vs. the electric car, they still refuse to acknowledge that there might currently be agendas that are not in line with the greater public good at work. The question then becomes, is it worth going into? If it isn't, how do we deal with the intransigence of governments and corporations which we know to be actively working against the greater public good? (E.g., Exxon/Bush and Cheney vs. Climate Change.)
Our concern then must be turned to the attitude of the average person. Faced with the enormity of Climate Change and Peak Oil in and of themselves, within a context of a civilization fraught with corruption and corporate distortion of governance, how can we reasonably expect people to not just throw up their hands and get on with the mundane or throw themselves into an orgy of living life to its hedonistic fullest?
It is this reality that causes me to espouse the local solutions over the grand global schemes of massive power grids. You ask someone to help their family or the neighbor they know vs. asking them to sacrifice for some Great Other, you are more likely to get them moving. This inertia may then provide the impetus for stitching things together into greater linkages. Of course, it is probably simple common sense to let each level of society do what they are best able to do. I.e., these two levels will almost certainly do as they are doing now: run parallel. Still, we cannot trust the gov't or the corporations to do what is in Joe Average's best interest and should assume we must do this for ourselves. Let the moneyed and the powerful build grids. Meanwhile, let us lesser folk build straw bale homes, homemade windmills and solar engines, etc.
This inependence of power will allow the Joe's to stand in opposition to or support the system that rises or continues from this point, depending on which way we go: Blackwater and martial law or a new Greatest Generation.
The posibilities are wide and, I submit, likely to be in one or the other extreme. The non-linearity of the present/coming change coupled with being in what Kenennedy would call the Acquisitive Age, the final stage before collapse, make this seem quite likely. Interestingly, while all the reviews of his book focus on the issue of balancing military and economic might with regard to the rise and fall of the US, what struck me in the book, and what I remembered, were the four cycles he describes civilizations/nations/powers going through. His description of the final stage perfectly describes where we are now. It is a time when acquisition is all. The excesses lead to ruin. The corrolary is overstretch and/or overconsumption for the wealthy and powerful nations. The problem is globalization has brought the entire world directly into the acquisitive stage. Many nations skipped directly to the final stage due to the influence of globalization. Korea is a good example, but of extreme speed in moving through the cycles, enabled by the global system.
After WWII and the Korean War, the nation was devastated. They first worked collectively towards the common goal. This is akin to the move of civilization to farming and towns/communities. They next fought for survival via miltarism and dictatorship. Next came the industrial development, leading to the ascendancy of ideas/ideals as stability was achieved, then into acquisitiveness as wealth was achieved. (It's been a very long time since reading the book, so my descriptions of cycles may be quite poor.)
The entire planet (or, perhaps better to say the developed or semi-developed parts of the world) has, to some degree or other, jumped straight to the final stage. This leads one to conclude that the next step is a return to the beginning, or collapse, for if we are in the final stage and surrounded by evidence of overstretch, overshoot and the malaise of internal rot bred by acquisitiveness, where lie the strength and resources to deal with the coming Perfect Storm?
Kennedy on the US (and this was 1988!):
Trade imbalance, budget deficits, falling currency, skyrocketing military expenses now conspire to trouble the American dream. There is a nagging fear that things are coming unglued, and Kennedy does little to allay it...
He argues that the combination of the U.S.'s declining rate of industrial growth and its extensive military commitments spells trouble
"The only serious threat to the real interests of the United States can come from a failure to adjust sensibly to the newer world order."
If we accept the extrapolation "As goes the US, so goes the world," coupled with acceptance that we are in the final phase before the fall and then look at the further destabilizing effects of Climate Change and PO, it is difficult not to conclude we are in a world of hurt.
That is huge amount of inertia. I think it short-sighted to think the state can manage this. Chaos tells us discontinuities will come, bifurcations will happen and increase in frequency over time. Systems theory tells us that complexity leads to break down at some critical mass. History tells us cycles exist and that civilizations and nations rise and fall.
No, I don't expect the collective to fix this. I do think it is possible to transition very painfully to some other system, but it will happen piecemeal and largely on the backs of localized solutions that will likely have to stand in opposition to those who do not have the best interests of the Common Good in mind - or, who think the elite/wealthy/politically powerful know best and it is best to let the minions eat their cake and watch their TV sets.
I could be wrong. We may be witness to a Great Molting and Transition through Peaceful Cooperation. History suggests otherwise.
Thanks for a terrific post. I like the time frame. One of the interesting things about your analysis is that the fossil fuels are supply side (production based for oil and gas, and reserves based for coal), while the alternatives are demand side. That makes sense. Alternatives are based on manufacturing, and not subject to exhaustion. And the historical growth rates for wind/solar, which are a factor of ten growth every ten years, are sufficient to provide the amounts that you propose for alternatives.
Alternatives are based on manufacturing, and not subject to exhaustion
I doubt you are correct - there will probably be some Liebig minimum not being considered here that will be the limiting factor.
In order to grow, as well as excess energy, plants require unpolluted air, water, N,P,K, trace elements, a lack of predation etc - and, at any one time, any one of these will be 'at limit'.
There is a similar list of unpredictable requirements for econonomic growth - availability of affordable excess energy is but one important (and completely unpredictable) element and IMO doesn't tell a meaningful story in isolation.
The use of averages like 'conventional fossil fuels per capita' are somewhat misleading - as fig.12 shows, almost no country consumes the average amount! ... and almost no person in those countries consumes the world average amount.
Alternatives are based on manufacturing, and not subject to exhaustion.
Can you explain this? Don't alternatives require finite resources to harness and have some effect on the environment, especially if they continue to grow?
And the historical growth rates for wind/solar, which are a factor of ten growth every ten years, are sufficient to provide the amounts that you propose for alternatives.
Would you really expect those growth rates to continue as the absolute quantitative increases become huge?
While the resource side was adequately covered, the analysis forgot the sink side constraints when burning fossil fuels. The global warming problem can be seen as a depletion problem. What is depleting is the CO2 absorption capacity of the atmosphere. NASA climatologist James Hansen has just moved the stabilization goal post from 450 ppm CO2 concentration down to 350 ppm, a limit we have exceeded already 20 years ago. http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/RoyalCollPhyscns_Jan08.pdf
We are therefore already in overshoot mode and we need to EXTRACT CO2 from the atmosphere if our civilization wants to survive. I guess the turning point will be the disappearance of the Arctic summer sea ice in the next years (albedo flip) http://www.ametsoc.org/atmospolicy/documents/May032006_Dr.WieslawMaslows...
That will wake us up. We have to abandon our carbon based consumerism.
Nature will not allow us to burn all the fossil fuels in the above scenarios.
The conclusion is that building up renewable energy capacities is even more urgent than ever. We need to retool car factories (which will close down after peak oil anyway) for mass production of components for energy PRODUCTIVE renewable systems, not energy CONSUMING goods.
Just take back the vehicles and use them and anything else available as scrap metal to make windmills. 800 million vehicles and lots of electronic garbage would b a big start and could pour into the factories one end and otu the other end as windmills.
Luis - thank you for including me as co-author on this piece of work. I think I need to clarify for all that you have done 99% of this work that has taken many months to produce.
Many, many months ago now I did some data analysis and noticed that the per capita energy consumption from FF was rising. I also observed that gas and coal production may continue to rise for a number of years yet and on this basis concluded that Duncan's Olduvai theory failed the empirical test. Nate sent this to Duncan who was furious. I submitted the post for publication on TOD - but failing to sleep rose at about 3 am and withdrew the work. A year or so later we have this much more refined product from Luis. Richard Duncan's seminal work on this topic still stands - all we have done here is refine the time scale in light of new data and the benefit of time passing. Without VERY urgent action on building alternative energy sources (that exist - they just need to be built) and on energy efficiency Mankind will stroll back down the path towards Olduvai.
This work is an attempt to quantify what needs to be done to avoid this path. Whether or not it is within our capacity to achieve this both physically and behaviorally is open to debate. If we do not rise to the challenge the future is very bleak 2012 peak oil, 2018 peak FF energy.
Getting politicians, policy makers, leading academics and decision makers to grasp these issues has to be a major priority. The fact that this work is being conducted in the twilight world of The Oil Drum is really astounding. Although I am really encouraged by the number of senior academics who contribute to the work presented here. This twilight world will one day very soon be the mainstream.
I would like everyone to note the absolute importance that energy efficiency plays in the path away from Olduvai. Without that we are screwed - TOTALLY. Every action and policy we implement from now on must be based on the premise of energy efficiency - both consumption and production.
Hear hear! Nice work fellas. And Euan, when you say energy efficiency on the consumption side, I assume that means changing the conspicuous consumption paradigm, at least gradually, for if we get really efficient at producing profligate energy wasting toys, what have we done but buy a few extra years? We need it all - more oil and gas exploration, full investment into the highest energy gain/lowest environmental externality renewable sources (meaning there will be sources that should and shouldn't be accepted), smart building and efficiency improvements, and a gradual change away from consipicuous consumption as our cultural carrot. It can be done - but we can't sit on our arses until Olduvai, or something like it, wakes us up.
I know the 'twilight zone' of theoildrum is making a difference, yet am discouraged by how vociferously we debunked corn ethanol for the last 18 months as a waste of time and resources given what we are facing, and still the government went pretty much full speed ahead with ethanol mandates as the major thrust of becoming energy independent. Perhaps in this situation, the US will have to take the lead from Europe, who, though in similar straights, seems to be taking energy descent more seriously.
keep up the good work lads.
Yes, of course and no of course not. I think the efficiency of consumption maybe needs to be broken down into parts. Better insulation in homes, eating more vegetables, more efficient cars are all good things - consumption goes on whilst saving a lot of energy.
The next step would be persuading more people to share a home = less home building; to eat less food and to bicycle instead of drive. All good things as well involving less consumption.
Delivering the former efficiency gains I believe will be much easier than the latter consume less paradigm shift in attitudes. The problem is that hardly any of this is happening right now.
Luis' data on GDP per BOE I think is fascinating and quantifies what we already know. The USA along with Canada and surprisingly Germany and China need to get their acts together. There are likely two main messages in these data:
1. Manufacturing is an energy intensive way of generating GDP - so less manufacturing is good
2. The USA, Canada and Saudi Arabia simply piss away vast amounts of energy - and this will have to stop
I'd strongly disagree with the blanket "less manufacturing is good".
Pehaps we should manufacture better quality more durable goods, what would stand for less manufacture, but not less wealth. Or pehaps we should manufacture more solar/wind/nuclear capcity to fill the gap, what would stand for more manufacturing. Or probably both.
Manufacturing may be more energy intensive than other wealth creating means, but we've developed no other way of generating the amount of wealth we have today.
"we've developed no other way of generating the amount of wealth we have today."
As a programmer I find fault with this statement.
As a programmer I find fault with the idea that you find fault with that statement. A simple logical path will lead you to manufacturing no matter what industry you "program" for. Let's start with the manufactured machinery you work upon shall we? Then try and find any service industry that isn't intimately linked to some form of manufacturing. Real-estate would be close to the only one, and even it requires the wealth generated through manufacturing to raise prices (and dare I say it population), as well as the results of manufacturing to produce houses and farm machinery etc etc to make the land worth buying in the first place.
Without the mass-production, specialisation-facilitating society we live in there would be no need for computers, much less programmers.
""we've developed no other way of generating the amount of wealth we have today. As a programmer I find fault with this statement." As a programmer I find fault with the idea that you find fault with that statement. A simple logical path will lead you to manufacturing no matter what industry you "program" for. "
He said manufacturing isn't the only source of wealth, you said that manufacturing is an essential base. Both are true.
He's saying that programming, for instance, isn't manufacturing, yet it is a valuable, productive thing to do. You'd agree, right?
I call the idea that manufacturing (or farming, etc) is the most important thing, and the only source of value, the "garbageman fallacy". In NYC, sanitation workers used to say that they were the most important workers of all, because the city couldn't run without them. We can see the flaw in that, I hope...
Programming cannot be done (for any useful purpose) by just thinking about it. It needs computers and power. Power needs power plants and transmission lines. Ultimately, increasing wealth (economic growth) requires more resources for making stuff or doing stuff.
Hey us programmers need to eat or at least drink beer :)
Last I looked although I work at home don't drive much etc I still use a lot of resources.
Its just that programmers and support could be made pretty green with some work.
Also if programming itself would start advancing again then the number of programmers needed at any one given time could be fairly static or decline quite a bit overtime.
"Last I looked although I work at home don't drive much etc I still use a lot of resources."
That's an interesting question - how does one factor in people's consumption into their work?
My point is that the work itself doesn't require significant energy or materials - 10 cents of electricity per day, and $2/day for computer capital costs (a $1,500 laptop every 3 years).
Of course it depends on the life style but providing fore employees is a fairly static cost regardless of what they do. A large amount of middle class Americans are engaged in paper pushing because others are engaged in paper pushing.
I can see it in programming you have the huge convoluted mess that at its center is caused by a simple problem say one piece of information was not recorded or shared. Or the company has some stupid rule that wastes incredible amounts of time.
From what I've seen most productivity games are a myth. Things are outsourced and look better just because you have a simpler accounting schema. Real productivity is in the toilet. And trust me the overseas worker working for slave wages is not the most motivated person on the planet. All this is hidden in bad business loans in china and pumping debt in the US.
As with anything the shorter the chain of responsibility and the more a person is correctly rewarded for success or failure the better the business. Incorrect accounting practices have managed to hide this basic truth of business.
This rolls right back into energy/resource accounting to determine real profitability and gdp. True growth is increased ownership and no debt.
This give people the freedom to explore innovative business ventures.
Speculation on borrowed money/energy/resources is the root of collapse from the personal level all the way up.
"Programming cannot be done (for any useful purpose) by just thinking about it. It needs computers and power. "
Yes, but it needs very, very little compared to manufacturing. Think smelting, metal stamping, transportation of parts, assembly lines, transportation of finished products, etc. vs.....a laptop, using as little as 50 watts.
Without all that "smelting, metal stamping, transportation of parts, assembly lines, transportation of finished products, etc." there is no reason to have a computer. Computers are not an end in themeselves. They make it easier for people to do the "real" work of making things. Manufactured things are what drives any economy. Services, such as programming, make it easier to make those things and get them to where people can use them, but they aren't really required in the process.
Programming is an example of "services". Services aren't just support for manufacturing, they're a good thing in themselves.
Medical care, art & literature, entertainment, communication.
Arguably, manufacturing is a means to the end of enjoying services. They're certainly not a meaningless support function for manufacturing.
I have been having this discussion with sofistek for months. He is trying to prove that growth per se is bad. I have argued that it depends on the growth. That intellectual capital is different. He seems to deny that services are a real part of the economy even though they are becoming more and more dominant. This whole growth is bad topic is important but not very condusive to rational discussion. It is such an article of faith with that faction.
This isn't logical. It's important, but not useful? Logical impossibility, no? Growth is the very core of the problem you are discussing. If there were no growth, there would essentially be no problem. You'd have a great deal more time to find solutions. Hell, to go back further, neither you nor I would exist. No, we must discuss growth in order to find solutions that are sustainable. By definition, a solution that is sustainable within limits is not sustainable.
If you are going to redesign civilization as we know it, you'd darned sure better pay attention to the future.
Cheers
Sterling, I do not deny that services are a real part of the economy. I don't think you were saying that, anyway, so please don't misrepresent my position or the discussion we had. You were trying to say that parts of the economy that were represented by intellectual capital can grow without requiring more resources. I was pointing out that there is no real value in intellectual capital unless it is applied in some way. That application uses resources and so even that part of the economy would require more resources, if it was to grow in any meaningful way. I was also saying that parts of the economy don't represent the whole economy so, even if you could find part of the economy that can grow without using more resources, it would not the the same as sustainable economic growth overall.
You now try to portray services as the saviour that can allow the economy to grow indefinitely. What services are you talking about? Which ones use no energy or resources in their set up or delivery?
Why is it so hard to let go of economic growth? Growth in the use of resources cannot be sustained. It is not really hard to understand but it sure is hard to accept.
Because your formulation is too simplistic to be useful. Because you lump all kinds of economic growth together, kinds that are physical resource intensive and kinds that are not, you are targeting the wrong issue.
One can easily imagine a situation where you have strong economic growth but declining resource utilization, which is probably what would be best for the world. Let say I write some software that allows people to work at home two days a week and let's say people love it and are willing to pay more for it than they save in gas, etc. You rule that out it because it increases the economic. It is economic growth.
As long as we have people in the world, they have to do something. If the value of what they do increases in value, you have economic growth. Do you just want people to do nothing? They cannot think, write music and imagine?
Sustainablity is another too simplistic concept but I have to go out now. I hope to get back to that later.
Too simplistic? What matters to today's societies is economic growth as a whole. What does it matter that some parts of the economy are less resource intensive than others, if the other parts of the economy are needed for our survival and well-being, or at least perceived as being so? If we eliminate all parts of the economy except those where thought alone is necessary, do you think people would be happy with that?
I don't rule out efficiency gains but you seem to think that if we can be realise economic growth for some short period without more resource use, that means that economic growth can continue indefinitely without using more resources. If we can improve efficiency, that's great, but what is the long term sustainability plan? Without that, we would just be delaying an inevitable collapse.
However, even if you can imagine a fabulous future where no-one uses any more resources than they do now, and population is stable, do you think that would be a society that is remotely like what we have now?
Sustainability is certainly a simple concept but few people seem to realise what it means. Try reading Richard Heinberg's Five Axioms of Sustainability. But there is nothing simplistic about it; if a society is not sustainable, then it will end. Why is that so hard to understand?
Yes, but it matters if it would end before or after the earth is consumed by the sun.
The only level of consumption of a limited resource that is completely sustainable is 0. At current rates of consumption, it is not clear if fission fuel would run out before the Earth becomes unlivable for reasons that have nothing to do with people. So is that sustainable by any reasonable definition of the word? And if we increase the use of nuclear power and I am wrong and Uranium runs out in 5,000 to 10,000 years is that a problem if before that happens we harness fusion?
There is nothing magic about the level of how we currently value everything that people do (the world GDP). There is no reason to think that the current level of consumption of limited resource is OK and that a little more is impossible. It might be that the only way the world can survive is that we reduce our consumption of limited physical resources and that the only way we can do this is to increase the production of intellectual capital in figuring out how to do it. In other words, it might be that we count the value of everything that people do as rising (ie economic growth) but we reduce the things that impact the world in ways that threaten our survival.
Your idea that economic growth of any kind is bad puts you in the position of insisting that someone write a really shitty song instead of a really good one because the really good one would have too much economic value and therefore increase the economic value of everything too much (ie economic growth). Your fixation that the market value of everything that people do has to stay the same undermines the legitimate case that you are trying to make. We should limit the consumption of limited resources, including environmental quality, wild lands and other such intangibles. But economic growth is not a useful measure of how well or poorly we are treating the earth because it mixes high impact activities with low impact ones and people have to do something.
Of course it's not clear, but the reverse is also not clear. Unless one has certain beliefs.
That's a couple of "if"s in there. Which is part of my point.
Of course there are reasons. A good reason would be if the current level can be sustained for, let's say, several centuries without it causing problems, whilst a little more might not be sustained for a century. If we just assume that all of the resources we now consider vital are abundant enough and accessible enough to not worry about it for now, then that could turn out to be a fatal assumption.
That sounds good. I can't see how that could happen without our society becoming very different from what we know today. Do you know if anyone has done any work on how this might play out?
You're caught in the economic growth paradigm, with that analogy. Economic growth is bad because it uses increasing resources and, thus, is unsustainable. If we level out our use, as you suggest earlier, that would be a good starting point and it wouldn't be economic growth.
Again, you are using the paradigm that we currently have. Why must everything have a "market value"? What has to, at least, stay the same is our level of resource consumption. Do you have any comments on the axioms of sustainability that I linked to earlier?
Like I said, there is nothing magic about the current rate of economic growth where the outlook would suddenly change, like in your example, if we increased it by say .1% per year.
So I am in favor of our society becoming different than it is today. Less resouce consumptive. More intellectual capital.
You are the one who is obsessed with market value. The way you measure economic growth is to total up the market value of everything that people do in a year and compare it to the market value of the prior year. If it is greater, then you have “economic growth”. The reason that market value comes into play is that your measure is “economic” instead of “physical” or maybe “destructive”. That is my point.
OK then make that argument. Do not say economic growth has to stay the same. Say resource consumption has to say the same. Or limited resource consumption has to stay the same. I will debate that one with you too but at least there you are starting from a more defensible position.
I have never said that. Nor am I obsessed with market value. What I'd like is to achieve indefinite sustainability.
You appear to be claiming that economic growth (which people appear to need in order to have aspirations) can continue by only growing intellectual capital. I don't believe it, but that would be great because that increasing intellectual capital would never result in anything tangible.
Resource consumption must not exceed the renewal capacity of those resources. This is not the same as saying resource consumption must stay the same, though we will need to get to that point, at a lower rate of consumption for at least some resources. The five axioms described by Heinberg gives more details. That would be a good place to start from.
OK. I am with you for that with indefinately meaning a long time but not forever. I think we can achieve that by switching to a fission, wind and solar infrastructure and have contining economic growth as the economy shifts more to intellectual goods like arts, software and services. There are at least millions of years of fission fuel where the consumption rate is twenty times what it is now and fission supplies 60% of all energy. Well before that the world will almost certainly switch to fusion power, which would be sustainable at least through the time the Earth is consumed by the Sun.
For other limited resources we may have to have rising consumption until we can stabilize the world population since we know that development in the only thing that reliably stops population growth. At that point we will have to reduce consumption of scarce resources to maintain long term viability. But the world economy will continue to grow through changes to low physical resource consumption activities as noted above.
Sterling
Ha, ha, ha ,ha, cough, splutter..........
Verbal sewerage that's all you write!
You are one mentally deluded Richard Cranium.
I think Engineer-Poet would be the only person who would fall for your garbage, why don't you look him up, you can give each other some blog fellatio.
Thanks for the reasoned critique.
Well, there are some whose research shows uranium reserves may only sustain current fission for a few decades. Other fissionable fuel may be available for longer but, at least to some degree, it is wishful thinking that it will enable nuclear generation for centuries, never mind millions of years. That may turn out to be correct but it's a gamble.
Do you honestly think that the world can shift most of its economy to those things that use very little resources? Again, that would be wishful thinking, in my book. The only one of arts, software and services that uses few resources is arts (since anything to hand can be made into art). Software is not an end in itself and there are all sorts of services, with the meaningful ones either being resource hungry themselves (e.g. building services or freight services) or leading to the manufacture of resource-using goods (like houses). Manufacturing and agricultural industries will continue to be very large, especially as we are heading for billions more people.
Your hope that the consumption other limited resources can continue to rise until they don't need to is, again, wishful thinking. It seems that you hope that business as usual (more or less) can continue until nature takes its course, population stabilises and business no longer see profits as a reason to do business.
That takes a lot of believing.
You seem to be arguing something thats entirely academic. The end of sustainability happens well after we've consumed the entire solar system.
Not exactly something thats topical today.
No, we are already unsustainable. That will become obvious not when we have consumed the entire solar system (which is an impossibility) but as soon as the supply of some vital resource can no longer meet the demand. There must be many resources that are vital to our societies, so the chances are quite good that scarcity will hit before too long.
The problem now is that growth itself is a goal. Economic growth for the sake of economic growth is a problem. Economic growth borne of need/survival is going to follow natural cycles. Slowing things down to a non-growth oriented paradigm will reduce the rate of use of resources. This should provide more time for development of technologies that aid this process.
Cheers
Only if the way you reduce economic growth slows down resource consumption. Since economic growth includes both high consumptive activities and low consumptive ones, it matters how you slow down growth. If you killed off all the low consumptive activities you could reduce overall economic growth while still increasing the use of limited physical resources.
People have to do something (unless you want to kill them all off). The economic level is just the market value of everything they do. It is possible to have an increasing market value of all that we do (economic growth) while at the same time that we reduce resource consumption. People just need to do more smart, creative, low resource consumptive things and less of the opposite.
Precisely. Of course certain parts of the economy need to grow. We need growth in energy efficient housing, renewable energy, walkable/ bikeable urban spaces, public transportation, food production systems which preserve topsoil and recycle nutrients, etc. In purely physical terms the growth of this important, sustainable infrastructure could proceed much faster if we shrunk those parts of the economy which are wasteful and necessary (e.g. SUVs, jet skis, plasma screen televisions, etc). We could also free up production resources by putting emphasis on manufacturing long-lived repairable products and eliminating planned obsolescence. We need an economic system which can grow those parts of the economy which need to be grown, shrink those parts which need to shrunk, and maintain with maximum efficiency (i.e. without concern for sales volumes) those parts of the economy which only need maintenance. Instead we have a system of production in which every sector of the economy is striving to grow as fast a possible without any concern for long term consequences.
If it needs resources, then it needs resources. It's pointless wishing that resource use away or saying that it's tiny, compared with some other part of the economy. In any case, programming was just an example and it doesn't happen in isolation, it is done for a purpose and that other purpose may use more resources.
We just can't do stuff without using resources. The more stuff we do, and the more stuff we use, the more resources we use. The key is to figure out how to use resources sustainably and that can't be done with growth.
"If it needs resources, then it needs resources. It's pointless wishing that resource use away or saying that it's tiny, compared with some other part of the economy. "
Umm, no. If something takes very little resources, that's important. If a programmer/artist/writer/entertainer/medical researcher/doctor/poet/therapist/engineer/lawyer can do his/her work with only a laptop that lasts pretty much as long as you want it to, and can be powered by a $200 solar panel, that sounds pretty sustainable to me.
No it's not, because it is within the context of an unsustainable society. Programmers, medical researchers, doctors, engineers and lawyers don't do their work for no end. Artists, writers, poets and engineers do their work to be enjoyed by others, who can afford to enjoy them because of the rest of the economy. And all aspects of our society need to be taken as a whole. Even the aspects you mention add to resource use. Maybe if all parts of the economy could be as frugal in resource use, then our problems would be less. But that is wishful thinking and there is no reason to suppose that any pursuit, just because it is a low resource hog, can continue unchanged in a society that is suffering from being unsustainable as a whole.
There is a large tendency, even among the posters here, to treat aspects of the society in which they live as completely separate. Even the energy issue isn't the sum total of the problems we've accumulated by living unsustainably.
Oh come on you guys. These kind of dramatic behavior changes aren't going to happen, no way. We didn't work so hard for our creature comforts just to give them all up voluntarily. If you think otherwise you haven't studied the human animal enough.
Even I am not going to share my home with someone or bicycle in the winter if I don't have to. I'll deforest the entire area for fire wood before I start sharing my living space.
We're screwed. It's written in our genome. Your time line is probably too optimistic too because declining oil production will lead to all kinds of cascading failures including declining coal and gas production.
I hope you're being sarcastic.
I think that SolarDude makes an excellent point, although perhaps a bit exaggerated for effect.
Middle class people in high occasionally share their houses to make the mortgage, but usually the sharing is done with some modification; i.e., putting together a bedroom/bath suite out of two bedrooms, or renovating a basement. People with less money will take in relatives, or share with a friend.
I would expect that many of today's mansions will become multiple unit dwellings, and that more townhomes and low-rise apartments may be built. However, this will require zoning changes that will come only when people are in pretty bad shape.
I would expect growth in bicycle traffic to occur first in places that are bike-friendly (have trails and vehicle drivers who are not out to massacre bike riders), but in many places, I would expect very small, possibly electric or hybrid, that do not go much more than 50 for around-town. Of course, there are car polling and ride sharing which were common in the '70s.
I think that things will move more gradually and less drastically at least for 10-20 here in the U.S. We have a lot of fat that can be cut in the form of discretionary spending and tolerable adaptation.
I think that giving up one's own dwelling, however small, and covered personal transportation, however small, will be some of the last things to go.
will be one of the last things that most people will do
Yes, but when ppl are screwed and understand that they turn to common sense on the ground. They double up, they share, they car-pool, they trade locally, don’t pay VAT, etc. To mention some hyper contemporary yet minor examples.
They finally do, all on their own, what they were sincerely advised to do 50, 60 years ago in some vague way by scientists, activists, while the pols trumpeted endless prosperity, growth, expansion, consumer Nirvana, domination though caring and humanitarianism, new colonialism, technotopia, human exceptionalism, with a good dose of war and hate to keep the ppl on board and chugging along.
So we are screwed but it is gonna take quite a while.
Could you expand on this? Why was Duncan furious? I have often seen this argument used to "debunk" the Olduvai theory and I have often wondered what Duncan's response was.
Most people don't enjoy viewing what they might construe as a refutation of their work. I'd hope, and expect, Euan's description of it as an update with better data is accurate and would smooth things with the originator of Olduvai.
Perhaps I am being presumptuous on all counts and should let Euan speak for himself.
Great work, guys.
Cheers
PS: I'll hopefully be riffing off this on my blog sometime soon. Let me know if there is any objection.
EDIT: Riff complete.
http://aperfectstormcometh.blogspot.com/2008/02/lucy-were-hooooome.html
The original work I did was pretty incomplete and with a too short time horizon. Duncan has spent a huge amount of effort in quantifying future energy supplies and my initial analysis was admittedly unsound - but it never got published and has led on to this work.
The FF forecasting work presented here is all based on the work of others - so that part we are standing on the shoulders of giants. There is however a huge amount of work that Luis has done re-basing all systems to a common baseline and developing the population and GDP models and the various scenarios.
Duncan on the one hand I know has a pessimistic view of the future while DaveR I know believes that the expansion of new energy systems is well within our capabilities. The objective of this post was to try and quantify the scale of the problem that confronts us. At present I stand with the optimists and believe this is achievable - though ecologists among us will shiver at the thought. I am equally happy to take on board their holistic views about sustainability and build in a desire to have a lower future population on Earth - it makes the energy situation easier to handle.
The main problem we face is the intransigence of governments and corporations - and there is the distinct possibility that Mankind manages to snatch failure from the jaws of opportunity.
There was a documentary on the island nation of Tuvalu on one of the indy channels here last night.
The documentary started with the citizens of Tuvalu expressing their great concern that their island was "sinking" due to global warming. There were numerous shots illustrating the encroachment of the sea and consequent erosion of the island, and interviews describing recent floods beyond any the old-timers could remember.
Then the documentary went on to a $14 million windfall received by the residents of Tuvalu when a group of American businessmen bought the nation's ".tv" internet rights.
Of the $14 million, $1.5 million went for a seat at the UN, where a diplomat from Tuvalu tried to raise international concern about Tuvalu's global warming plight, and basically got nowhere.
The rest of the money went for roadbuilding and SUV's on the dinky island, as well as a small amount dedicated to attracting tourism.
When asked why they were building roads on a sinking island, the islanders asked what else they were supposed to do with the money? Why not make themselves more comfortable in their remaining years on the island?
I think people have very little actual free will and control over their own actions, especially when you get to large groups of people. Give them money, give them access to energy, and they will automatically pursue roads and SUVs. They can't help it.
You see it in the markets all the time. The way the pros make money in the markets is by betting against the hard-wired neuroeconomic tendencies of the masses. It's virtually impossible for the masses to overcome these tendencies, including on energy issues.
They could have build solar powered boats, so that when the time comes they could get off the island in a GW friendly way.
Or even better, they could use the islands while still above water as foundations for a raised platform like Sealand, only much larger, and with plenty of solar and wind - turn themselves into permanent energy islands. With the islands as foundations they could really build the things to be typhoon and tsunami proof. Design the things so that the upper surface is dedicated entirely to solar PV panels, solar water heaters, solar water distillation units, maybe a little CSP for some small scale industry (run a small forge so they can make a few repair parts, for example), and to gardens, orchards, livestock pasture, and recreational parks. All residences, offices, workshops, etc. are located underneath the top surface. They could really do something with this if they put their minds to it.
Oh yeah, I like that better. No sense leaving when you can adapt right where you are. Not to make light of GW and rising seas at all, but with enough money, they could do lots of very constructive things.
They had 14 million dollars, not 14 billion dollars.
I would hope it is obvious anything is possible. That really is not the problem. There are too many instances in history where the setting of the group mind to a goal has resulted in amazing achievements. OR, perhaps more often(and as sort of noted), the setting of rulers' (in all their varied and sundry forms) minds led to the marshalling of resources, by force or otherwise, to achieve things we now view as amazing. The US industrial base and WWII and the Great Wall are two good examples on opposite sides of the spectrum. (However, history is not rife with examples of collapse/decline being avoided.) I think we can safely dispense with what is not possible.
Our real concern is with what is probable. However, that discussion requires going into areas of debate that take us away from the practical discussion of solutions and into, and as far as, the murky world of conspiracy. Even when people are made aware of such things as the Gulf of Tonkin and GM vs. the electric car, they still refuse to acknowledge that there might currently be agendas that are not in line with the greater public good at work. The question then becomes, is it worth going into? If it isn't, how do we deal with the intransigence of governments and corporations which we know to be actively working against the greater public good? (E.g., Exxon/Bush and Cheney vs. Climate Change.)
Our concern then must be turned to the attitude of the average person. Faced with the enormity of Climate Change and Peak Oil in and of themselves, within a context of a civilization fraught with corruption and corporate distortion of governance, how can we reasonably expect people to not just throw up their hands and get on with the mundane or throw themselves into an orgy of living life to its hedonistic fullest?
It is this reality that causes me to espouse the local solutions over the grand global schemes of massive power grids. You ask someone to help their family or the neighbor they know vs. asking them to sacrifice for some Great Other, you are more likely to get them moving. This inertia may then provide the impetus for stitching things together into greater linkages. Of course, it is probably simple common sense to let each level of society do what they are best able to do. I.e., these two levels will almost certainly do as they are doing now: run parallel. Still, we cannot trust the gov't or the corporations to do what is in Joe Average's best interest and should assume we must do this for ourselves. Let the moneyed and the powerful build grids. Meanwhile, let us lesser folk build straw bale homes, homemade windmills and solar engines, etc.
This inependence of power will allow the Joe's to stand in opposition to or support the system that rises or continues from this point, depending on which way we go: Blackwater and martial law or a new Greatest Generation.
The posibilities are wide and, I submit, likely to be in one or the other extreme. The non-linearity of the present/coming change coupled with being in what Kenennedy would call the Acquisitive Age, the final stage before collapse, make this seem quite likely. Interestingly, while all the reviews of his book focus on the issue of balancing military and economic might with regard to the rise and fall of the US, what struck me in the book, and what I remembered, were the four cycles he describes civilizations/nations/powers going through. His description of the final stage perfectly describes where we are now. It is a time when acquisition is all. The excesses lead to ruin. The corrolary is overstretch and/or overconsumption for the wealthy and powerful nations. The problem is globalization has brought the entire world directly into the acquisitive stage. Many nations skipped directly to the final stage due to the influence of globalization. Korea is a good example, but of extreme speed in moving through the cycles, enabled by the global system.
After WWII and the Korean War, the nation was devastated. They first worked collectively towards the common goal. This is akin to the move of civilization to farming and towns/communities. They next fought for survival via miltarism and dictatorship. Next came the industrial development, leading to the ascendancy of ideas/ideals as stability was achieved, then into acquisitiveness as wealth was achieved. (It's been a very long time since reading the book, so my descriptions of cycles may be quite poor.)
The entire planet (or, perhaps better to say the developed or semi-developed parts of the world) has, to some degree or other, jumped straight to the final stage. This leads one to conclude that the next step is a return to the beginning, or collapse, for if we are in the final stage and surrounded by evidence of overstretch, overshoot and the malaise of internal rot bred by acquisitiveness, where lie the strength and resources to deal with the coming Perfect Storm?
Kennedy on the US (and this was 1988!):
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,966718-3,00.html
If we accept the extrapolation "As goes the US, so goes the world," coupled with acceptance that we are in the final phase before the fall and then look at the further destabilizing effects of Climate Change and PO, it is difficult not to conclude we are in a world of hurt.
That is huge amount of inertia. I think it short-sighted to think the state can manage this. Chaos tells us discontinuities will come, bifurcations will happen and increase in frequency over time. Systems theory tells us that complexity leads to break down at some critical mass. History tells us cycles exist and that civilizations and nations rise and fall.
No, I don't expect the collective to fix this. I do think it is possible to transition very painfully to some other system, but it will happen piecemeal and largely on the backs of localized solutions that will likely have to stand in opposition to those who do not have the best interests of the Common Good in mind - or, who think the elite/wealthy/politically powerful know best and it is best to let the minions eat their cake and watch their TV sets.
I could be wrong. We may be witness to a Great Molting and Transition through Peaceful Cooperation. History suggests otherwise.
Cheers
Good solid sobering analysis. Thanks.
yes, good post, thanks.
Hi Luis, Euan,
Thanks for a terrific post. I like the time frame. One of the interesting things about your analysis is that the fossil fuels are supply side (production based for oil and gas, and reserves based for coal), while the alternatives are demand side. That makes sense. Alternatives are based on manufacturing, and not subject to exhaustion. And the historical growth rates for wind/solar, which are a factor of ten growth every ten years, are sufficient to provide the amounts that you propose for alternatives.
Dave
I doubt you are correct - there will probably be some Liebig minimum not being considered here that will be the limiting factor.
In order to grow, as well as excess energy, plants require unpolluted air, water, N,P,K, trace elements, a lack of predation etc - and, at any one time, any one of these will be 'at limit'.
There is a similar list of unpredictable requirements for econonomic growth - availability of affordable excess energy is but one important (and completely unpredictable) element and IMO doesn't tell a meaningful story in isolation.
The use of averages like 'conventional fossil fuels per capita' are somewhat misleading - as fig.12 shows, almost no country consumes the average amount! ... and almost no person in those countries consumes the world average amount.
Can you explain this? Don't alternatives require finite resources to harness and have some effect on the environment, especially if they continue to grow?
Would you really expect those growth rates to continue as the absolute quantitative increases become huge?
While the resource side was adequately covered, the analysis forgot the sink side constraints when burning fossil fuels. The global warming problem can be seen as a depletion problem. What is depleting is the CO2 absorption capacity of the atmosphere. NASA climatologist James Hansen has just moved the stabilization goal post from 450 ppm CO2 concentration down to 350 ppm, a limit we have exceeded already 20 years ago.
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/RoyalCollPhyscns_Jan08.pdf
We are therefore already in overshoot mode and we need to EXTRACT CO2 from the atmosphere if our civilization wants to survive. I guess the turning point will be the disappearance of the Arctic summer sea ice in the next years (albedo flip)
http://www.ametsoc.org/atmospolicy/documents/May032006_Dr.WieslawMaslows...
That will wake us up. We have to abandon our carbon based consumerism.
Nature will not allow us to burn all the fossil fuels in the above scenarios.
The conclusion is that building up renewable energy capacities is even more urgent than ever. We need to retool car factories (which will close down after peak oil anyway) for mass production of components for energy PRODUCTIVE renewable systems, not energy CONSUMING goods.
Just take back the vehicles and use them and anything else available as scrap metal to make windmills. 800 million vehicles and lots of electronic garbage would b a big start and could pour into the factories one end and otu the other end as windmills.
"Turn your swords into ploughshares"