Book Review - Energy Transitions: History, Requirements, Prospects

The discussion about our energy supply is full of extremely optimistic expectations. There are many people who believe that full replacement of fossil with renewable energy sources in an extremely short time span is possible. Such ideas have been publicly voiced in Al Gore’s call for 100% renewable energy in the United States within 10 years, and Jacobson & Delucchi’s plan to power 100 percent of the planet with renewable by 2030 published in Scientific American. Their optimism stems from ignoring the inherent gradual nature of energy transitions and the quality differences between energy sources.

Both issues are described in Vaclav Smil’s new book, Energy Transitions: History, Requirements, Prospects. Vaclav Smil, a Professor at the University of Manitoba, has been writing about energy for more than two decades. This book is written in his usual clear descriptive style. He has an eye for detail as he quantifies many historical amounts, providing a much needed reality check for any energy transition scenario under consideration. He concludes that energy transitions are a generations-long process. To increase the likelihood of success of the coming energy transition, it would be wise for affluent nations to introduce policy targets to reduce absolute energy usage per capita.

“The scale of the coming energy transition is best illustrated by comparing the future demand for non-fossil fuels and primary electricity with the past demand for fossil energies that were needed to complete the epochal shift from biomass to coal and hydrocarbons. By the late 1890s, when the share of biomass energies slipped just below 50% of the world’s total primary energy supply, less than 20 ExaJoules (EJ) of additional fossil fuel supply were needed to substitute all of the remaining biomass energy consumption. By 2010 the global use of fossil energies runs at the annual rate of roughly 400 EJ, which means that the need for new non-fossil energy supply to displace coal and hydrocarbons is 20 times greater in overall energy terms than was the need for fossil energies during the 1890s.”

The book is divided in four parts. The first chapter describes the basic science behind energy systems, talking about the many energy sources and our means to convert these into usable energy. It is a dry concise overview of historic changes in global energy supply, the introduction and changing efficiency of various engines, and changes in energy infrastructure and prices. This part is required material for the uninformed reader, in order not to get lost in further chapters. For readers interested in a broader, more historic and more detailed coverage of these topics, I recommend reading Smil's earlier books Creating the twentieth Century, and Energy at the Crossroads.

The second chapter gives a description of global changes in energy consumption patterns: from biomass to coal and hydrocarbons (oil, gas, and coal), the use of electricity, and the history of prime movers from muscle power to machine power. The chapter ends with an insightful analysis of the speed of energy transitions of both fuel sources and prime movers. A comparison of time spans shows that once a fuel reached 5% of total global energy production, it still took 35, 40, and 55 years for coal, oil, and natural gas respectively to reach a 25% share of the energy market. There is no indication that later transitions will progress faster. In fact, the opposite is likely true, as the absolute quantities that need to be replaced have only become bigger.

"Globally, coal began to supply more than 5% of all fuel energies around 1840, more than 10% in the early 1850s, more than a quarter of the total by the late 1870s, and one half by the beginning of the twentieth century…”

The third chapter deals with energy transitions from a national perspective discussing changes in energy supply and conversion in Britain, France, the Netherlands, the United States, Japan, China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia.

The fourth and last chapter deals with coming transitions, providing an overview of the availability of non-fossil energy sources, and their constraints in conversion due to low power density and intermittency. A striking fact from Smil’s calculations is only 30.000 km2 of area was used to extract, process, and transport fossil fuels and generate and transmit electricity in the early 21st century, a sum equal to the area of Belgium. As a comparison, he takes bio-energy as a replacement energy source assuming a plant energy intake of 1 watt/m2 from the sun. To replace the total of 12.5 TW (400 Exajoules) of fossil fuel supply today would require 400 times the current space needed for fossil fuel energy, a spatial requirement of 12,500,000 km2, equivalent to the territory of the United States and India.

Subsequently the speed at which infrastructure can be altered, the speed with which the cost of alternative energies can be reduced, and expectations for changes in electric engines in cars are discussed. The chapter ends by comparing a host of what Smil sees as too optimistic scenarios for renewable energy, including Al Gore’s 100% renewable electricity plan and Google’s clean energy 2030 vision.

Vaclav Smil concludes his book with advice that a shift away from fossil fuels is a generations-long process.

“The inertia of existing massive and expensive energy infrastructures and prime movers and the time and capital investment needed for putting in place new convertors and new networks make it inevitable that the primary energy supply of most modern nations will contain a significant component of fossil fuels for decades to come.”

Therefore, from Smil’s perspective, hoping for rapid technological development and increasingly better conversion efficiencies is insufficient. He believes that a precondition for a successful transition from fossil fuels is that all affluent nations take steps to reduce fossil fuel consumption, through conservation and increased energy efficiently. In this way, the amount of replacement fuel can be reduced.

“Difficult as it would be, reducing the energy use would be much more rewarding than deploying dubious energy conversions operating with marginal energy returns (fermentation of liquids from energy crops being an excellent example), sequestering the emissions of CO2 (now seen as the best future choice by some industries), and making exaggerated claims for non-fossil electricity production (both in terms of their near-term contributions and eventual market shares). Or hoping for an early success of highly unconventional renewable conversions (jet stream winds, ocean thermal differences, deep geothermal). After all, a dedicated but entirely realistic pursuit of this goal could result in reductions on the order of 10% of the total primary energy consumption in a single generation, an achievement whose multiple benefits could not be matched by the opposite effort to increase the overall energy use.

Affluent countries should thus replace their traditional pursuit of higher energy output and increased conversion efficiency with a new approach that would combine aggressively improved efficiency of energy conversion with decreasing rates of per capita energy use. This combination would be the best enabler of the unfolding energy transition. Until we get such history-changing conversions as reliable, inexpensive PV cells generating electricity with 50% efficiency or genetically engineered bacteria exuding billions of liters of kerosene, it is the best way to ensure that new renewables will come as close to displacing fossil fuels as is economically advantageous and environmentally acceptable”

Thanks, Rembrandt. I have the book too, and have read most of it.

One thing that strikes me is that Vlclav Smil believes we really have sufficient fossil fuels to use for many years--he is not a believer in a near-term peak in oil supply. So he believes that we really have the option of a slow transition to renewables, 40 years from now, if we take steps to reduce our fossil fuel usage. Do we really have this option? Renewables at this point all depend on fossil fuels, so the transition to renewables is only a transition to using less fossil fuels--not away from fossil fuels. If our supply of fossil fuels is declining fairly quickly, it is not clear to me that we can even do that, because it takes fossil fuels to make biofuels and wind turbines and solar PV panels.

It seems to me that we have to, at some point, be transitioning away from fossil fuels completely. If the transition away from fossil fuels is going to take at least 40 years, we need to be working back from that point in time. It is not at all clear to me that we have time for two transitions--one to renewables, and one away from fossil fuels completely. It seems to me that given the short time fossil fuels are likely to be plentiful, it would make sense to start now transitioning away from fossil fuels completely. This would likely mean a return to technology from prior to 1800, and a much reduced living standard for all people.

Perhaps there is a way around this, but I would like it clearly mapped out--how we could make two energy transitions in a relatively short period of time, with the fuel supplies we really have, and our other energy needs.

I have started wading through one of Smil's broad overview texts. I have not read enough to get a good sense of the case he makes for any serious change taking 40 years or more.

What strikes me as hard to believe about the long timeframe is that most technological changes happen fairly rapidly these days once a breakthrough has been made. We clearly haven't had that breakthrough yet. Solar PV isn't there and 5% improvement a year is going to take decades to get us there.

But what about a major breakthrough in Solar PV or another completely different method of extracting useful energy (electricity or liquid fuel) from the sun's energy? Do Smil and others discount this possibility or believe there are no breakthroughs to be had? Once this breakthrough has been made, do we really believe it'll take 40 years to implement and replace existing technologies?

For instance, if a method is developed that enables renewable electricity production for a $0.01/KWh will we still be burning a lot of coal in 15 years?

Vehicles and oil replacement are more difficult no doubt, due to the energy densities required.

We've known about solar PV for over a century. I really don't think there is going to be any sudden breakthrough to get $0.01/KWh solar cells. But yes, if that happens, clearly everyone will install them and we will burn less coal. But you might as well dream about fusion power or an alien spaceship coming to save us.

I really don't think there is going to be any sudden breakthrough to get $0.01/KWh solar cells.

It wouldn't require that drastic of a price drop to see a much faster transition to PV (or wind, etc). Less than $0.13/kWh installed would produce significant motivation to start a wave of residential/commercial PV rooftop installations, given an economy that enabled such capital investment, that is. Wind is already competitive, and installations are starting to pick up again.

"...but you might as well dream about fusion power or an alien spaceship coming to save us.

We don't have to wait for either of the above to occur, speculawyer--

A concept called the Atmospheric Vortex engine has been researched and patented which projects totally carbon-free electricity for as little as $.03/kwh, all of which would be amortized capital costs, since there would be little or no "variable" costs for fuel.

http://www.powermag.com/issues/features/Harnessing-Energy-from-Upward-He...

http://vortexengine.ca

The next phase in it's development could be to construct a "power-free" ventilator or cooling tower, which could be in the $10-40 million dollar range.

HOG

HOG

I remember looking at this stuff a few years back. If I recall he is mostly dismissed as a crank. That doesn't mean the concept is uninteresting. Essentially he extends the idea of a solar chimney. A solar chimney, is a tall cyllinder, warm air heated by the sun heating the ground, goes up the chimney. You then use the pressure drop created at the bottom of the chimney. Thermodynamic efficiency of such a heat engine, should scale linearly with the height of the chimney. If you could make the chimney ten th fifteen kilometers high the efficiency would be pretty decent. The problem is that tall structures get pretty expensive. So his idea, is that if you sping the air, the vortex extending off the top of the chimney structure can extent the effective height several fold. Essentially you get a tornado -or dust-devil type vortex attached to the top of the chimney, and you can boost the efficiency of your chimney several fold.

Thats the theory, in a nutshell. Of course a full scale test doesn't come cheap, and he's been having trouble getting the needed funding. Then there is legitimate fear that if it works at all, the vortex might lose attachment to the chimney, potentially doing damage downwind, as kind of an artificial tornado. So I doubt he will ever get to try it out.

But, it would be neat to see how it works.

You don't have to explain the theory to me, EOS, as I have written extensively about it both on scitizen and greeneconomypost.

That said, would you please state the name of ANY PERSON OR SCIENTIST WHO has dismissed the idea as being that of a CRANK?

I know you can't, EOS, nor do I expect any person who reads this and WHO IS IN A POSITION TO KNOW, to step up here and explain exactly WHY the concept is not valid from a scientific perspective--no BS about damage caused by escaping tornadoes please. If such and accident were to, in fact, happen, it would be evidence that the concept does indeed work, and powerfully so, but that the control scheme devised is inadequate.

While full-scale testing may or may not come cheap, it's all relative, and the estimated overall cost (~ $.03/kwh) is expected to be far lower than "today's" competing renewable alternatives, as well as that of "clean coal".

would you please state the name of ANY PERSON OR SCIENTIST WHO has dismissed the idea as being that of a CRANK?

I wouldn't use the word crank, but this is on the fringes of what makes sense.

the estimated overall cost (~ $.03/kwh) is expected to be far lower than "today's" competing renewable alternatives, as well as that of "clean coal".

Yes, but that is a simple 'arm-waving' estimate, not a real number.

Let's do a simple reality check :

This thing CONTAINS wind turbines (that's where the power comes from), and so cannot expect to be cheaper than Wind-energy base lines.

It also adds a lot more construction (aka ducting), and unlike more conventional wind generation, is NOT site scalable.
Air is actually quite viscous, and does not like turning corners.

Ducted wind generation is another variant on this, often floated, but actually pretty much a commercial dead duck. (certainly for open field systems, it has some niche apps where you already have the structure for something else.)

Why ? Not because the idea is wrong, but because the wind-loads in storm conditions, kill the mechanics.

I could see commercial applications for his research, if he can ever get regulator sign-off on the virtual height effect.
Then, he could push for much lower towers/chimneys in many commercial applications.

So you are first stepping forward as SOMEONE IN A POSITION TO KNOW, but backing off on the Crank, comment--is that right?

With respect to your wind turbine comment, it is well known that turbines that operate in a steady 20-30 m/s wind speed range, which would occur in an AVE duct, are FAR MORE EFFICIENT than those that operate in the 5-10 m/s range typical of an outdoor turbine. Therefore, the investment cost per kw of capacity would be far less.

"...wind-loads in a storm conditions kill the mechanics."

What on earth are you talking about? The AVE operates best under conditions of low to moderate wind speeds. At high wind speeds, all or much of it would simply be shut down and allow "linear" free standing turbines to do their job efficiently in the production of electricity.

"Air is quite viscous, and doesn't like turning corners."

A pretty sophomoric statement, if you ask me. If the duct entrances are properly aligned with outside air, are kept relatively short, and designed to minimize entrance/exit losses with converging and diverging sections, the "head losses" can be minimized.

So you are first stepping forward as SOMEONE IN A POSITION TO KNOW, but backing off on the Crank, comment--is that right?

If you read carefully, I did not first use Crank (that was another poster), so there is no backing off.

With respect to your wind turbine comment, it is well known that turbines that operate in a steady 20-30 m/s wind speed range, which would occur in an AVE duct, are FAR MORE EFFICIENT than those that operate in the 5-10 m/s range typical of an outdoor turbine. Therefore, the investment cost per kw of capacity would be far less.

Wow - some claim.

Wind turbines are : Blades+Generators+(Sometimes)Gearboxes+Power conditioning infrastructure.
As the wind-speed sweet spot changes, only the blade geometry will change, all the other costs are essentially the same.

That is NOT going to deliver 'far less'

"...wind-loads in a storm conditions kill the mechanics."
What on earth are you talking about?

I was talking about ducted wind generation, as a more general topic/field.

These have been actually built, so have more real data than AVE, and yes, they have rather failed to make sense.

The wind-loads in storms, create very large forces which demand large/strong structures, which rather defeats the wind-speed gains the ducting gave you.
Of course, those selling the idea, focus on the wind speed gains :)

Turns out it is cheaper, to just build larger blades, and a taller tower. (ie more classic design approach)
There is no free lunch.

Are you saying that windmills operating in a 20 m/s wind would not produce a lot more power than the same ones operating in a 10/m wind?

Because the turbines (actually air-expanders, not windmills) operate more consistently in a higher velocity "breeze" due to the ability to concentrate air flow over a smaller cross-section, the power density and hence, cost per kw of generating capacity will be much lower than what would be expected for a conventional free-standing windmill. furthermore, these can be positioned on the ground and not on top of a tall tower.

There actually is a "free lunch" in this case, coming from the fact that the power source for an AVE is NOT kinetic energy contained in the wind, like it is for a windmill, but the amount of CAPE (Convective Available Potential Energy) in the troposphere, which can be far greater and more reliably harvested when actually needed.

When there isn't much natural CAPE, it can be added to the air passing through exchangers in the AVE from low-grade heat sources like the cooling towers of conventional thermal power plants, or heat from underground thermal storage facilities.

Thus, your attempt to categorize an AVE as some type of "enhanced windmill" fails miserably.

HOG

Are you saying that windmills operating in a 20 m/s wind would not produce a lot more power than the same ones operating in a 10/m wind?

No, I am saying your claims of far lower costs, fail even a simple reality check.

You continue to miss the point that, any gymnastics of the wind apart, the power still has to come from a Blade driving a Generator.
The cost of that Generator, and the downstream infrastructure, does not care about the wind pathways. It is related to the MW rating.

If you really believe your claims are true, send this guy all your savings. What could go wrong ?

Exactly my point, except that there are economies of scale for the larger generators...together with the fact that the costs of a generator located on the ground and driven by "winds" of speeds 3 times or more of what is typical for a windmill, and always coming from the same direction, can be made and installed far more cheaply than one dangling 150 meters in the air--that need special gear boxes or exotic metal electronics, which need to be adjusted, and which are subjected to far more variability and wind turbulence resulting in much higher wear and maintenance costs than a conventional stationary expander located at grade.

Besides, conventional wind farms are not only an eyesore, but cause environmental damage as well. I'm sure you don't include any of that in your "economics" do you?

Just because *you* claim that AVE costs aren't lower than wind farms doesn't in any way constitute a *reality check*. You haven't even given any evidence that you're qualified to discuss this, so far.

In one respect, you and other *critics* are right, however. We won't actually know until one (probably several) are actually built and tested.

We will, IMO, all be better off if that day comes sooner rather than later.

A concept called the Atmospheric Vortex engine has been researched and patented which projects totally carbon-free electricity for as little as $.03/kwh, all of which would be amortized capital costs, since there would be little or no "variable" costs for fuel.

Note the 'Projected', and sounding very similar to

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_updraft_tower

with some 'virtual height' gains, from the vortex.

These Tower/Updraft ideas have been around a while, but never seem to hit critical mass.

So I wouldn't hold my breath on this one - it fails the investment test.

"So I wouldn't hold my breath on this one - it fails the investment test."

That wouldn't be the "nothing ventured, nothing gained" test, would it, jg_?

or the "if you think what you always thought--you'll get what you always got" test, perhaps?

Wouldn't it be better to use the "Over the Rainbow" test, for which "dreams that you dare to dream really DO come true?"

HOG

Here is a simple investment test: Did you send him money ?

See my other post, about the fundamentals that show why this is not going to make the cut, certainly not as a mainstream solution.

If you want some over the horizon tech, to dream a little over, take a look at the new vertical axis 10MW wind generator proposals, coming our of Europe.

One variant:
http://factclipper.com/abs/wind-power/2010-02-24/v-shaped-vertical-axis-...

Those DO have fundamental Engineering advantages, so I give them a good chance of becoming real.

@Us13

I think your assumption that technological advances happen more rapidly these days then in the past is flawed. This can be shown by comparing the type of advances in the beginning of the industrial revolution with todays advances.

Smil addresses comparisons between technological advances in the realm of computing capacities and energy cost and finds it to be a flawed comparison. He discusses past rates of energy producing and converting technologies finding them to be nowhere near the sepeed of Moore's law of transistor chips which is often taken as an example of 'technological breakthrough's. Talks about the speed and potential development of Wind and Solar PV cost and realistic projections for that. He discusses exactly a 'major breakthrough' which would take the cost down to %0.05 kWh for solar PV which he finds utterly implausible. Instead he takes a moderate industry outlook. Finally he talks about the present fossil fuel infrastructure and the time duration that it will take before the investment is written off and to replace it. And based on these arguments it makes sense that it will take 40 years to implement and replace a PART of existing technologies.

Here's some citations about the general example and the solar PV part:

"There are two fundamental problems with this unfortunate comparison. Steadily rising performance of microprocessors (chips) has hardly anything to do with any decliens in price of silicon [for PV]. True, that extracting process of producing extremely pure polycrystalline silicon and converting it into cyrstals that are sliced into thin wafers has become less expensive over time - but a blank silicon wafer represents only about 2% of the total value of a finished microprocessor. That phenomenal increase in microchip performance (and hence a huge drop in cost per unit operation) has been due overwhelmingly to the ability of crwoding more transistors on the miniature wafer. ..

This contrast underscores the fact that an ever denser packing of transistors on microchips has been an exceptional case of technical progress and that the advances in energy extraction, harnessing, and conversion have not been governed by rapid doublings of performances accompanied by relentless declines in prices. Even if Moore's average doubling period were relaxed and doubled to four years, we still could not find any established energy production or conversion technique that would have followed such a path of improving performance coinciding with the microchip era that began in 1971..."

"If the cost of complete PV modules were to be halved every 18 months then in just 10 years it would drop to 1% of today's value and the modules selling for close to $5/W would cost less than $0.05/W, and they would be producing the cheapest electricity in history. That is, obviously, quite impossible, and the PV industry's more realistic expectations are to reduce the price of typical modules to $1.5-2/w within 10 years, implying a halving of the cost in seven to eight years. But this does not mean that the cost of actual PV installations will be halved as well, because the costs of other components (inventers and regulators) and the cost of installation may not fall that fast. After all, despite falling costs of PV cells, the cost of electricity generated by typical residential systems (with capacities of about 2 kw) has hardly changed since the year 2000, when it was close to 40 cents/kwh: During the second half of 2009 it was still between 35 and 36 c/kWh. And even the largest industrial installations (up to 500 kW) were generating electricity in 2009 almost as expensively as in 2000 at 19-20 c/kWh.

Hi @Us13, your comments on PV are valid, but I must point out that First Solar (www.firstsolar.com), the world leader in thin-film PV, already produces complete modules for 76 CENTS(US)/Watt already TODAY (NOT 10 years from now). The "Balance of System (BOS)", i.e. inverters, controllers, connections, wiring, mounts, and INSTALLATION add another 2-3 DOLLARS/watt. So COMPLETE INTEGRATED INSTALLED SYSTEMS cost on the order of 3-4 $/Watt. TODAY, not 10 years from now. TODAY. The main driver of this cost reduction has been lower costs of thin-film PV modules. At First Solar the cost of manufacturing the modules has been cut in half over the last 3 years. The aim is to reduce BOS to 1-2 $/Watt over the next 12 months. These systems will generate electricity in the range 12-16 cents/kWh in the next 2 years. I would call this a turning point in PV economics based on many improvements, breakthroughs and economies of scale, and I see no reason why this will not scale up very fast. This is one reason that the US Air Force has installed several very large PV arrays on their air bases (although they did not buy the lowest-price systems of today).

Todd, don't most thin film solutions have a scaling issue due to the use of scarce materials, such as Gallium and Indium? We may find that the first cheap PV technologies, are NOT the ones capable of scaling to sufficient size. Then we will have to wait for the more scalable technologies to "catch up". One risk is that a cheaper, but nonscalable technology (such as CIGS thin film) could starve more expensive, but scalable technologies of development funds.

@ToddInNorway

What's so special about total system costs of 3-4 $/watt as it is still along the regular declining cost curve. If the aim to reduce costs to 1-2 (thats already an order of 100% difference, i'd say 2+ $/watt is maybe possible, over the next 12 months is happening that would present a deviation.

Do you have any documentation of the 12-16 cents/kWh in 2 years claim?

Do you have any documentation of the 12-16 cents/kWh in 2 years claim?

Assuming the PV system lasts 25 years and it has a capacity factor of only 18%, it will produce 40,000 kWh/kW.
At $3 per Watt that's less than 8 cents/kWh (without interests on invested capital).

(Some PV manufacturers already offer 30 years warranty on their PV modules).

@anyone

That calculation does not take into account interest rates, discounting, operation and maintenance costs etc. making it meaningless in our functioning financial system.

$3/Wp, 7% interest, and 25 year life give $.16/kWh.

That's not bad.

25 year projects are soon going to go the way of the dodo bird. Investment horizons are going to shrink dramatically...that's what happens in deflationary spirals.

See:

The U.S. is Bankrupt and We Don't Even Know
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-11/u-s-is-bankrupt-and-we-don-t-ev...

Hi aangel, You may be confusing the pay-back time with the technical lifetime of the PV installation. Pay-back time depends on location. A very sunny loation where electricity prices are high and tax incentives are available will pay back the entire installation investment in 3-6 years. On the opposite end, the payback time could be 10-15 years. The technical lifetime of a PV installation is 25-50 years. Different suppliers have different guarantees, but the PV panels do not suddenly stop working. Their output can degrade slowly, so that after 25 years, it may only be 85% of the original. This is usually the way the guarantee is worded. Note however that inverters do stop working, and they must be replaced on the order of 5-9 years.

Thanks for the extra info but I am not confusing the two. Large projects take decades to pay off. You are referring to individual installations, which individual homeowners and businesses can pay off more quickly.

The big PV projects like these:

Juwi PV Field

are typically financed so the cost of money and the risk of getting it all back are very important.

When economies are stressed, investment horizons shrink and the necessary investments do not get made by the private sector. The government will often step in to attempt to replace the private sector but it is really no replacement for the vast $'s that the private sector usually spends.

A whole list of the New Deal programs is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal#New_Deal_Programs

The program that invested in worthwhile, lasting infrastructure was the Public Works Administration:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Works_Administration

Hi again aangel, thanks for the nice picture. The unit cost of a large installation is in general lower than for a smaller installation. You may be confusing the cashflow pay-back time of the project with the terms of financing. The project developer can certainly obtain a loan that matures in 10 years or 15 years or 20 years even though the cash flow for the project could pay it off in 5. There is no inconsistency here. We are both right! I hope simply that you remember from this that the capital investment for the most cost-effective thin-film PV is 3-4 $/watt all inclusive, and that this is much lower than what it was just 4 years ago. And that it will continue to fall.

Hi, Todd.

Sorry for not being more clear...I've been talking about the terms of financing all along and only for the largest plants because they are the ones whose financing stretches out that long.

BTW, I doubt that the cash flow would pay off these large projects in just five years. Do you have an example?

More typical arrangements are outlined here:

Financing Large-Scale Solar Projects
A breakdown of the various funding options available to public and private entities.
http://ases.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1034&Itemid=23

The government will often step in to attempt to replace the private sector but it is really no replacement for the vast $'s that the private sector usually spends.

That was the case in the Depression, which is one of the reasons why it lasted so long. OTOH, WWII dramatically raised government spending, and ended the Depression quite nicely.

We're in the middle of a Bank Panic. We've had them before (1873, 1893, 1907, 1917, 1929) and we'll probably have them again.

Fortunately, we have a very large surplus of energy with which to deal with it (unfortunately, much of that energy is in the form of coal, which we'll probably use. But, that's off-topic.), so it's primarily a question of the soundness of public policy (both fiscal and monetary). So far, that policy has been...ok. Not great, but ok. It might get worse, in which case we could have stagnation, as did Japan. We could even shoot ourselves in the foot, and create an entirely unnecessary depression, but that's unlikely.

Again, Andre, your article doesn't support your argument.

First, he's not predicting deflation: he's predicting that sometime in the future, perhaps 20 years from now, there will be drastic reductions in social security, tax increases, and inflation. That's very different.

2nd, of course, he's an idiot. Proof one: he thinks that Social Security benefits are way too high ("benefits from Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid that, on average, exceed per-capita GDP."), and yet he thinks that cutting them will make beneficiaries poor. Proof two: he thinks that hiking taxes (but not raising spending)will make us better off in the long run: this is precisely the policy prescription that turned the Crash of 29 into the Great Depression.

Sorry, that was a bit oblique. My intention was to show that BAU is not likely to continue, making your predictions baseless, in my view.

I agree that BAU is not likely to continue.

Oddly, I think your forecast is closer to BAU than mine.

I forecast that we'll eliminate oil eventually. You're forecasting that we'll continue to be dependent on oil (and that this dependency will cause our economy to decline to a small fraction of today).

I can't imagine why we'll continue to drive ICE vehicles, use long-haul trucks, or use diesel as our primary fuel for water shipping.

Yes, we'll continue to be dependent on oil for many decades. This dependency will force the economy to shrink as energy is removed from the system. Less energy == less work. We will not move over to alternatives in a manner quickly enough to stop this contraction.

You say that BAU (i.e. the growth the world economy has seen for the past few centuries or millennia) is not going to continue but also say that "it's unproven" that growth can't continue. Which is it? You say contradictory things when it suits you.

I think we've covered this ground before and I'm getting weary of saying the same thing repeatedly. Everyone has to make up their own mind given the arguments we've each presented.

I think our choice is between the green line and the orange line while you assert that the blue line is possible. We will see this decade which trend starts to assert itself.

Possible Future Scenarios

we'll continue to be dependent on oil for many decades.

We'll continue to use oil for many decades. Will we continue to be dependent on it? I think it's unlikely. Electrical generation was dependent on oil for 20% of it's production, 30 years ago. Now it's not - oil accounts for only .8%, and falling. Interior lighting was dependent on kerosene 120 years ago, 30 years later, it wasn't. Most of those who used fuel oil for home heating in the US have switched to something else. These are clear, strong examples of how consumers switch away from oil when it becomes over-priced, or clearly superior substitutes arrive.

This dependency will force the economy to shrink as energy is removed from the system.

The world, and the US especially, has an enormous surplus of energy. The US could reduce it's consumption of oil by 25% in months, just by carpooling. Heck, trucking could reduce it's consumption of diesel by 20% in minutes just by slowing down. Water shipping could reduce it's consumption of diesel by 50% in minutes just by slowing down.

20-50% reductions, in minutes to months.

You say that BAU (i.e. the growth the world economy has seen for the past few centuries or millennia) is not going to continue

That's not what I said. I said that BAU means oil and fossil fuels. Continued dependency on oil and FF is BAU. Your forecast is BAU, combined with PO. I'm forecasting a change from BAU. I also expect that economic growth will continue, though I think that increasingly it will be in the form of services rather than hard goods.

Oddly enough, many people on TOD are like old oil-industry veterans, who just can't visualize a different world, where oil isn't king. I remember talking to a car-industry veteran, 30 years ago, who told me flatly that 40MPG just wasn't possible. I talked to him recently - he agreed that hybrids were the wave of the future. He's 92 years old, but he was able to change his view of the future - it's time for people on TOD to do the same.

I'm getting weary of saying the same thing repeatedly.

Then don't say the same old generalities. Say something new. Say something that responds specifically to what I've said about energy surplus; or Ayres; or Hamilton; or the US from 1978-1982; or trucking converting to rail; or EVs having completed the first 5 years of their development, and therefore having a jump on Hirsch's 20 year estimate; or Aleklett projecting only a 11% decline in liquids.

I have. I have gone though the math and so has Hirsch.

BTW, Aleklett's number is 13% and he calls it optimistic (ASPO 2009 conference). Plus, he doesn't include the impact of the financial contraction at all. He is looking purely from the geologic standpoint. Nor does he discuss ELM. All the important items that you just ignore, even as they are happening now.

I have gone though the math

That's great. Could you show your math?

so has Hirsch.

Not publicly. There's nothing in his published work that supports it, as I've discussed.

Aleklett's number is 13%

That's not a big difference. The US handled a 19% reduction in just 4 years, from 78-82, while also handling a separate serious financial problem (the Fed's reduction of inflation expectations through dramatically high interest rates).

he calls it optimistic (ASPO 2009 conference).

Do you have a link? His online presentation presents it as a mid-range scenario, and also presents separate high and low scenarios.

he doesn't include the impact of the financial contraction at all.

Sensible of him.

He is looking purely from the geologic standpoint.

No, he's not. Geological limits are important, but they're only one of many elements of a comprehensive projection of likely oil production. For instance, I suspect he doesn't include ANWR. ANWR has a reasonable potential for significant production, but no reasonable analyst will include it, because it's very unlikely that it will be produced. Similarly, there's little question that CTL could provide very large quantities of synthetic oil, but a reasonable analyst won't include it to such a degree, because it's very unlikely that it will be produced in that manner.

Nor does he discuss ELM

True, but I have: ELM is significant, but the overall world balance of supply and demand is what matters. Further, there's also "ILM": the fact that the US has domestic production that buffers it from world production declines. Finally, if ELM turns a 13% reduction to a 20% reduction, that's not so hard for the world economy to deal with. As we've seen the US did it from 78-82.

All the important items that you just ignore, even as they are happening now.

Not at all - I've discussed all of them with you, several times. Which would you like to focus on in for the detailed discussion we haven't had so far?

That's great. Could you show your math?

No, I'm not going to spend that time because it's not a useful exercise with you. You'll point out some item that completely misses the point of the analysis, as you have done repeatedly with other points I've made. Or you take a moment in time when the U.S. was even more of a glutton than it is now ("As we've seen the US did it from 78-82") and think that the world or this time period will respond similarly even though we've just gone through the 2007/2008 food and fuel riots due to high prices.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007–2008_world_food_price_crisis

You have an amazing capacity to explain away ("ignore") evidence that would challenge your worldview.

As for the others, Hirsch's paper discusses the contraction of the economy as oil contracts. I've pointed you to the reference several times.

Not publicly.

Yes, he has. His papers is available for anyone in the public to view. Go to a local university to gain access to the Energy Policy journal if you need to where you can read it at no charge.

There's nothing in his published work that supports it, as I've discussed.

Umm, his paper is "Mitigation of maximum world oil production: Shortage scenarios," published in a peer-reviewed high quality journal, is precisely about this topic. The problems you see with the paper are the invention of someone who can't see the self-evident. It is a solidly reasoned rough approximately of how quickly the economy will contract as oil declines. Of course the credit contraction (another global change you seem to be blind to despite the ubiquitousness of the discussion thereof currently taking place, well, just about everywhere) will cause the number of all large projects to contract, just as they did in 2007/2008. If you need references for that, you just haven't been paying enough attention.

Aleklett says that his team's forecast is optimistic in his ASPO talk last year:
http://www.aspo.tv/kjell-aleklett.html

Even Ayers, whom you repeatedly say makes your point instead of mine, talks about the end of growth:
Turning point: The end of exponential growth?
Technological Forecasting and Social Change

"he doesn't include the impact of the financial contraction at all."

Sensible of him.

Yes, because he is working on the research that provides a solid underpinning to the geologic argument. He may come back and connect the various systems together yet. In the meantime, others have to do that, like the Limits to Growth team, for instance.

The decline of oil will surely shrink the world economy and in addition to that we have climate change (c.f. Russia these past weeks and their wheat export ban), depleting aquifers and glacial meltwater, rapidly decreasing mineral ore concentrations, increased number and more damaging disaster events, ocean acidification and a litany of other woes.

That you think economic growth can continue under all these converging trends is only because you consistently refuse to connect the dots.

BTW, ANWR is included in global oil production forecasts because it is just another region that may or may not be produced and statistically works itself out in the wash. Besides, it contains only between 5 to 16 billion barrels of oil, more likely closer to the 5 than the 16, in other words, almost a statistically negligible amount of oil when compared to the 31 billion barrels the world uses each year and the ~2 trillion barrels of technically recoverable oil at the price a growing economy can tolerate.

I'm sorry that you are unable to see the big picture despite the people here doing our best to support you with that. As a consolation, you are not the only one who is unable to see what is occurring to the world economy. Give it another few years and maybe even you will be able to see what is happening.

No, I'm not going to spend that time because it's not a useful exercise with you. You'll point out some item that completely misses the point of the analysis, as you have done repeatedly with other points I've made

aangel,

I sympaphise with you on this. This is one reason I rarely bother giving my views these days except when I am so board stiff I feel like drawing myself into senseless arguments. There are certain people here who bugeon their points of view regardless of rational thought. I'm not going to mention names, but they have very simplistic answers to all our problems. Human nature is a key component to our problems, look at the threat of BAA strikes, to quote the union: "Our members are not going to take a drop in a standard of living for two years in a row". There are people in the world starving, BAA staff have some of the best employment conditions in the world and they aren't prepared to give them up.

We could in theory deploy all our lawyers and civil servants to build wind turbines and work the land but it aint going to happen in harmony.

The fact Germany has grown its economy without an increase in oil consumption; I doubt it. It will have conveniently transferred its consumption to China or India, just as has the UK in the form of "embedded consumption". Statistics are very misleading viz; lies, damn lies and statistics.

An Pessimist is an optimist who is aware of the facts!

I'll try to answer as I have more time.

Don't bother. I'm not going to come back to check for comments again.

Andre,

I'm sorry to hear that you don't really want to resolve the discussion to a point of something close to agreement. It really is possible, you know. I've done it many times here.

Just curious - where can one currently receive 7% ?

30 year mortgages are at 4.5%, so home owners can certainly finance PV projects at low rates.

Large projects on industrial/commercial rooftops are perhaps the best place for PV these days. Because such investments would reduce costs, they provide extremely stable rates of return. I don't know what rates of return such organizations would require, but they might consider 7% pretty good. What is commercial paper going for at companies like Walmart?

A PV system does not have any movable parts, so, there are very little maintenance costs.

An efficient household needs a 2 kW PV-system. This is $6000 which is still almost 5 times less than what your average F-150 costs.
Somehow average Americans have no problems buying houses for $500,000 and cars for $40,000 but saving $6000 within 5 years is apparently beyond any scope...

I'm ready to spend six thousand dollars on a two kilowatt SYSTEM, but unfortunately everybody who actually installs such systems quotes a price from three times that and up, depending on what the SYSTEM consists of.

I could get the PANELS for roughly six thousand bucks, but I'm not so sure about the warranty/manufacturer and the distributor.

Hey OFM,

Here is a real world price breakdown for a 2KW off grid off the shelf system... This is their price as advertised on their website to contractors and resellers.

http://sunelec.com/index.php?main_page=2050_watt_off_grid_system

Note: I am *NOT* one of their resellers.

A typical customer in my area would get a 30% Federal tax rebate on top of that. Installation not included but it isn't brain surgery any literate DIY handyman should be able figure it out.

Maybe people will have solar panel installation parties in the near future. Sort of like barn raising in the old days... How's that old solar moonshine still coming along? That's for after everyone has come down off the roof. Corn ethanol is still gotta be good for something >;^)

A co-worker got 30 x 180W PV panels off this website for $1800 per kW:
http://www.alibaba.com
He brought one in and it had mono-crystalline cells (costlier, higher efficiency than polycrystalline cells) which were sandwiched between two glass plates. This panel was well packaged. Obviously the manufacturer may not be around in 20 years from now but even if a panel were to fail in 10 years from now he'll still have 29.

(Besides this is really not rocket science, you can even get broken silicon cells off ebay and solder them in series and charge a car battery with it which powers some 12V fridge. They even work without a protective glass and even if they've gotten wet numerous times (not that this is recommendable). A solar cell is just a simple photo-diode.)

I could get the PANELS for roughly six thousand bucks, but I'm not so sure about the warranty/manufacturer and the distributor.

There is a good spot price summary on panels here, (moderate volumes)

http://www.ecobusinesslinks.com/solar_panels.htm

As you'd expect the lowest prices have higher quantities, tho mpost of the top 10, are under your 2kW level as a minimum.

Check out the George Washington University Solar Institute http://solar.gwu.edu/index.html . There is a wealth of useful, up-to-date industry data and macro analysis. Check also the First Solar website www.firstsolar.com for their public data on their module manufacturing costs (they are falling fast).

So COMPLETE INTEGRATED INSTALLED SYSTEMS cost on the order of 3-4 $/Watt. TODAY, not 10 years from now.

Wind costs less than 2 $/Watt and has higher capacity factor. New US nuclear seems to come in at about 7 $/Watt initially, but has four to five times higher capacity factor than PV and 3 times longer life.

These systems will generate electricity in the range 12-16 cents/kWh in the next 2 years.

To me, that is extremely expensive. I see no reason to do PV for grid connected locations.

One of the big issues with PV is that just about all PV materials are made on imperfect and largely disordered semiconducting substrates and materials. Compared to the amount of semiconductor research that has gone into understanding nearly perfect materials, the corresponding research on disordered materials is very low. I foresee some breakthroughs on this front and in how we learn to deal with entropy. So instead of perfecting the nearly perfect we will move toward improving the imperfect.

just about all PV materials are made on imperfect and largely disordered semiconducting substrates and materials.

That means we may not make fundamental advances by utilizing first prinicles design. Nevertheless, more empirical approaches to imporovement may still be effective, even if at the fundamental physics level we don't understand how it works.

To be fair the rapid improvement in feature density of microprocessors is not unique; there are similar growth rates in some other technologies. For example hard drive storage densities and the bandwidth capacity of a fiber optic link have had growth rates exceeding even Moore's Law.

I think that there are some areas in sustainable energy production that offer a potential for this, based on biotechnology. I think that is the only area that sufficient leverage exists. How far away we are from realizing this is the big question.

@Speaker to Animals

On what argument basis would growth rates of sustainable energy production be able to vastly surpass historical growth rates of fossil fuel energy, DESPITE the higher energy density, and ease of use of fossil fuels. As well as fossil fuels being a stock energy source (in stead of a flow energy source such as wind/solar?). I very much doubt vague claims of "some areas in sustainable production".

You left out the key part of the phrase, .....based on biotechnology.

We already know that the potential for biological processes to make use of a wide range of environmental energy sources is remarkable. Even gamma rays are surmised to be harvestable by types of fungus growing on the inside of the Chernobyl sarcophagus.

Manipulation of the genome is a technique that offers great leverage; an advance could spread on a global basis without much capital investment.

And of course the science is very young. The first very crude experiments in this field were performed less than 40 years ago.

Of course such technology doesn't exist today. However this is one area where I think the performance improvement could be on the same order as a Moore's law over time.

I'm not saying it WILL be, just that the leverage is there.

For example hard drive storage densities and the bandwidth capacity of a fiber optic link have had growth rates exceeding even Moore's Law.

Statements like this merely show a profound misunderstanding of "technology".

Information Technologies (IT) like micro-computers and data storage are a rare example of where smaller is better. The smaller you can make a transistor, the more of those suckers you can pack into a chip (i.e. a microprocessor) and the increase of density follows the square law (halving of transistor dimension quadruples the number that can be packed into same area).

But how are you going to argue that smaller is better when it comes to the nutritional needs of 7 Billion people? How are you going to argue that less is more when 6 Billion people are planning to climb up the standard of living curve, and not slide down it?

"But how are you going to argue that smaller is better when it comes to the nutritional needs of 7 Billion people?"

Many years ago I read a sci-fi story the premise of which was that the human race had taken control of its own genome and genetically engineered each succeeding generation to be smaller that its predecessor. People became very small, indeed. Many more could be fed per hectare of farm land. I don't recall what was the hand waving that allowed a fully functional human brain in these little people.

It was an entertaining short story, not a proposal to solve to the population bomb.

I guess one might also assume that the cost of electricity will go up as fossil fuels to generate it become less available and more costly. That could become a prime driver. In some places there is already a significant tax on electricity that make installing a renewable technology more feasable. Brownouts and blackouts could drive a lot of people as well. As things get worse people will find other motivators.

Is there any discussion of Thorium reactors. I have never been a nuclear activist but from what I have read so far this technology has promise. This might be especially true if one thinks we have 20, 30 or 40 more years of fossil fuels.

A lot of interesting comments. I do not pretend to have the answers, but I'd like to learn more.

@Rembrandt

I think you addressed my question about potential breakthroughs by making arguments about rates of incremental improvement to existing technologies. Moore's Law reflects exactly that - the rate of improvement to computing power through incremental advancements (smaller traces, better wafer manufacturing, cost reductions, etc. etc.). I acknowledged that a Moore's Law type improvement in Solar PV wouldn't get us from here to there.

That said, I also mentioned the potential for other, not yet discussed or thought of, methods to extract energy from the sun's flux. Do we completely discount that someone may invent a method to generate electricity from the sun without using anything to do with a Solar PV approach?

Even though I am saying breakthroughs are possible, I am not advocating we sit on our hands and do nothing about GHGs, and increasing fossil fuel costs due to diminishing supplies (assuming carbon taxes and lack of breakthroughs!). The two do not have to go hand in hand, although I am sure many burn forever fossil apologists use this logic to defend the "do nothing" approach.

most technological changes happen fairly rapidly these days

[what] if a method is developed that enables renewable electricity production for a $$$$ 0.01 /KWh ?

"Common sense" is one of those phrases that, oddly enough, belongs to the realm of "Common insanity".

What caught my eye in US13's "good sense" analysis of the situation is how the argument is peppered with so many commonly insane framings.

In particular, I was jarred by these three:
1. "these days"
2. "technological"
3. " $$$ per KiloWattHour"

What is so special about "these days"?
Did you ever pause and wonder to yourself why so many people believe that "these days" are so much more extraordinary than other days? Was it not the case that people 100 years ago, or even 1000-2000 years ago, each had 5 fingers per hand and one ape brain mounted above their shoulders? Did they not bleed when you pricked them? Did they not constantly go to war against each other? Lie to each other? Use language and religion to try to control each other? Why are "these days" so different from all other days?

What makes something "technological" (as opposed to illogical)?
Did you ever stop to stare at words like "technology", "high tech" and "technological"? What do they really mean? Wasn't everything in "state of the art" form 1000 years ago? 10,000 years ago? 100,000 years ago?

When the alchemists were mixing their brews and trying to convert lead into gold, wasn't that then, the height of technology? Does not the word "technology", even today, translate into unquestioning belief in "magic"?

Does spouting of dollar signs ($$$) and units of measure (/KWHr) make a discussion rational?
Let's say we did have the "technology" to generate electricity at an "economic" rate of $0.0001/KWHr

But let's also assume you need one kilogram of Unobtainium (a very rare element found only on the Planet of Pandora's Box) in order to do so.

In that case, how does such "technology" and "economical thinking" save us?

Answer: it doesn't because it cannot be scaled.

Hi Step Back,

I agree with you.

It is quite amazing how delusional thinking leads to the conclusion that some emerging technology will allow current human culture to continue. What a gamble with the lives of future generations.

Some risk takers personally benefited from technological advances, many did not. "Risk" is the name of that game. In my experience, most successful work-a-day CEOs were risk adverse, hard nosed conservatives with a strong "show-me" attitude. My vote for a CEO of the planet would be someone like Pat Murphy who authored "Plan C" http://www.amazon.com/Plan-Community-Survival-Strategies-Climate/dp/0865...

plan c is about cooperating instead of competing for the remaining supply of fossil fuels and each of us curtailing our energy usage (he shows you why a whopping 90% reduction is needed) on behalf of our children and future grandchildren

Bicycle Dave,

Thank you.

It was not my intent to disparage US13 in any way because he is simply making the same "birds of a feather" tweet noises as everybody else does.

I constantly hear the same bird song noises: "these days", "modern times", "20th Century", "In this the 21st Century", yadah yadah.

There is no logic in such noises. Did people of the Medieval Dark Ages crow about their "modern times" and how way ahead of the Romans they were? Who knows?

Certainly many here, even on the more logical OilDrum, chirp about the wondrous advantages of free market competition and how, if we all try to kill each other (economically that is) we will all be better off.

I'm not sure if Plan C is a viable answer, but certainly BAU and our continued stampede toward the edge of the "$$$ per KwHr" cliff cannot be a viable answer.

__________________________________
Title of image above: Join the Stampede (Yeehah!)

Did people of the Medieval Dark Ages crow about their "modern times" and how way ahead of the Romans they were?

What if they did? Perhaps, if they did, they were right, just as we are. Technology have changed the game many times, and is still doing so as we speak.

Certainly many here, even on the more logical OilDrum, chirp about the wondrous advantages of free market competition and how, if we all try to kill each other (economically that is) we will all be better off.

You mean if exchanges are voluntary, we will all be better off? Because that's what the free market is about. And yes, it does give rise to an economic evolution of sorts, where millions of ideas, products and ways of working are tried in parallel. This makes the economy very adaptable. We even adapt efficiently to changing conditions even if nobody has the big picture of what needs to be done.

But I do agree that we can't rely on unproven tech to save us. That's probably why so many recommends nuclear power and breeder technology. This tech is so far along that we know for certain that it can power humanity. (Even though some think it won't have time to ramp.)

What if they did [in the Medieval Dark Ages crow about their "modern times"]?
Perhaps ... they were right,
just as we are [today].

Technology [HAS] changed the game many times,
and is still doing so as we speak.

jeppen,

Don't get me wrong.
I love the sweet bird song sound of "technology" just as much as every other technophile on these here Drum pages.

But the point is that the Medieval "modern timers" were wrong.
They were wrong about almost every backwards and Medieval thought that crossed through their heads.

That of course, does not prove that we are wrong in our so-called "modern times".
But it shows that there is no rational connection between it being "these times" and our being right or wrong.

Your are correct to say that "technology" HAS changed the game many times and still does so today.

But be careful what you wish for.
There are many unknown (to you) technologies at play in our "modern times".
One of them is neuroscience and mind control.

I'm not that worried about mind control. However, I agree we may all be dead the day thousands of medicine researchers in a few hundred labs all over the world each can synthesize viruses with arbitrary qualites on their coffee breaks.

For instance, if a method is developed that enables renewable electricity production for a $0.01/KWh will we still be burning a lot of coal in 15 years?

In my household I consume 400 kWh of electricity per year. That would be a monthly electricity bill of ONLY $0.3 ! Hey, you cannot even get a coffee for 30 cents!

You need to invent cheap rent not cheap electricity.

I don't pretend to know what will happen, but it seems unlikely in the extreme to me at least that we can make the transition to renewables in only one generation.

Technically, it just might be possible, if we could focus all of our human energy on the job, without slacking off,starting today, continiously, for the next couple of decades.

As a practical matter, the odds of doing it are essentially zero;we have a hell of a hard time just tightening up a building code or mandating more fuel efficient cars.

We simply cannot, given our current technology, feed the population of the developed world by any means other than what boils down to bau conventional agriculture;going back to pre industrial revolution era lifestyles is not an option, unless we are willing to allow people to starve by the tens and hundreds of millions.

We must either find a middle ground or future historians-if there are any- will record the story of a bloodbath that will simply dwarf all previous wars combined.

I believe that we can , at least in the richer western countries, make the transition to a low level of fossil fuel use and a high level of renewables without major loss of life due to starvation, war, civil uprising, or disease, but ONLY IF we are lucky and civil authority survives on a local to national level.

Once the smelly personal organic waste hits the fan and we are forced to find solutions, we will find that there are numerous available conservation and efficiency solutions which require little in the way of new technology.

What WILL be required is an iron hand capable of forcing thier adoption across the board.

Of course we will fight tooth and claw to make sure our nieghbor gets a double dose of energy austerity medicine so we can avoid our own dose, and it seems likely for this reason that our collective ship will be wrecked on the rocks of personal and pressure group interests.

We would certainly RATHER go rob anybody handy,meaning anywhere on the globe, of whatever fuel they possess than to face up to the ugly truth, but perhaps reason will prevail and we actually do what will obviously have to be done before the window of opportunity slams shut for a thousand years.

I have knocked together a very short list of things I think we will see happen, late in the game, if we survive the crunch.It is not even remotely comprehensive,as the intention is simply to give the reader a hint of the scope of the changes that are coming to day to day life.

The small details tend to make things real to us.Cnstant talk about great change is simply tuned out.

Hopefully others will chime in with some additional small scale changes;this could be informative and fun.

Store hours are going to be severely restricted.

The variety of energy intensive short lived junk on the shelves will shrink .A new drill or saw will come out of a bin in a padded paper bag rather than a box lined with styrofoam, and the bag will stay at the store;if you want to carry it home in a box, you will bring your own.

Energy intensive consumable or throwaway products such as potato chips in single serving bags, soft drinks in aluminum cans, and disposable bags will be taxed or legislated out of existence.Fast food joints will serve eat in food on real plates, washed in hot water provided by real solar collectors.

The useful life of consumer products such a washing machine or a personal computer will be extended by a factor of two or three by leglisation mandating minimum durability levels;manufacturers will meet the requirements by standardizing designs and making sure parts and service are available.

You will have to be a real plumber, or a real farmer, and on real plumbing or farm business, to drive a 3/4 ton pickup truck;the cops, the price of gas, and the limited number of gallons available thru your computeried ration card will gaurantee this.

You will sleep under an electric blanket and a comforter, even if you are a hotshot cpa, because your electricity consumption will be limited by a draconian consumption tax above a certian number of kilowatt hours per month, and prohibited at some level;you will find it necessary to economize on night time heat in order to enjoy other uses of your allotment.

Air travel will simply cease to exist, with the exception of a few flights between major cities.

There will be little new construction of highways,houses, factory buildings, office buildings, or retail space.

Such construction work as gets done will mostly involve remodeling and repurposing existing structures for efficiency and new uses.

When you put a handful of quarters in a newspaper box,you may have to wait a minute or so for your paper to be printed.

You won't have any trouble getting in and out of your ultra minicar, because you will be riding your bicycle and walking so much your butt and gut will be a lot smaller.

Your sex life will get better as a happy unforeseen consequence.

If you are heavily invested in renewables, you will be able to afford a steak occasionally.

If you are trained in renewables you will have a job.

Leaf blowers will no longer be heard! Yea !!

Leaf blowers will no longer be heard!

Hallelujah! If anyone has done a study of "most annoying modern machine" the leaf blower must be high on the list.

"We simply cannot, given our current technology, feed the population of the developed world by any means other than what boils down to bau conventional agriculture;going back to pre industrial revolution era lifestyles is not an option, unless we are willing to allow people to starve by the tens and hundreds of millions."

I have to take issue with this. A lot more people can grow food- the average homeowner could turn their non-productive lawn into a garden and significantly increase the amount of food they grow for their family. Chickens, rabbits and ducks can easily be raised for eggs and meat even in a city yard. Public spaces - parks, median strips, public lawns and landscaping- could be repurposed to grow fruit and nut trees, and productive gardens. That will not solve ALL our food problems, but it sure would address many of them, as well as provide local employment opportunities and decrease the amounts of fuels needed for transportation.

So, do you have a garden?

Seraphima,

Yes-a couple of acres plus or minus at any given time, we sell a lot and give some away.We have chickens,and most years a pig or two, and sometimes we have other meat producing animals, such as rabbits and beef cows, but not at the moment.

We also grow tree fruits, apples, peaches, cherries, and nectarines commercially but on a very small scale nowadays.

I agree there is a large potential for localized food production in urban areas, and given time it can be realized.We also waste a lot of food and can eat farther down the food chain.

Any discussion of such issues, to make good sense, should always indicate the time frame that the author has in mind.

My own personal opinion is that with a lot of luck we won't fall off of a cliff energy wise, and that we have a couple of decades to change our ways, assuming we can avoid WWIII and panic in general, meaning civil authority prevails.

We may be in a heck of a spot as far as the car based economy goes in as little as two or three more years, but there should be enough fuel available to easily support food production and distribution for a long time, while the sort of localized low input production you envision is ramped up.

As I see it, the real short to medium term energy problem will manifest itself mostly in the loss of jobs, rather than an actual inability of society to provide essential services and goods.

The problem with the sort of food production you have in mind is that nothing less than a famine will serve to get the general public to get on board digging up all that pretty grass.

And once the necessity of the program is obvious to everybody, it will still take several years to deal with the learning curve.

So we are stuck, for now and for a good while yet, with bau agriculture;but localized urban production will certainly be very important in the rich countries at some point probably still a decade or two or more away.

I do support the work of people in the field today, as they are building the essential core of experienced operators and proving out the locally tested techniques needed to teach everybody else when the smelly personal organic wastes are again captured in buckets instead of being flushed away to the sea.

Hi Mac,

personal opinion is that with a lot of luck we won't fall off of a cliff energy wise, and that we have a couple of decades to change our ways, assuming we can avoid WWIII and panic in general, meaning civil authority prevails

I suspect that this is a big reason why many of us hang out on TOD: we are trying to figure out the most likely scenarios that will unfold in the next few decades.

Some of the regulars here (like Nick) have great ideas for how to avoid a collapse. The problem is that the problem is not sufficiently recognized for many people to listen to Nick (or my favorite author Pat Murphy - Plan C). Solutions are useless if few people are motivated to implement them.

I keep wondering if we are able to overcome our massive delusions in time to make a difference? We just violated the GOM and then a few days later watched an iceberg the size of Manhattan fall off of Greenland. The flooding in China and Pakistan is taking a huge toll. And yet, a robbery leads the local newscast. National cable news is the political version of National Inquirer. I don't know a singe person who thinks their Cadillac Escalate has anything to do with our problems.

I think there are rational solutions for greatly mitigating potential problems for humanity in the next few decades - However, I have a great deal of trouble figuring out how these solutions might actually get implemented in a timely fashion.

I think there are rational solutions for greatly mitigating potential problems for humanity in the next few decades - However, I have a great deal of trouble figuring out how these solutions might actually get implemented in a timely fashion.

I myself don't have a problem imagining scenarios for implementing such solutions in a timely fashion. Its just that most of what I imagine is probably not what the average citizen would consider very pleasant. But then again neither is chemotherapy. And therein lies the rub.

Hi Fred,

But then again neither is chemotherapy. And therein lies the rub.

Probably a good comparison - it does not occur to many healthy people without cancer to check into the local hospital for chemotherapy just because they have heard a few folks talking about the danger of cancer. Most people would need a highly credible diagnosis (and a 2nd opinion) that they actually have cancer.

For most folks in western countries it is still happy motoring and all you can eat.

Some of the regulars here (like Nick) have great ideas for how to avoid a collapse. The problem is that the problem is not sufficiently recognized for many people to listen to Nick (or my favorite author Pat Murphy - Plan C). Solutions are useless if few people are motivated to implement them.

All of the solutions are being implemented. I agree that they aren't being implemented as fast as we need, especially to deal with AGW. But, rail is replacing trucks; EVs are being mass produced; wind and solar are ramping up.

I think maybe you're thinking of AGW more than PO. I agree that there's little sign of the kind of movement we need to deal with AGW. We can only hope that a social consensus emerges soon, and surprises us.

Hi Nick,

thinking of AGW more than PO

Yes, but when I mention our "problem", I'm thinking of AGW, FF depletion, and environmental issues: rate of extinction of species, deforestation, soil degradation, growing deserts, ocean damage, water issues, disease causing toxins,etc. Plus, the 2 billion or so people that live in miserable conditions. And then we have the damage from current wars and the potential for worse wars. I tend to think there are some common factors that contribute all of these issues and it is not apparent to me that the average person is motivated to actively address these issues.

rail is replacing trucks; EVs are being mass produced; wind and solar are ramping up

I sincerely hope that you are more right than wrong - others will argue that these trends are too little, too late. Perhaps in a couple of years the numbers will have more statistical significance.

We can only hope that a social consensus emerges soon, and surprises us

This would be much more pleasant than a surprise announcement for a new war on somebody or some thing.

environmental issues: rate of extinction of species, deforestation, soil degradation, growing deserts, ocean damage, water issues, disease causing toxins,etc. Plus, the 2 billion or so people that live in miserable conditions.

Those are extremely important things, and they create some large risks, some of them unknown. I agree we should work on them with high priority.

Still, I don't see any clear, specific evidence that they constitute limits to growth, or TEOTWAWKI. Have you seen something?

Hi Nick,

If I had clear, specific evidence and knew for certain how these issues would play out for my grandchildren (and now great grandchild) I probably would not hang out on TOD trying to figure this out.

As a retired guy, I have some time to read as much as I can about these issues - and, I try to read books with some actual scientific credibility (I never watch Fox News). My reading and my personal observations make it difficult for me to share your optimism - and yet, I believe that your viewpoint would be extremely helpful if your vision was widely shared.

Perhaps my POV is distorted because I grew up in Northern Minnesota in the 40s and 50s. I know what clean air, clean water, abundant wildlife, and the joy of nature really feels like. Maybe this was a bubble that can never be revisited. I've traveled (and worked) in many parts of the world and have seen abject poverty and the fruits of military conflict. I think I have a sense of what 7B people mean in terms of the health of the planet (not good). I was drafted into the US Army and have a feeling for how certain ideologies can govern one's life. I've been somewhat active in local politics and see little evidence of rationality.

It is my sense that we have already exceeded the limit of human population growth and yet the TEOTWAWKI is not necessarily the last act in this play. It seems to me that it could be completely possible to combine a sensible "powerdown" along with many of your ideas to achieve a new and far better quality of life for all humans on the planet. I simply remain unconvinced that the human race can rise to this challenge until we are forced by very unpleasant circumstances.

I wish I could offer more specifics - I guess that is somewhat above my pay grade. However, in general, I advocate supporting organizations like Population Connection because I see absolutely no planetary benefit in adding a few billion more humans. I try to promote bicycling because I feel the ubiquitous use of 2 ton cars for trivial transportation is unhealthy, wastes precious resources and degrades our culture. I advocate housing that works with nature (passive solar, etc) instead of against it because most current housing not only wastes resources but but debases our relationship to nature. I think factory food production is unhealthy for people and damaging for the biosphere. I guess I could go on, but I'm sure you get my drift.

I've been active in ... politics and see little evidence of rationality.

The evidence is overwhelming that humans are not rational.
1. Wars
2. Hate and hurt by the haves versus the have-nots
3. Population growth at rate of fruit flies (and yeast)
4. Religion
5. Belief that Market will Save us (same as 4)
6. Belief that Technology will Save us (same as 4)
7. Belief that Edge-u-kating our young'ins will Save us (same as 4)
9. Belief that Democratic or other corruptible form of Government will Save us (same as 4)

I have seen plenty of examples of rationality in Swedish politics.

Its not perfect, it takes time to back out of bad decisions and
organizational dynamics and personal relations are very important
but scientific arguments win debates in parliament, often stops
bad legislation and enough people care about logical consistency for
it to be important during elections. You simply dont win if you promise
everything to everybody withouth a serious plan for financing it.

Wars, and hate are even worse then you describe and also hate from
the have-nots can stop developments into having more. The problems
with those who have is not hate but indifference and crazy consumption
and way to little investments that robs other people of the possibilites
they should have had.

Religion dont have to be bad, sometimes I wish I had some instead of
arguing about everything. ;-)

More people and their grandchildren will be saved with knowledge,
well functioning markets where people can start new companies etc,
new technology and honest politics then withouth.

We need to take care of every institution that serves us well and then
cooperate and compete in constructive ways!

Only the number 4 is really irrational. The number 3 is false. The others are not proof of irrationality.

Hi Step Back,

Although I may be slightly more optimistic than you are (probably not much) I think your list has merit for your contention of human irrationality. I suppose each point could be dissected and debated at length. However, your brief list puts some important topics on the table.

What I found interesting in your list is the focus on religion and how other pervasive beliefs behave in a religious manner. It think that religion is a root cause of most of our problems and once you accept the idea that faith is equivalent to reason, then it is easy to have faith in other things that do not hold up to really critical thinking.

Human babies have this enormous capacity to learn language and other skills - they do it, in large part, by absorbing everything their parents and local culture indoctrinate them with. This is where most religious beliefs start. There is no critical thinking going on in the first few years of life - we just suck up everything that comes our way. Later in life, deciding to alter religious beliefs is just as tough as deciding to switch to a totally foreign language. Some of us do - most don't.

A person who believes there is an invisible man in the sky has lost the ability to think critically in some of the most important aspects of thier life. Certainly, people "of faith" can be brilliant doctors, engineers, etc - but they have a serious handicap when it comes to thinking about our proper place in the biosphere. All of the items in your list can be viewed through the lens of our proper place on planet Earth - what is the impact of war on non-human entities? How has technology impacted the planet? What are the real implications of a so-called free market? Why has US Democracy produced a nation that consumes a greatly disproportionate amount of planetary resources?

Dave,

I share with you a deep sadness for the wave of extinctions, and related environment damage, that humanity is causing. I agree there are unknown, potentially large, risks to humanity, like something as simple as an unexpected injury to the honeybees necessary for many crops.

OTOH, I don't see any obvious large risks to the overall carrying capacity of the planet, which is several times the current population of the world.

AGW is a wild card, in large part due to the hidden positive feedbacks which are outside human control, once set in motion (these make it very different from PO, which can be fixed just about anytime we decide to do it). Sadly, I see little optimism for the likelihood that humanity will prevent massive AGW.

AGW will likely cause enormous environmental and economic harm. There is a significant and unknown chance that it will be beyond our imagination. No one knows enough to say this is likely. Still, the chance should be enough to get us to eliminate FFs ASAP. It is painful to contemplate the fact that doing so wouldn't be relatively easy...

Hi Nick,

overall carrying capacity of the planet, which is several times the current population of the world.

This is where we strongly disagree. I've been in big cities in India and Mexico. I've been in Israel and other places where natural resources are contested. I can not imagine 20B humans on this planet even if many of our energy and consumption issues improved.

Every human makes demands on the biosphere. Even if we all became vegetarians eating very low on the food chain, lived in basic huts (or vertical variants of huts), mostly walked for transportation, and reduced our consumption habits dramatically - I would not want to live in a place with this kind of teaming humanity. And why would anyone? I know lots of people who are quite happy with one child or simply help raise a child in thier extended family. Is the idea of having the freedom to create several children the most important of our values?

I've seen these calculations that consider things like the caloric needs of a human vs potential farm land. I don't find these arguments to be at all persuasive. I think the most fundamental key to a meaningful survival of our species is for us to achieve a true balance with earth's biosphere. I'm not sure what this number is - but, I suspect it is closer to 4B than 20B (or what you have in mind for "several times" (several implies more than twice)).

I appreciate that you have a real concern regarding AGW - If we had never grown beyond a couple of billion, I doubt we would have this concern today (of course, you and I might not even be here).

We certainly agree on your comment:

to eliminate FFs ASAP.

I would not want to live in a place with this kind of teaming humanity.

A lot of people live very happy lives in dense cities like NY, Hong Kong, London, etc. These places could be powered by wind and nuclear, and recycle everything (and I mean everything).

a real concern regarding AGW - If we had never grown beyond a couple of billion, I doubt we would have this concern today

I think this is partly an illusion: it would just take a little longer.

oops - that last sentence should have said something completely different: It is painful to contemplate the fact that doing so would be relatively easy...

I agree with some and disagree with some. The disagreements can be summarized by that you think extra taxes, laws and rationing will be necessary, but that is incorrect. If there is an oil/energy crunch, the best and most probable response is to simply let the price destroy enough demand. What you propose is an understable emotional reaction, but it is economically moronic and would really hurt us all and severely increase the risk of societal collapse.

Since most manufacturing in the USA and Canada runs on electricity then at most manufacturing of the components of renewable energy system is only 50% dependent on fossil fuels. Of course this is mostly location dependent. Most aluminum is produced where hydropower is abundant such as around Niagra, the Pacific northwest, and northern areas of Ontario and Quebec. There are at least a dozen ways to generate electricity so the end of fossil fuels does not mean a return to the 18th century. Coal will still be available for many more decades and unfortunately I believe the world will continue to burn coal as long as it is cost competitive somewhere in the world. The lack of crude oil will be economically painful but much of 21st century technology will still be with us since most of it will run on electricity generated by mostly a mix of coal, nukes, and renewables.

I'm on the last chapter of Energy in Nature and Society. Smil is firmly in the camp of those who believe we will invest our way out of peak oil.

Only possible in a BAU financial environment and anyone who thinks that's going to be the case really hasn't been paying attention.

I have been paying close attention and I definitely think the financial environment will do BAU. The financial crisis is over and PO won't be able to kill it off either.

Gail,
Renewables at this point all depend on fossil fuels, so the transition to renewables is only a transition to using less fossil fuels--not away from fossil fuels. If our supply of fossil fuels is declining fairly quickly, it is not clear to me that we can even do that, because it takes fossil fuels to make biofuels and wind turbines and solar PV panels.

The flaw in your argument is that while producing renewables requires some FF, the amounts of oil needed are very small and in future coal and NG used for electricity and manufacturing can all be replaced by electricity generated by renewables or nuclear. So for example producing a wind turbine only requires 1-2g of oil per kWh generated, but that one kWh of electricity can propel an electric vehicle about 5 miles, replacing 0.2 gallons used by an ICE vehicle(600g of oil). This is >300 times LESS oil making no changes to lifestyle.
The time to transition mainly from oil based transport to mainly electric based is an issue, but at least for light trucks and cars the replacement rate is much less than 40 years, enough for even a rapid decline in oil availability.
When all the oil is gone, a very small amount of biofuel( using renewable electricity inputs) will be more than enough for transporting turbines by road or sea and other essential transportation that cannot use electricity.

If BAU continues in one form or other, then we deal with this:

Great Oil Squeeze

Photobucket

That situation can't last long without the financial system buckling, so we have far less time to move away from oil than anyone currently thinks.

If BAU doesn't continue, well, no one will be replacing their Ford Taurus with a Chevy Volt because they won't get financing. Or the manufacturer will go out of business. They may replace their car with a neighborhood electric vehicle though.

We're trapped. The current car-happy way of the world is primed for a dramatic overhaul.

Need to consider gasoline and price rationing as a workable response until EV production can meet demand.

Also that oil producing nations will hoard what they have left for their own use once the decline becomes obvious.

Both Mexico and Britain, using modern extraction techiques, went from peak production to importers within a decade.

The graph above may be optimistic.

The graph above may be optimistic.

I think it is. I'm going to re-do it with some attempt to show that the loss of financing, hoarding, ELM and so on make things much worse than people imagine.

Including Nick. He thinks "it's unproven" that the economy will shrink as oil declines. It's an astonishing claim but he makes and defends it regularly. (Tweaks Nick's nose.)

He thinks "it's unproven" that the economy will shrink as oil declines.

Only because it isn't proven.

Obviously, expensive oil creates a "headwind" for the economy, but the historical evidence is clear: the impact of oil shocks is smaller than you're suggesting, and it's temporary. The US reduced it's oil consumption by 19% from 1978-1982, while growing a bit. It grew it's economy by 2.5x from 1979 to 2010, while not using any more oil at all.

Germany is reducing it's oil consumption, while growing it's economy.

Yes, ELM has an impact: exports fall faster than production. OTOH, in the US, production is increasing, and imports are falling much faster than consumption. This is a good thing, not a bad thing.

Again, you completely "ignore" what happened in 2007/2008 and cherry pick a unique point in time thinking that today is the same as then. It isn't — not even close.

Causes and Consequences of the Oil Shock of 2007-08
http://www.brookings.edu/economics/bpea/~/media/Files/Programs/ES/BPEA/2...

From the abstract:

Although the causes were different, the consequences for the economy appear to have been very similar to those observed in earlier episodes, with significant effects on overall consumption spending and purchases of domestic automobiles in particular. In the absence of those declines, it is unlikely that we would have characterized the period 2007:Q4 to 2008:Q3 as one of economic recession for the U.S. The experience of 2007-08 should thus be added to the list of recessions to which oil prices appear to have made a material contribution.

One of his conclusions:

But even the most modest estimates support the claim that the oil shocks made a significant contribution in at least some of these episodes [of recession]. My conclusion is that, had the oil shocks not occurred, GDP would have grown rather than fallen in at least some of these episodes.

You should read that paper, particularly part 5 "Consequences of the oil shock of 2007-08." Maybe a light will go off for you that indicates how high oil prices = lower economic activity. I really don't know what else to point you to so that you can see this relationship.

Funny, Nick says "It grew it's economy by 2.5x from 1979 to 2010, while not using any more oil at all." and you accuse him of cherrypicking "a unique point in time".

The experience of 2007-08 should thus be added to the list of recessions to which oil prices appear to have made a material contribution.

A "material contribution". That's very different from the idea that if oil production is flat or falling that the economy will necessarily contract. I think if you read Hamilton carefully, either in this study or on his blog Econbrowser.com , it will become clear that he would entirely disagree with the idea that if oil production is flat or falling that the economy will necessarily contract. Do you really think Hamilton is saying that if oil production is flat or falling that the economy will necessarily contract?

What if the US, Japan, Germany and China jointly pressures the oil producing countries to simply sell their oil on the global markets and not subsidize internal use? Russia may not budge, but the others won't have a choice.

Russia doesn't subsidize domestic prices, AFAIK.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_and_diesel_usage_and_pricing

Not domestic gas prices, perhaps. But they do subsidise oil here and there, most notably, perhaps, to satellite states such as Belarus.

Btw, that G20 has agreed to cut fossil subsidies might be one of Obama's best contributions to change so far. I guess it has been discussed in some drumbeat I've missed - I didn't see it before just now.

they do subsidise oil here and there, most notably, perhaps, to satellite states such as Belarus.

The Wikipedia article above says that fuel prices were higher in Belarus than in either Russia or the US.

I think we're reasonably ok, when it comes to oil price control/subsidies in Russia and FSU.

I agree - a G20 effort to cut subsidies is a good thing.

Gail, you are 100% correct. Smil does a good job of addressing his approach/beliefs about fossil energy futures in "Energy at the Crossroads". He's the most comprehensive analytical mind publishing in the energy field, but downplays the economic outcome of declining energy availability. He's also very much opposed to the notion of "peak oil". This is slightly problematic :).

I have one of his books "Oil" and notice that since he is so prolific in his writing, I wonder if Smil keeps a consistent viewpoint. At one time he had a pollyanna outlook and he was listed in a guide to cornucopians on a TOD post. http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/8/27/9544/28473

Sometimes I think that some of these authors write so many books is that it takes that many tries for them to get it right. :)

One of his "books" on Amazon is called "Peak oil: a catastrophist cult and complex realities", apparently 7 pages for $5.95.

@WebHubbleTelescope

Peak oil: a catastrophist cult and complex realities was his article in World Watch Forum:

http://www.google.nl/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBUQFjAA&url=http%3A%...

Smil has always had the opinion (to my knowledge based on seeing him present and reading three of his books) that we shouldn't worry about the depletion of oil.

deleted

It sounds like he is still in Late Stage Denial, but is moving toward recognition of reality.

With his new book it sounds like he might subconciously be laying the mental framework for The Bargaining Stage.

Indeed Smil shows his contempt for those propounding a near term peak in oil by dedicating more space to threats from supervolcanoes in his 2008 opus Global catastrophes and trends : the next 50 years. Aside from lambasting Campbell for failed calls and Deffeyes for his "ridiculous specificity" of calling the peak on Thanksgiving Day 2005 (cit), he proposes this to heal all wounds:

Between 1973 and 1985 the U.S. CAFE (corporate
automobile fuel efficiency) was doubled to 27.5 mpg, but further improvements
were not pursued largely because of falling oil prices. A mere resumption of that
rate of improvement (technically easy to do) would have automobiles averaging
40 mpg by 2015, and a more aggressive adoption of hybrids could bring the rate
to 50 mpg, more than halving the current U.S. need for automotive fuel and sending
oil prices into a tailspin.

I believe this to be chimerical today - Smil makes no mention of any other factors at play in the 80s price crash such as elimination of other fuels from consumption, the severe recessions, the massive amounts of oversupply/spare capacity brought on line, or the equally massive overbuild in stocks. No, it was all courtesy of CAFE. Nor does he consider at all that the size of the US auto fleet has doubled since then, making inroads that much more time consuming to have their effect; as Rembrandt puts it in his review, "absolute quantities that need to be replaced have only become bigger."

There's no way Smil would overlook these matters in a detailed analysis, and I'd gladly peruse this new book if my local libraries happen to have a copy; the rest of the Global Catastrophes book is solid work. But I believe he seriously underestimates the fallout peak oil could bring to the world; even a bumpy plateau wouldn't be a joyride; think nitroglycerin in the passenger seat.

I would rather see 100% home and neighborhood produced, clean energy. If we all used 90% less energy at home, it would be easy with existing technology. Just imagine if we could save all that energy that is lost in getting here and save on all that infrastructure too. No more hurricane issues. No more high voltage lines. No more coal or nuke plants. No wind or solar panel farms. It does make more sense. The only real problem I see is HVAC, hot water, and food storage. The rest of the stuff can eventually be made to run on very little energy.
Rather than coming up with all these grand plans and such, maybe a slowly ratcheting tax on hydrocarbons might work. Sounds like cap and trade but there is one huge difference. We would control our own plan and rates. Really though since no new taxes will ever fly, just letting us gradually run low on our natural resources will produce the same effect, but leaves no margin for error. We shall see.

@TinFoilHatGuy

I agree that that is easy replace fossil fuel usage with clean energy and more efficient usage in the house environment over a time period of say 25 years. However, home usage is only a minor part of total energy usage. Industrial, and transport are much bigger and much more difficult to fuel a large share of these with renewable sources. At the moment even impossible due to physical and cost constraints.

"Industrial, and transport are much bigger and much more difficult to fuel a large share of these with renewable sources. At the moment even impossible due to physical and cost constraints."

Rembrandt, I agree with what you have laid out here. Taken as a given then does it follow that we will be more decentralized or have a more village like economy in the future?

@Delusional

I don't know, I think in the long long run that is quite likely. But for the next 20-30 years I am not so certain.

At the moment even impossible due to physical and cost constraints.

Highly Doubtful: Industry can be electrified, heating can be electrified (no oil or natural gas) and transportation can at least partially be electrified and use more natural gas instead of oil. And this is what the world built during WW 2 with 1930's technology, less resources, great depression and less people and you believe the world is incapable to build far fewer wind turbines and PV factories now without having to endure constant bombardment?

Systems Allies Axis
Tanks and SP guns 227,235 52,345
Artillery 914,682 180,141
Mortars 657,318 100,000+
Machineguns 4,744,484 1,058,863
Military trucks 3,060,354 594,859
Military aircraft total 633,072 278,795
Fighter aircraft 212,459 90,684
Attack aircraft 37,549 12,539
Bomber aircraft 153,615 35,415
Reconnaissance aircraft 7,885 13,033
Transport aircraft 43,045 5,657
Training aircraft 93,578 28,516
Aircraft carriers 155 16
Battleships 13 7
Cruisers 82 15
Destroyers 814 86
Convoy escorts 1,102 -
Submarines 422 1,336
Merchant shipping tonnage 33,993,230 5,000,000+
Other:
Pillboxes, bunkers (steel, concrete - uk only) 72,128,141 tonnes 132,685,348 tonnes
Estimate Concrete runways 10,000,000 tonnes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_production_during_World_War_II

Needless to say: The world is currently not having any problems spending $2000 billion per year on oil alone. But spending a few hundred billion on renewables will somehow break its back, even though it'll undoubtedly reduce its expenditures on non-renewable fuels...

Having said that, there are undoubtedly political constraints hindering growth of renewable energy and efficiency.

I would rather see 100% home and neighborhood produced, clean energy.

Large-scale efficient production use less resources and is thus cleaner and cheaper. So I would rather not see home and neighborhood produced energy. If roof-top PV ever reach grid parity cost, then taxes on large-scale production of electricity needs to be lowered, so that the problem is rectified.

The chapter ends with an insightful analysis of the speed of energy transitions of both fuel sources and prime movers. A comparison of time spans shows that once a fuel reached 5% of total global energy production, it still took 35, 40, and 55 years for coal, oil, and natural gas respectively to reach a 25% share of the energy market. There is no indication that later transitions will progress faster. In fact, the opposite is likely true, as the absolute quantities that need to be replaced have only become bigger.

I'm not sure if the book, or the reviewer wrote that, but it clearly uses false logic. During those ramp-ups, the OTHER Fuels, were not declining, but also increasing.
That is why those times to 25% are so long.

Once you 'hit the wall', and have a declining alternative, mapped against a ramping one, then those times to reach 25% WILL compress.

What should be analyzed, is the ideal transition speed.

Some claims of 10 years, are certainly too rapid.
That swift a change is not needed, and it will cause a boom-bust in the replacement tech manufacturing (and so not attract investment)
Conversely 55+ years is slower than what can easily be attained, so the ideal will be somewhere in between.

@JG_

This is a summary of what Smil wrote as you can read in the text: The chapter ends etc. . The logic is not false as it is about scenario's of energy transition with RISING energy demand (such as Al Gore's scenario and Google's scenario). There is no such thing as 'hit the wall' in Smil's book as he doesn't perceive the world as such and hence does not analyzing things from the perspective of declining fossil fuel production.

Rembrandt

There is no such thing as 'hit the wall' in Smil's book as he doesn't perceive the world as such and hence does not analyzing things from the perspective of declining fossil fuel production.

I'm puzzled by that claim, as the book seems to use 'transitions' a lot, including in the title!
You do not transition unless you have to, certainly not against the price slope.
But once the transitions start, once price-advantage is reached, it becomes regenerative quite quickly.
In a number of new technologies, that cross-over point is not far away.

You need to get a dose of reality.
Stand on a freeway overpass for a few hours and just contemplate what you see.

Notice the diversity of the traffic. Personal transport vehicles, buses, fire engines, service vehicles, fuel trucks, lots of trucks, delivery vans, commuters and so on................
Now most of all look at the speed of the traffic. There is no "transition" for that. The speed is what we have designed our cities to function on.

What we will do (and EVERYTHING) will be tried, is substitute. "Transition" implies to something better. We will not be getting something better. We will be going without, getting along with less and less. Work patterns will change because the work will need to be close to home. So the populous will move. They'll move to where there is work and therefore life.

We will substitute, foods, fuels, transport, entertainment, lifestyle, politics, expectations and even our education. Each substitution will be to something less efficient in the world of fossil fuels we have grown accustomed. What that means for the future is open to ones imagination. If you are a cornucopian you will ignore the curse of over population and assume that everything will be fine with nuclear, solar, ethanol windmills, electric vehicles and trains.

If you are a realist you will cast aside your dreams of technological and engineering miracles and take a pragmatic and even a pessimistic approach to the future and base your plans on them. The optimists will be the first to, well I dunno but they won't be ready for life in the potholed slow lane.

Stand on a freeway overpass for a few hours and just contemplate what you see.

That's funny.

I thought I was alone in engaging in such an activity.

It is mind boggling to see, hear and feel, car after car, truck after truck, rumbling at 70 mph (or faster) past you minute by minute. After a short while you start wondering, How long can this go on? Then you realize it's happening 24/7 year after year and you start groking the enormity of the thing.

Now most of all look at the speed of the traffic. There is no "transition" for that.

OF course there is. Electric vehicles are faster than ICE vehicles.

"OF course there is. Electric vehicles are faster than ICE vehicles"

Electric vehicles cannot compete with ICE for range or performance. Practically all diesels models have a range of over 500 miles at 70mph and Audi and Jaguar claim 800 miles. It was an ICE vehicle, thrust SSC, that broke the sound barrier, get a battery car to achieve that. ICE also power aircraft.

Battery cars are an expensive experiment that are far from proven in terms of life, afforability and durability. Only tax subsidy makes hibrids viable in the UK, otherwise you may as well buy diesel.

Electric only vehicles cannot compete in range. In most or all aspects, however, electric drive is fundamentally superior - acceleration, noise, durability, regenerative breaking, emissions and cost. It's just a matter of time before this is apparent to all - gas and diesel has an obvious head start in maturity and scale.

"Electric only vehicles cannot compete in range"

and Cost, battery life is unproven and a likely big expensive problem for second hand buyers. The electricity they use is tax subsidised and they are given road tax exemption incentives. Electric motors are not prime movers, the ICE is so it is not comparing like for like. If they are so superior why have they not taken off? Battery technology has been around 150 years, longer than ICE. Hope versus reality LOL. If electricity for electric cars is taxed the real cost will be close to 50 uk pence/kwhr rather than the current 11p/kwhr

EV and ICE use about the same amount of primary energy, if the electricity is produced by a thermal process. But btu for btu, oil is several times more expensive than coal. Therefore, EV fuel is much cheaper than ICE fuel, pre-tax.

If they are so superior why have they not taken off?

Too cheap oil. Too bad battery tech. Too lax environmental regulations. Too much of a head start for ICE. All this has been changing and it seems the scales are finally tipping.

EV and ICE use about the same amount of primary energy, if the electricity is produced by a thermal process.

That requires an extremely efficient ICE. The average US vehicle gets about 22MPG. Burn that gallon of gasoline at the average efficiency of oil thermal plants of 38%, and you get about 9.3kWh (assuming 7% transmission losses and 25% charging losses), which will propel a Leaf or Volt about 46 miles.

So, even if we go to more expensive nuclear or wind power, EVs will be much cheaper to power per mile.

The average US vehicle is an abomination. A Leaf or a Volt fitted with a frugal diesel engine would get 46 MPG no problem. So I maintain that there is no big difference between ICE and EV primary energy requirements.

Yes, but this is a discussion of the likely and possible transition from the status quo. The "average US vehicle" is the the status quo.

In most or all aspects, however, electric drive is fundamentally superior

I agree.

Electric only vehicles cannot compete in range.

The EREV design, as found in the Chevy Volt, addresses the range problem: it reduces fuel consumption by 90% over the average US vehicle. That's a scale of fuel consumption that can be served by ethanol.

The perfect is the enemy of the good.

Once you 'hit the wall', and have a declining alternative, mapped against a ramping one, then those times to reach 25% WILL compress.

I doubt it. We will have such a financial mess on our hands (already begun) that it's more likely that the time to convert to other sources will increase to infinity i.e. only a small portion of the energy system moves to alternatives and we wage mostly a losing battle trying to keep the infrastructure going of the current one. Most people will not purchase a new fancy car to replace their current one, for instance. They will run the one they have until it dies and then not replace it.

The size of the contracting credit bubble we face is astonishing:

Photobucket

There was a reason Buffet called derivatives "financial weapons of mass destruction" but really the whole credit bubble is the time bomb inside of a contracting world economy.

Smil gets a lot correct but blithely assumes the financial system will continue to function as it does now to allow the transition to occur, which is his blind spot. This follows from his assumption that oil is not going to decline anytime soon.

Clearly, here we think his analysis is incorrect, much like Greenspan's tenure:

Commission member Brooksley Born, however, blistered Greenspan with a catalog of what she described as the Fed's failures: "The Fed utterly failed to prevent the financial crisis. The Fed and the banking regulators failed to prevent the housing bubble. They failed to prevent the predatory-lending scandal. They failed to prevent our biggest banks and bank holding companies from engaging in activities that would bring them to the verge of collapse without massive taxpayer bailouts. They failed to recognize the systemic risk posed by an unregulated over-the-counter derivatives market, and they permitted the financial system and the economy to reach the brink of disaster. You also failed to prevent many of our banks from consolidating and growing into gigantic institutions that are now too big and-or too interconnected to fail."

In the future we will be able to create a similar list for Smil:

  • Smil failed to distinguish the time and investment it takes to bring unconventional energy sources to market
  • Smil failed to see the impact high oil prices had on the capital markets greatly slowing the extraction of the remaining oil
  • Smil failed to see that an increasing amount of capital would have to be put into repairing and upgrading the existing infrastructure thus diverting investment from alternatives
  • Smil failed to see resource nationalism holding back resources from the world market
  • Smil failed to factor in increased oil-producer consumption making less available on the world market
  • Smil failed to incorporate the lower EROEI of alternatives when he asserted civilization could operate equally well on them as on fossil fuels
  • Smil failed to foresee the disruption climate change had on the energy system

It's quite easy to see what Smil misses in his analysis. He is still very much a cornucopian who doesn't see the whole system.

Hi Aangel,

Old Buffet is at least likely to point out the truth in regard to big biz once on a while, as in the dangers od derivatives, but it hasn't stopped him from investing in them, so far as I can see.

Evidently his company lost its axx on such paper investments last year according to some financial news I have read in the last couple of days.

Sorry I didn't save the links but I think the news was in a popular newspaper.

Yes, there are different types of derivatives and he likely is avoiding the most egregious ones that caused him to make that comment.

The ones he did invest in apparently cost his company around a third of last years net-considering his legendary conservatism as an invester,it is no wonder so many banks are in trouble.

Ah, good point.

He should have listened to his gut instinct from 2003!

"Smil gets a lot correct but blithely assumes the financial system will continue to function as it does now to allow the transition to occur, which is his blind spot. This follows from his assumption that oil is not going to decline anytime soon."

Exactly. He thinks we will just invest our way out of trouble which just goes to show he doesnt understand the finacial mess we are in. He does write a good book though. I'm stunned by the facts and figures he managed to cram in.

Andre,

If you want to rely on Warren Buffet as an authority, then you should consult his views on the economy - he would disagree with your pessimistic viewpoint very, very strongly.

Yes, he gets some things right and others wrong. This economy is wobbling.

I'm not sure if the book, or the reviewer wrote that, but it clearly uses false logic. During those ramp-ups, the OTHER Fuels, were not declining, but also increasing.
That is why those times to 25% are so long.

My brain was screaming the same thing! Perhaps it is because Smil doesn't see serious depletion pressure coming. Also if we are ever able to "politically" recognize that the hits we are taking from climate change, are caused by FFs, even more pressure will be brought to bear. These other transitions ocurred during what at the time would pass for BAU. I don't think we will have the luxury of letting things take their time this goaround.

Smil recognizes that OPEC fudged the quota numbers in the 80s and are therefore suspect. Surely he must have seen the production plateau since 2004 and questioned it? If not then maybe we should get hold of his e mail and Rembrandt can post him his monthly updates.

I'm a big believer in the necessity of reducing energy use but it's far more difficult than building up renewables and
using CCS as a bridge.
The US has 9.8 MJ/$GDP with $46381/person or 454,533 MJ/person, 80 boe/person.
Renewables(including ethanol) in the US provide 6.8% of our energy or 5.44 boe/person.
The most efficient countries like Japan still are only 30% lower in MJ/$GDP(after 'deindustrializing').

Who in the USA will give up 74 boe and the lifestyle it maintains?
It is more likely that they will trade cellulosic ethanol for gasoline (oil is 41% of CO2 emission) and pay to sequester CO2 from coal(36% of CO2 emissions).

The cost of CO2 emissions reduction is probably around $100 per ton for electricity; $100 x 1800 MtCO2/300 million = $600 per person. I would guess cellulosic ethanol is competitive with gasoline at $140/bbl oil.
$100 x 7.2 Gboe(saved) x .37 tCO2/boe /300 million = $888 /person.
The cost of NG-CCS would be $100 x 23 Tcf x .053 tCO2/1000 cf/300 million =$406/person.
Add all this substitution up and it would cost ~$1894 per person versus $46381 or 4% of GDP/person.
There are enough North American fossil fuels to last 50+ years.
It's obvious that substituting CCS and increasing renewables is easier than hoping efficiency will reduce our energy use 92% in the face of rising population.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/flash/flash.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_intensity

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita

So global warming doesn't matter any more?

Geez, Louise, can't anybody keep their eye on the ball?

To increase the likelihood of success of the coming energy transition, it would be wise for affluent nations to introduce policy targets to reduce absolute energy usage per capita.

D'oh!

And population reduction, birth rates, etc?

And WTF is he using 1 watt/square meter for? Has he ever been out of his ivory tower into the sun?

Ignoring clouds, the average insolation for the Earth is approximately 250 watts per square meter (6 (kW·h/m2)/day)

And he obviously knows nothing of wartime production ramp-ups and changes.

1 watt per square meter would be a very good growth rate for plants averaged over a whole year. Extremely good, in fact.

At best, in the lab, plants capture 8 percent of that 250 watts insolation. In the field, at best 2 to 5 percent of what hits the plant. Most crops don't grow all year round, we don't harvest all parts of the plant, crop plants don't cover the whole field (especially when young), and not all of the crop land is planted - there are access roads.

I very much doubt that Smil is unaware of what happened in WWII. Building a complete new energy infrastructure is not the same as converting a few thousand factories from producing civilian goods to producing military goods, and running double and triple shifts to increase output. Millions of changes have to be made at hundreds of thousands of locations.

@ormondotvos, gregvp

Smil described the change of society from an energy technology perspective since the 18th century in meticulous detail in his book "Creating the twentieth century". He surely is aware of ramp up times in WWII. And as what gregvp says this is not a correct comparison.

A comparison of time spans shows that once a fuel reached 5% of total global energy production, it still took 35, 40, and 55 years for coal, oil, and natural gas respectively to reach a 25% share of the energy market. There is no indication that later transitions will progress faster. In fact, the opposite is likely true, as the absolute quantities that need to be replaced have only become bigger.

The past is always instructive but I don't think it is determinative. I think the speed of transition to renewable energy sources is going to be driven more by the rate at which the fossil fuels are depleted.

Those earlier transitions were from one fuel source to a better fuel source. When you had plenty of wood, you were not in a rush to move to coal even though it is more energy dense . . . but when oil peaks, we will be rush to get a replacement. We have not had to deal with such rushed change before.

Edit: Ah damn. I made the same point that jg_ did.

@speculawyer,

As similar to the replied to JG_, the book is not written to address a comparison of scenarios where fossil fuel production is declining, but written to adress BAU scenarios wherein it is assumed that a quick transition to renewable energy is feasible.

"written to adress BAU scenarios

And since BAU is dead his book is already obsolete.

Now Chu can add Vaclav Smil to his DOE Advisory Group. A good fit with the latest appointee, Danny Yergin.

i keep reading scare stories about peak oil, energy sources depletion, etc. but i fail to observe the signs of this phenomenon. is it me or what? fuels, taxes apart, are still plentyful and cheap (adjusted for PPP, i suspect even cheaper than 30 years ago) and a depletion of fuel sources would immediately and massively be reflected on prices.

all the plans of transition to 100% renewables is obviusly nonsense. it has been proved time and again that massive installation of solar and wind increases fossil fuel usage.

as for the much fabled breakthrough in PV efficiency or in battery technology, it has either already happened (lithium batteries) or it is against the laws of physics.

the idea that throwing massive amounts of taxpayer money at a technology or putting the Chinese in charge of its production will make it dirt cheap or 100x efficient is pure nonsense.

at any rate, there is one big shift in attitude that will be necessary for a transition to 100% renewables: dont expect anything to happen when you flick the switch, as it used to be during fossil fuel times.

but i fail to observe the signs of this phenomenon (scare stories about peak oil, energy sources depletion, etc. )

Who ya gonna believe?
Us, or your lying eyes?

as for the much fabled breakthrough in PV efficiency or in battery technology, it has either already happened (lithium batteries) or it is against the laws of physics.

??- advances are being made all the time ?

This is the trend lines for Solar PV:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PVeff%28rev100414%29.png

and on Solar PV, there is the possible jump of Quantum dots.

http://spie.org/x39022.xml?ArticleID=x39022

http://environmentalresearchweb.org/cws/article/news/42990

are we talking real world, mass produceable, low cost PV or exotic and massively expensive lab experiments?

to make PV usable two miracles are needed: a miracle in battery technology (or energy storage of some sort), and one in PV technology.

then again one is free to believe in fairy tales. current real world commercial PV is around 13-16% and even if efficiency could be boosted to 25% ( which is extremely difficult for commercial applications) it would still be an horrendously expensive form of energy. and dont forget that all those high-tech, low-energy-requiring gizmos that rich people can afford require massive amounts of low cost energy to be developed and produced. a low-energy economy would quickly turn into a no-energy economy. dont forget, for example, that without fossil-fueled economy renewable-energy economy wouldnt exist at all.

reality check, my friend. PV has been a lousy, poor, expensive form of energy generation since it has become popular in the seventiens. 40 years later, is still lousy, poor and expensive and still needs massive government subsidies else nobody would touch it with a 10 feet pole.
yes, we can continue subsidizing the PV scam for another 100 years and it still will be a lousy, poor and expensive type of enegry generation and surely not for lack of research or investments. PV remains an interesting solution for specific, niche applications, but for producing energy on a large scale, is unsuitable.

Pv is expensive no doubt-I don't have any myself for that very reason.

But one thing that is missing so far from this discussion is an accounting of the marginal value of every kilowatt hour as consumption decreases.

I could make effective use right now of a ten thousand watt system just to pump irrigation water whenever the sun is shining brightly, no inverters or batteries or roof mounts or any special other equipment needed except a pump with a dc motor-except for the fact that I can buy electricity dirt cheap from my utility and enough gasoline for my annual needs to use in my small gasoline pumps for a couple of hundred bucks. Of course the price of my marketed produce would have to go up, but not very much, considering the long life of such equipment.

I could without too much trouble adapt my personal life to forty cent per kilowatt hour electricity and still live quite well.

Right now I an in a space of about two hundred square feet which is airconditioned.I could easily partition off half of it,thereby cutting my consumption at this moment by a third or so, and in a week or so I could superinsulate a small bedroom converted to an office to such an extent that my office ac electrical consumption would be reduced by a factor of four.

I haven't gotten rid of my three large food freezers even though they are not really good ones because I expect to be able to buy much better ones than are currently available in a few more years, and that I will actually save money by doing so, as I expect to recoup my additional expenses for electricity until then due to savings in the purchase costs.Really energy effficient appliances are for now still overpriced due to low volume manufacturing and distribution as I see it.

Ditto my older truck-the longer I can put off trading it, considering the limited use it gets, the more I will save eventually by buying a truck that is much more fuel effficient.

How fast will pv installations, and the installations of simpler stuff such as solar water heaters,ramp up once the typical consumer realizes that his energy security and his checkbook are at greater risk by sticking to the status quo than by getting proactive?

I can easily foresee, a few years down the road,the typical purchaser of a new car opting to take out a loan instead for a ground source heat punmp, or a contractor coming to spend a month or two installing insulation, triple glazed windows,and so forth so that his heating and cooling energy needs are cut in half or better-permanently!

Nice Rant.

My daughter has a Dollar-Store Solar Calculator that says you're wrong, if it were asked to tally all the other Solar Calcs that have been running for years and years.. Thousands upon thousands of highway signs that used to be driven with gas generators could also be programmed to display how far you are off by.. Growing numbers of EV owners are now driving on Solar-Generated electricity. http://www.evnut.com/rav_owner_gallery.htm ..

Now, in all fairness you did put the need for 'Large Scale' at the very end of your post.. but even that is pretty ambiguous. Energy Scales will be tipping and turning a lot in the next couple decades. 1kw per roof on a million rooftops is a Terawatt. It scales, just not the way people expect it to in today's terms.

The subsidy that has been helping PV is nothing compared to the wars we've fought since 1914 to secure various oil-producing regions.. and with them, you still have to dig up more oil to get more energy.

Feel free to call it "Lousy, Poor and Expensive" .. when Expensive was the only part that was right. I feel the Keypost's insistence that we 'wait some more' until it's really cheap enough is the bit of magical thinking that keeps crippling this industry. It's like people at a yard sale, trying to bargain a $15 bike down to $5.

yes, we can continue subsidizing the PV scam for another 100 years and it still will be a lousy, poor and expensive type of enegry generation and surely not for lack of research or investments. PV remains an interesting solution for specific, niche applications, but for producing energy on a large scale, is unsuitable.

Nice defeatist attitude. What is your plan for humanity when the oil, coal, and natural gas are gone?

PV is certainly an expensive renewable but it has several advantages that need to be appreciated and are not captured in many cost comparisons:
1) As we all know, the pollution externalities are not captured in FF generated electricity. Respiratory diseases, mercury emission, acid rain, climate change, etc. We subsidize coal electricity through our health insurance premiums that have to cover people sickened due to power plant emissions.
2) Reduced transmission costs. PV systems on residential rooftops put the power right where it is needed, in the local neighborhood. No expensive transmission line from a far off power plant.
3) Intermittency - PV power generates maximum power right when it is needed . . . on hot sunny summer days when everyone is firing up their AC. Thus, PV systems generate the 'most valuable' electricity . . . electricity needed for hot peak-usage days.

No battery miracle is needed at all . . . PV power is just a great power source as part of the mix for the grid. If everyone had PV systems on their roofs, we could greatly reduce our need for power plants. Certainly they would still be needed for baseload & night-time.

So PV is hardly a "scam". Especially 100 years from now . . . that is just denial of FF resource limitations. PV looks somewhat expensive when you have lots of cheap natural gas around. After another 100 years of resource depletion, PV will be a bargain.

i really dont know where you folks live. but try this: get a PV panel, go to stockholm in january, and lemme know how much electricity you can generate for those few hours of light

all these assumptions about PV are based on pie-in-the-sky, best-case-scenario projections all thought up while sitting in some sunny tropical country.

and those who talk about producing their electricity with some PV should really leave the keyboard and go out more.

all the industrial infrastructure will fail and crumble as soon as energy becomes a scarce, expensive commodity.

and then forget about your cheap, high tech PV toys, the moment energy become scarce their price will go UP and not DOWN!!!

answer to this simple question: if PV is such great idea, why PV factories dont use them to produce their own electricity, considering that they can get them cheaper than anybody else?

is just a waste of time trying to argue with people who cherry pick data using best case scenarios based on improbable and in some case impossible future technological breakthroughs and impossible efficiency increases projected to infinite.

http://inflationdata.com/inflation/inflation_rate/historical_oil_prices_...

oil prices adjusted for inflation. yes, price has gone up, but does that mean oil is running out? then i have bad news for you: we are reaching peak bread. start stocking cake :D

http://data.bls.gov:8080/PDQ/outside.jsp?survey=ap

are we talking real world, mass produceable, low cost PV or exotic and massively expensive lab experiments?

Both, one follows the other.

yes, we can continue subsidizing the PV scam for another 100 years and it still will be a lousy, poor and expensive type of enegry generation and surely not for lack of research or investments. PV remains an interesting solution for specific, niche applications, but for producing energy on a large scale, is unsuitable.

100 years ? - you really need to do more research.

Spot prices now are $1-2
http://www.ecobusinesslinks.com/solar_panels.htm

and Solar PV is not as horrendous in cost as you seem to think,
Google Solar Grid parity, and see what happens

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2010/07/pike-solar-...

Some factories are claiming sub-grid parity now, but Grid Parity, of course, is a somewhat soft/wide target.
You can hit it first with ex factory costs per peak watt, then you next hit it with installed peak watts, and then you need to hit parity on average MWh.
(and you also need to watch wholesale / retail price comparisons)

Each of those 'Grid parity' milestones will be a few years apart.

This from back in 2008 :
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/first-solar-reaches-grid-par...

and they now claim 76c/watt, with some good curves here :

http://www.pv-tech.org/news/_a/manufacturing_cost_per_watt_at_first_sola...

As for large scale, well I guess that all depends on what you mean by large ?
Certainly, Solar PV is not ever going to provide ALL energy, but there are already MANY GW scale PV factories, and you need to remember a GW scale factory builds that EVERY YEAR.

2010 is going to hit ~13-14GW added, for Solar PV, which is about where wind was ~5 years ago. (and MORE than many whole countries peak GWs )

Wind is heading for 10MW turbines, and Solar thermal allows conventional turbine generation (can be mixed mode), and some storage.

So, Solar PV is suited to localised deployment, which is fine as its price continues to decline.

Greetings, gianmarko! You sound like you have not seen any updated data on PV for a long while. Here comes a brief history of the industry leader, First Solar, maker of Cd-Te thin-film modules

First Solar is the largest thin film solar module manufacturer in the world. It has grown considerably and will likely continue for the next 10 years at least. This data is from their website and has been presented as official data to investors, so it must be authenticated by licensed auditors.
2007 Capacity (year-end): 308 MW
2008 Capacity (year-end): 716 MW
2009 Capacity (year-end): 1228 MW
2010 Capacity Guidance: 1337 MW
2011 Capacity Guidance: 2005 MW
Average Manufacturing Cost 2006: $1.40/watt
Average Manufacturing Cost 2007: $1.23/watt
Average Manufacturing Cost 2008: $1.08/watt
Average Manufacturing Cost 2009: $0.87/watt
Average Manufacturing Cost 2nd quarter 2010: $0.79/watt
There are of course additional costs for a complete, working assembled installation. This adds $2-3/watt, and this cost is also falling.
There is without a doubt solar PV contributing to your electric supply in the very near future, and it will grow substantially, making a profit for manufacturers and utilities, reducing the pollution in your region and helping reduce price pressures from volatile fossil fuel prices.

So even if PV manufacturing costs are zero, installation still make it much more expensive than wind installations. So why would PV make a profit for utilities, absent big government interventions?

I see many signs of peak oil around me (in Japan).

Lots of chain restaurants closed, including 500 McDonalds (out of a total 3000 in the country). Sushi, beef bowl, Italian food, pork cutlets! GONE! You`ll have to cook it yourself `cause the restaurants are shuttered!

Tons of gasoline stations---shuttered! (Good riddance!)

Gasoline prices climbing (now around 130 yen/liter (that is $6 or so/gallon))
Fine w/ me though because I have no car.

Prices droppping on clothes, books, shoes----then the stores shut down and get replaced by something that has a cheaper businessmodel, like a recycle shop.

Books sales by volume down 27% since peak in 1997.

More bike shops. Biking suddenly is so cool for the past few years and steadily so. People call it "sports biking".

People in their 20s and 30s remain single, buy no car.

Homelessness way up. Lots of tents near rivers.

I could go on but I`ll stop.

Suffice it to say that the transition is pretty interesting. I have heard the suicide rate is up (for the past 20 years) but to me people seem happier. There is a kind of relaxed feeling, like who cares, anyway. Young people flood the trains stations and go out all dressed up because they can`t afford cars or expensive trips abroad. The countryside (I visited recently) is a beehive of agricultural activity, just humming. Anywhere with fields is doing great.

I think this transition is fun in many ways. Not all. I don`t mean to paint too rosy a picture, but the pressure is off, somehow. No more construction of condos. People know the population is going down and it is a relief I guess.

i keep reading scare stories about peak oil, energy sources depletion, etc. but i fail to observe the signs of this phenomenon. is it me or what? fuels, taxes apart, are still plentyful and cheap (adjusted for PPP, i suspect even cheaper than 30 years ago) and a depletion of fuel sources would immediately and massively be reflected on prices.

From 1984 to 2004, oil hovered around $20/barrel. 20 years! It is now $80/barrel. That is a big change and we have not fully adapted to it yet. And the only reason that it is still a relatively cheap $80/barrel is because we are mired in recession with ~10% unemployment. Things are certainly different now.

I'm not sure that looking at the bald facts of timelines associated with previous transitions helps here. I think there are two competing factors:

1) The speed with which an idea of behaviour can become orthodoxy is much faster now than it was in the past. It's measured in days and weeks rather than years.

2) The scale, the number of people, the amount of infrastructure that needs to change is so much larger than past. Of course, so is manufacturing capacity, but it tends to be 'just enough' for demand, there's no slack.

Put these two together and it shapes viable responses.

You need distributed production of relatively simple energy production devices which don't have any great reliance on key materials or locations. It needs to be obviously as good as, if not better than, alternatives. The need for change needs to be obvious.

As such nuclear has problems (reliance on special steel and timelines), solar PV (not distributed scalable), biofuel (can't scale sensibly), wind (location issues for large scale). Probably one of the best options is concentrated solar with a stirling engine generator - if someone would just come up with a reproducible design. If everyone is a generator you can cut the usage of gas in power stations and divert it to cars to meet some of the shortfall, as well as fixing the 'charging point' issue.

All of which won't happen till after its obvious we've peaked.

Invest in stirling engines and convertors for cars to run on gas.

It is probably far more likely that pv cells will come down in price enough to generate cheap electricity than it is that Stirling engines will become cost competitive.

Right now it looks as if the only possible way you can get enough power out of one to make it useful is to put it in the hotspot of a very expensive concentrating mirror, and even then the engine itself is outrageously expensive.

And the price of a Stirling is not due to exotic materials or manufacturing plant or scale;they are built pretty much with the same kinds of machinery used in any engine plant.They are simply too finicky-tolerances too close, leaks too hard to control, that sort of thing.

It is probably far more likely that pv cells will come down in price enough to generate cheap electricity than it is that Stirling engines will become cost competitive.

The stirling has been around for over a hundred years, and is going nowhere. Solar cells have been around for a long time, but have improced efficiency and cost by orders of magnitude.

There are projects to try to create dramatically higher efficiency, in the 50-65% range. I think they may need transparent conductors, and nanotech may be able to deliver. A pricy 50% efficient cell would be a good match for concentrating PV, where the main cost is providing the "optics", not the active PV material. So IMHO the PV battle is between scalable thin film (silicon or other abundant materials -not CIGS), and CPV using exotic high efficency cells. Its not clear which one will win out in the end. [My guess thin film]

Hi OFM,

Right now it looks as if the only possible way you can get enough power out of one to make it useful is to put it in the hotspot of a very expensive concentrating mirror, and even then the engine itself is outrageously expensive.

I'm not sure about the costs of mass producing Stirling engines but if this talk by Bill Gross is to be believed then the concentrating mirror part is actually quite cheap.

http://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gross_on_new_energy.html

That talk was in 2003. He seem to have stuck with it, but his company eSolar appears to have only built a single 5MW plant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gross

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESolar

Eh? ( weak, croaky voice) did somebody say stirling engine? That's my cue! Gotta wake up and say something- something like what I have said E3 times before, but what the hell, the half life of any factoid around here is maybe 20 minutes, so what can I expect, special treatment?

Right. Now to work.

Stirling engines are outrageously expensive. True, but only if NASA is the customer. They give not a whit if the engine cost isn't a meaningful fraction of the heat source, the rest of system, the launch vehicle, the time, money, management, and even the angst and thinking they have invested in the mission. That gives a LOT of room for engine price. But what they get is gooooood! Lasts 15 years, goes out to Pluto, and etc etc etc. A bargain. They love it-- and with good reason. It's the best there is.

But what if NASA is NOT the customer? Glad you asked. So I go to the rust belt over by the lakes, where lots and lots of auto parts people are hungry for work- any work. I show them a stirling design that any aerospace guy wouldn't even use to weight down a tarp, but works OK, pretty well, in fact.
Rusty looks at the specs, and exclaims, hungrily, "this here thing ain't no different from any other RV genset I make". So he quotes on the job, and comes out twice as much as a Briggs or Honda/kW. since the stirling can't get along on cast iron, but needs stainless, which is much more expensive. That means that the stirling will cost you maybe $0.4 per watt instead of $0.2 per watt that the briggs 3kW genset will cost. Terrible! Can't be done, Politically impossible. End of game.

So? You go to the money people and try to sell them on investing in this great new toy, which has endless possibilities in solar (after all, it lives forever and has good efficiency), home cogen, Boat and RV auxiliary power ( after all, it lasts longer than the boat, doesn't stink, and works well as a conversation opener), and tons of other great apps. No luck. Why not? Simple. Let me count the ways.

1) Is this thing on the market? No? Why not? You gotta be hiding something.
2) You asking for investment? If this thing is that good, you woulda already HAD the investment, Get outta here.
3) What's your mean time to failure? Don't know? Why the hell not? Whatta ya mean, haven't had enough failures! Gotta be out of yer mind. Outta here.
4) Ditto, ditto, ditto. you can count just as well as I, probably better. Besides, it's time for supper.

PS, Now, Class, all this WILL be on the test. Come to think of it, test was last year; you all flunked. Class dismissed.

LOL! +10

Hey there's always summer school...

Heh! Heh! yeah, +10.

"NASA" style stirling in Sweden, powering submarines:
http://www.kockums.se/en/products-services/submarines-systems/stirling-a...

Commercial alternative energy stirling in Sweden:
http://www.cleanergyindustries.com/index.html

The other small player who bought a closed down truck gearbox factory, needs google translate:
http://www.skane.se/templates/Page.aspx?id=248794

I have followed these two commerical companies in the press. They and their investors gives me an impression of planning for the post peak oil period by finding cheap capital assets and invest in their use to get long term dividends out of producing something usefull. Or it might be wishfull thinking, either way its the kind of stuff I realy would like to se more of. Such mechanical industries are good for turning reliable and plentifull electricity into high value export goods.

Thanks Magnus, I thoroughly enjoyed the Swedish narration with Chinese subtitles... at least until I realized it was available with English subtitles as well...I do wish the companies well and I think there is definitely a niche for the Stirling engine out there.

Thanks, Magnus. I took the movie about solar and sent it off to some people who make decisions-usually negative- about solar stirlings, with a short note attached:

SEE! SEE! THE SWEDES ARE SMARTER THAN US--AGAIN.-- AND DIDN'T I TELL YA?

I expect that, as usual, these guys will probably react negatively to my little attempt to be helpful.

Interesting that the video bragged about long life, but then added " The engine only needs maintenance once a year, at which time a few parts are replaced" Whoa! that is way way too short a time.

Those parts are seals and bearings, and maybe cleaning some lube oil off the regenerator. Oil, cranks and piston rings are NOT needed. Maybe I should write a helpful note to the Swedes, too.

NASA demands 15 yr life in space, with nobody around for a million miles, and gets it. We can do the same right here on the ground, with mere minor cost cutting changes to the space design, mainly by knocking off their absurdly high temp heat receiver and associated high cost metal.

Please do contact them with these fresh ideas!

One thing mentioned in this movie is that different Swedes has been at it for about 40 years.
The first modern Swedish attempt at mass production of stirling engines were if I remember the story right intended for US mobile homes, the idea were miniaturised heat and electricity plants for US mobile homes. They worked but it failed due to the oil crisis wiping out the liquidity of the intended market.

Then did the oil crisis give an interest in developing the technology further but not much came out of it exept the Kockums submarine stirlings and the tooling etc were sold to Germany.

Then did the German effort fail and the series production tooling were sold back to Sweden and has been set up in Åmål in Cleanergis factory.

This got a boost from the high oil prices in 2008 and might even have benefitted from the financial crisis since this crisis made the parts supplier for our auto industry realy hungry for new markets and they had time and manny hade finacial reserves to do new stuff. The technology base is identical to our wehicle industries. There were government funds set up to protect the RnD and technology base but the financial crisis lifted before much of it were spent.

In parallell with the repatriated tooling do Ripasso start up their factory in Sibbhult with people and knowlede from Kockums who makes submarines and Scania who make trucks and busses.

Åmål is the same Åmål as in the movie fucking Åmål, its a small towm. Sibbhult is even smaller, its litterally one km2. One problem with this is that the labour markets are small or very tiny, on the other hand those that you get do stay and for instance Sibbhult probably have a dozen realy good craftsmen in their 50:s that did not move when the gearbox production were stopped and that is enough to make a difference.

I hope this is the right time for this technology, its been tried manny times and the knowledge and tooling has been handed thru two generations, might even be three generations. They will need to find more people to employ if it goes well this time, perhaps even some migrants?

Hi Rembrandt, thanks very much for this - the book I've been trying unsuccesfully to write:-) Prof Smill has saved me the pain - it looks like a must read.

I agree 100% that energy startegy should focus on reducing per capita energy consumption and no better place to start than the USA:

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6812/697181

Tax energy use and aim to halve per capita enrgy consumption [in the USA] in a decade - converging on EU norm.

My time scale is perhaps a little harsh, but looking at per capita energy use forces governments to look at every aspect of energy use and waste from government waste, to efficiency of power stations, to EROI and of course consumers.

what you are advocating is a totalitarian, socialist style government that would force people to give up the current lifestyle and adopt one centrally decided.

no need to point out that such experiment, tried before, has spectacularly failed.

actually, i suspect that if government stopped tampering with the economy, energy would be cheaper and more abundant, and there will be less waste (usually those who waste are those who dont have to use their own money to pay)

remains to decide how the energy usage would be allocated. i guess a massive, state run bureaucracy could find ways to determine how much energuy i use in my life, and ways to reduce it. but then of course this should be done in a progressive way, because halvening the amount of energy used by a low income family might mean killing them, while people using enormous amount of energy like al gore would probably only suffer minor inconveniences.

however, why halven procapita energy usage? id say, halven the population. quicker, cheaper, and more just. and wont require such massive and expensive bureaucracy. and those left would still be having a decent life.

a suggestion as good as yours.

what you are advocating is a totalitarian, socialist style government that would force people to give up the current lifestyle and adopt one centrally decided.

From Euan Mearn's post:

Tax energy use and aim to halve per capita enrgy consumption [in the USA] in a decade - converging on EU norm.

"converging on EU norm."

So all of Europe is totalitarian and centrally planned?

So all of Europe is totalitarian and centrally planned?

Sadly, lots of Americans that have never had a passport believe Europe is some atheist totalitarian socialist place that is being invaded by Muslims. That is what Fox News tells them and they believe it.

What new, I live here in Europe, I think Fox might just be right.

Hi Gianmarko - I see you are relatively new here - welcome to TOD!

The USA (and Canada) currently use roughly twice as much energy per person as the EU. What I am suggesting is that the USA should aim to halve its per person energy consumption to converge with the EU. The most effective way of achieving this is via taxation - gasoline tax for example - this is how non-totalitarian Europe achieved lower energy use.

Whilst agreeing that population control is also required, I'd personally place this a few steps up the totalitarian ladder than gasoline taxes.

Assuming you aren't in the no taxes at all -they are all totally evil camp. Then changing one form of taxation based upon say income (private and corporate) to a tax on energy or carbon -or oil based upon scarcity or its effects on the balance of payments, should be a wash freedomwise. And it harnesses the market to make the bulk of the resource allocation decisions. In the US the free market zealots have hijacked the conversation. Anything that might remotely suggest some role for government is villified as communism. The choice isn't between capitalism and communism. The most effective countries have used a mixed system (including the much admired US of 1945 to 1980, when growth rates, and medium per capita income were rising faster than today). So we should be discussing, how to make the best mixed economy, not fighting over the extremes, which we label as laisse-fare capitalism, and communism. We know neither extreme is optimal. So we should be looking at tuning our place in the middle of the spectrum.

I agree cuts in per capita consumption are needed but taxation is not the way to do it. Taxation lays a big burden on the lower rungs of society while the rich remain unaffected. This inequitable situation will lead to resentment and social unrest as living standards drop.

That's easy to fix: just rebate the gasoline taxes on a per capita basis.

This could be a solution if the declines in net energy are not so steep. I dont think taxation and then rebates will be enough to cut down on consumption if we see some serious drop off though. A shift to command economy methods would then give better results.

Taxation is proven to work - within limits. How this works in Europe is that poorer people buy smaller cars, use less fuel and pay less tax. And as Nick points out, in a sophisticated system government can indirectly rebate the poor through social programs.

But don't get me wrong, I am no enthusiast for undue and complex tax systems - the smaller and simpler the better.

Wasting energy is crippling America.

To increase the likelihood of success of the coming energy transition, it would be wise for affluent nations to introduce policy targets to reduce absolute energy usage per capita.

That's all fine and dandy. Though I believe that the rather large and lumbering white elephant in the middle of the room continues to be ignored.

It might be wiser still if all nations recognized the need to introduce policy targets to reduce capita itself, because without doing so, everything else is basically moot. It then becomes an exercise in finding new ways to place ever more angels on the shrinking head of the proverbial pin.

Maybe we need a new crop of very tiny angels...

"It might be wiser still if all nations recognized the need to introduce policy targets to reduce capita itself"

i would be very curious to hear from you a concrete proposal on how to implement this?

Stalin was very successful in this, not as Pol Pot of course. Mao got some decent results too, and the chinese are still at it, even if with less cruel means (even thought many female chinese babies, suppressed before birth, would probably have something to say on the issue)

this argument is quite popular in "green" circles, population control and reduction. i have to confess that it worries me a little, being the large energy user i am

There's a very simple and non-authoritarian way to achieve at least population stabilization: make people middle class, educate women, and give them access to birth control.

It works so well that some advanced nations are experiencing economic problems due to demographic collapse, such as Japan.

You're right about one thing though. Other than the above, there is no other politically palatable answer. Any other means of reducing population would require that we jettison the entire concept of human rights.

Other than the above, there is no other politically palatable answer. Any other means of reducing population would require that we jettison the entire concept of human rights.

I'd argue that if population continues to grow at current rates the concept of human rights is pretty much doomed anyway. We are faced with quite the dilemma to say the least. Ignoring the issue because there may indeed be no pleasant way to discuss the reality doesn't help either.

What would you prefer? More famine, disease, pestilence, war? Population overshoot on a planet with finite resources is a bitch, innit?

The population doesn't continue to grow at current rates. The rate is dropping and will continue dropping.

There is no doubt in my mind that prosperity not only brings the problems but also makes it possible to solve some of the worst of them.

I have always been aware of the dangers or depletion and overshoot, but up until the last decade or so, I was enough of a techno optimist and free marketer that I presumed the world would turn the corner on the population and resources probable, as is largely already the case in a few places in Europe.

It has been obvious to me for a long time that the power of prosperity trumps the power of culture in general and religion in particular when it comes to people's behavior.-witness birth rates in places such as Ireland.

And prosperity seems to more or less gaurantee the education and emancipation of women-eventually.And even the most recalcitrant male, once he gets used to the idea, is all too easily swayed by the possibility of an easier life so that he is willing to see his mate leave the home and bring in a paycheck.

Once the woman is out of the house, the dam is broke.

Unfortunately the technical breakthroughs in renewables haven't come fast enough, and the depletion of non renewable resources is proceeding at such a rate that we will have to muddle our way thru with the technology at hand today.

If this fact(as I percieve it) were to become widely recognized, we could divert a lot of resources currently being put to poor use to better ends.

It seems exceedingly unlikely for instance that fusion power can be commercialized within forty to fifty years even if the necessary technical breakthrough in creating a sustainable controlled reaction were to be announced today.

I am all for research in principle of almost any kind or in any field, but we need to make some practical choices, and fast.

Just think how much faster solar technology would advance if all the engineers and scientists working on fusion were working instead on solar!

Solar thermal electrical generation doesn't need any more research just perhaps some normal in-production development improvement which are certain to happen if volume production were to start. It's here already and entirely capable of replacing all other present sources of energy.

Just think how much faster solar technology would advance if all the engineers and scientists working on fusion were working instead on solar!

Having actually worked on fusion thirty years ago, the scale of its budget (in the US at least) is only a couple of hundred million, not the scale needed to make a huge dent in the issue. Plus those skills are not very transferable. We have much much more R&D funding goings towards military and security, that would be a better place to get the funds. Of course you can't ramp anything up really fast, you gotta development clear career paths, so you can attract grad students, then train them etc. Thats why a Manhatten project type plan breaks down. Much better to gradually ramp something up over a number of years. What is most needed is the expectation among those you wish to attract into the field that they aren't entering a career deadend. As long as energy -especially the renewable variety, is a left/right political football, there is no assurance that funding will survive the next election cycle -so prospective researchers may not wish to take the personal risk.

I know someone who works for the DOE (USA) and years ago was working on the CERN fusion project but since 9/11 hasn't worked on anything but homeland security projects particularly long-range radiation detection technology for ports-of-entry. This project requires even fabrication of facsimiles of nuclear bombs using actual pure metallic weapons grade plutonium for calibration purposes. He continues today working on detection technology. One recent set of experiments was to use carbon nanotubes to form an ultra-sensitive membrane that can collect gases (nerve, etc.) in extremely minute form that are then released for analysis upon reheating of the membrane though that turned out to be iffy due to heat destruction of the samples.

I've now just told you where some of the leading US scientists and engineers went ... homeland security and protecting America (and the rest of the World, you're very welcome) from the marauding fanatical radical Muslim hordes.

Farmer,

I responded to a post of yours yesterday on the EROI of ethanol, very good. I want to ask you a question. Can you describe the steps in your own epistemological transformation from let the price mechanism and incentives sort it out... to.... assume that the resources are scarce in the future and on that basis rationally divert resources today to ameliorate that scarcity in the future?

I think that people on TOD don't hammer enough that BAU is grounded in an epistemological outlook deeply ingrained in our educational system, even the very highest echelons of it. It is not willful error; it is not even common ignorance. It falls back on a deceptively simply idea: you can never run our of what is correctly priced...which is true till its not especially when in complex systems you don't have the resources to make the transformation precisely when you realize you need to.

I think it would be helpful to hear an account of this epistemological change. I apologize for using my own terminology, but what I am trying to get at is that its actually really hard to answer this common opinion: "Sure Europe plans better for certain scenarios in the future than we do, but for all that they're still poorer than we are and who knows what specific future will emerge anyways." I think it can be done, but if the goal is to convince people that we need to do something before its too late, it wont work to say "you wont feel the same way when a resource constrained future arrives, and arrive it certainly will."

thanks,

I think that people on TOD don't hammer enough that BAU is grounded in an epistemological outlook deeply ingrained in our educational system, even the very highest echelons of it. It is not willful error; it is not even common ignorance. It falls back on a deceptively simply idea: you can never run our of what is correctly priced...which is true till its not especially when in complex systems you don't have the resources to make the transformation precisely when you realize you need to.

And that, I believe in a nutshell is why changing the current paradigm is so incredibly difficult. It isn't possible to grasp the true value of say renewables until those very scales fall from ones eyes. Until you get past this very simple aha moment you won't make any progress.

This Edge Master Class I think, (no pun intended) gets very close to a real world example of how even if you have information, understand the information you still can make a profoundly faulty prediction.

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/kahneman07/kahneman07_index.html

A SHORT COURSE IN THINKING ABOUT THINKING
Edge Master Class 07
DANIEL KAHNEMAN
Auberge du Soleil, Rutherford, CA, July 20-22, 2007
AN EDGE SPECIAL PROJECT

KAHNEMAN: I'll start with a topic that is called an inside-outside view of the planning fallacy. And it starts with a personal story, which is a true story.

I highly recommend either watching the video or reading the transcript. To me it explains a lot about our predicament.

Hi Tyler,

If I understand your question correctly,You are basically asking how I came to realize that the free market bau scenario isn't going to solve our problems but rather is going to run us into a brick depletion and environmental crisis wall.

My case is unusual, in that I got most of my professional training in a college of agriculture; ag courses are mostly APPLIED BIOlOGY COURSES or APPLIED ECONOMICS /BUSINESS courses.

When I took basic economics, the class had an ag designation, but I sat in a classroom full of econ and business majors.

My lower level classes in chemistry and biology wewre likewise taught by professors in those departments , in thier classrooms, and most of the students were chemistry or biology majors.

My ag professors mostly believed in the green revolution,and were working to further it, but the biology professors made no secret of the fact that they thought the ag guys were blind to the long term consequences of thier work.

SO I was exposed to both sides of the argument, and recognized that both sides had evidence-plent of it- to back up thier claims.

I recognized back then that eventually there would be hell tp pay in terms of resource depletion, overpopulation, and environmental degradation EVENTUALLY.

But I also recognized that progress in the sciences was on an accelerating positive curve,and thought that science and technology would solve our problems, so long as we remained prosperous.

As a matter of fact, I still believe that this would be the case, except we are simply going to run out of time to develop the solutions before we run out of the resources necessary to the prosperity which allows us to do the research and development.

Science and technology are going to lose the race with overshoot, it's as simple as that.I have only come to realize and /or believe this over the last decade or so because I was mostly interested in other things and had not focused my attention on the environment and overshoot previously.

I describe myself as a conservative for philosophical reasons but I recognize that both the left and the right wings of our modern political establishments are simply totally wrong about many issues, so I didn't have to have a Paul on the road to Damascus experience to see where the evidence is pointed once I took a good look at it.

Ignorance of the basic sciences is a bigger problem on the political right than it is on the left, but the vast majority of the population , regardless of political affiliation, is scioentifically illiterate, including in my estimation most college graduates.

Believers in the bau paradigm are simply never going to change thie minds for the most part, because they lack the intellectual ammunition to load up thier intecctectual guns and attack the problem-the ammo of course being a knowledge of biology, geology, and the other physical sciences.

They won't change thier minds simply because somebody points out evidence they can't understand.

Nor will the large majority of the left wing actually endorse the necesarily draconian measures necceesary to alleviate the problems we face once it becomes evident it means some serious sacrifice on the personqal level.

Furthermore the people on the political right are perfectly justified,in terms of internally consistent reasoning, in seeing the world in the fashion they do, although getting a political lefty to understand this is well nigh impossible.But thier convictions are backed up by what THEY see as overwhelming evidence in thier favor-the American dream made real for a couple of hundred million people.Bau has worked foe a couple of hundred years, and they understandably see no reason, from thier pov, why it can't continue to work.

Unfortunately the intellectual leaders of the left seem to have done everything in thier power to deliberately discredit thier philosophy by insisting on preaching the superiority of socialiam or even outright communism over the (socalled ) free enterprise system in the face of the evidence otherwise up until well after the fall of the old USSR.This of course contributed mightily to the hardening of attitudes on the right.

Such idiocy did not go ever well with anybody during the fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, or early nineties who ever actually visited , or tried to visit, countries in the soviet orbits.

Fortunately they seem to have seen the light and nowadays recognize that an economy dominated by govt will not produce as desirable a society as an economy with a large element of free enterprise and regulated capitalism.

If the bau scenario were robust enough to last a couple more generations, the process of women getting full equality resulting in falling birth rates, and a high level of education overall , would have been enough to turn the corner on overshoot.Byu bthen we would probably have had cheap solar electricity,cheap super insulation, workable electric cars,carbon capture, and all the other technologies to be both wealthy and green.

Despite the rhetoric on talk radio, most right wing leaders (not the talking heads) do recognize that govt is a necessity, and that unbridled capitalism is in nobody's interest except that of the owners and upper level management of large businesses, but they pretend otherwise to motivate the voters.

We won't change until change is rammed down our throats by the physical realities of overshoot.

Our only hope of avoiding a collapse is that the physical crisis comes to ahead slowly over a decade or so, rather than abruptly.If it arrives slowly, we just might concievably do enough of the right things to muddle through.

You understood very well. I really think this is the key sentence:

"But thier convictions are backed up by what THEY see as overwhelming evidence in thier favor-the American dream made real for a couple of hundred million people.Bau has worked foe a couple of hundred years, and they understandably see no reason, from thier pov, why it can't continue to work."

I believe (my 2 cents for whatever its worth) that TOD should hammer relentlessly on the fact that the above is a plausible (one could even go so far as dominant) way of thinking except when it doesn't correspond to the future we actually face. BUT, the difficulty is that the future we actually face is fairly indeterminant/open to debate. Im not convinced that you can create a rational narrative out of the physical/biological/ecological sciences powerful enough to displace the above notion, and I think a lot of smart people recoil at the attempt to do so because they have an intuitive sense of the standard errors around any prediction of the future and therefore think inaction is not as dangerous as people with more certainty claim. I agree with you that the social narrative of large scale coercive central planning is basically a non-starter . It has to be couched in different terms/ combined with dominant market narrative wherever it has been successful (authoritarian capitalism, etc...)

I think other meta-narratives have a better chance. the following are some examples though I don't suggest they're particularly good ones.

Redundancy: Make the system more flexible to whatever future emerges via electrification, grid beef-up, off-grid, etc...We don't know whats going to happen but lets be prepared for whatever does.

Caution: Who knows whether we'll run out of fossil fuels but we can at least take steps to mitigate the extent of the socio-economic disaster if we do. Who knows whether we'll run out of a habitable planet system because of climate change but mitigate that possibility but taking action X,Y,Z

Time Horizon lengthening: We've seen the effects of time horizon shortening, some of them have been undoubtedly good (not locking up resources in marginally productive uses because the ministry calculates a small net life cycle benefit), others have been bad: the aesthetics of high discount rate societies is an obvious example that is intuitive to most people when correctly framed. So lets take half society's capital to do stuff that pencils at 3% discount rates and accomplishes other collective goals and leave the remaining half to invent IPHONES (huge return on investment, high discount rates, huge value add in terms of consumer preferences and wants, unclear value add in terms of a down payment on the problems of the future).

I guess I think ideas really do matter and therefore think that much of the problem is that while the following statement might be descriptively true:

"We won't change until change is rammed down our throats by the physical realities of overshoot."

there is no reason it needs to be true. Seems to me thats a huge difference, which I know puts me in contrast to some of the the more mechanistic thinkers at TOD who advocate one reason or another (many plausible) why mechanically society cant change even if it tries.

tyler.

I recognize that both the left and the right wings of our modern political establishments are simply totally wrong

OldFM,

1) Both the left extreme and right extreme ends of political spectrum WANT the BAU center to fail.

2) For the lefties it's mostly a matter of being able to crow: I told you so

3) For the righties it's a bit more sinister than that because their end goal includes manifestation of right-winger "exceptionalism". Yes the country/world will collapse and most will be 'left behind', but not me cause I'm special, I'm a right winger and that alone is enough to save me.

I know people who are extreme right wingers and also, although no commies, people who swing wide to the left.

Many of the right wing nuts are also flaming racists. But that goes well with their basic ideology, namely, that some people are better and more "deserving" than others and I, as a right winger (this is them talking, not me), am (or soon will be) one of the "more deserving ones" which is why I side with the right wing ideology of people getting exactly what they "deserve" and those below getting the 'trickle down' remainders because under the right wing ideology, right wingnuts such as me always "deserve" the most and the best and they (where this includes yours truly) will surely get it.

The other day someone asked me why so many people vote against their own economic interest?

That's easy, I said, because the right wing case is very compelling. Everyone believes he or she will be the special one, the one who wins the lottery, the one who becomes one of "them" (the more deserving ones) and they want to make sure the landing strip is paved with rubber-padded gold for the time in the very near future when they too make their soft landing on that strip, get their pot of gold (and also their 72 virgins). At the end of the day, we're no different than "them" (the Muslims). Everybody believes they are the chosen ones, that Allah/Jesus/Elloheim/Shiva is on their side and in the end the "others" will get what's com'in to them while we the good ones will triumph which why they all want to see the End-of-Days/Rapture hitting the fan ASAP so they can gloat in their victory.

We are indeed a sick and f...'ed up species.

i would be very curious to hear from you a concrete proposal on how to implement this?

See AdamI's response below. It's not a panacea but it might be a start.

unfortunately, my friend, a country so advanced to have an educated, well-being middle class uses a lot more energy than a third world country in which the only hobby people can afford is to make babies the usual way.

which sort of goes against the original goal of reduction of energy usage.

bottom line is, without cheap, abundant energy we go back to being monkeys with a 35 years life expectancy.

i heard that the most important technical breakthough in history was the discovery of fire. which is the capacity to control energy. which is what makes us what we are: the only form of life on the platet able to produce its own energy rather than relying on the energy nature makes available.

once we lose this capacity due to lack of fuels, or due to goverment intervention, we are back to middle age, or worse. all those who dream of low energy, renewable based high tech civilization are living in denial. some other try to restore the "natural order" and force us to live like animals, using only the energy nature makes available.

@gioanmarko.

Absolute garbage. You ignore the existence of people living long and happy lives at a tenth of our current average Western energy usage.

All I hear is the baby crying because he suspects the grownup is going to take the knife away.

Take your anger and use it to compute how much energy you NEED, not what you're using. And specify a society where you're appreciated and have status based on your service, not your consumption.

All I hear is the baby crying because he suspects the grownup is going to take the knife away.

He sounds a lot like, the 38 year old nephew of a good Italian auto mechanic friend of mine, who recently visited him. A live at home momma's boy that wears only Armani suits and turns up his nose and criticizes everything not up to his sophisticated tastes. My friend couldn't wait for him to go home...

The funniest part was when my friend told me he took him to Target to buy some $4.00 a pair work jeans on sale, after they had lost the poor guy's Armani luggage at the airport. I hadn't had such a good laugh in years, there were tears streaming down my face from laughing so hard!

To be clear, I'm describing my friend's nephew here, since I don't know anything about gioanmarko except for what he sounds like.

It is estimated that to raise a poor US child to adulthood is about $125000($6000 per year) and a middle class kid about $250000($12000 per year).

http://moneycentral.msn.com/articles/family/kids/tlkidscost.asp

Government programs and tax deductions and credits are about $6000 per year per child.

http://familysystem.org/att/Leave%20No%20Child%20Behind.doc

Likewise it costs the government about $360000 per year to pay for an average SS retirement; $18000 x (85-65).

To quote George Will, 'whatever is subsidized will grow'.
Eliminate the subsidies and these populations will fall.

Malthus thought the 'invisible hand' of poverty(to the point of causing epidemics, massive crime waves and war) was the cure for overpopulation.

"The power of population is so superior to the power of the earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race. The vices of mankind are active and able ministers of depopulation. They are the precursors in the great army of destruction, and often finish the dreadful work themselves. But should they fail in this war of extermination, sickly seasons, epidemics, pestilence, and plague advance in terrific array, and sweep off their thousands and tens of thousands. Should success be still incomplete, gigantic inevitable famine stalks in the rear, and with one mighty blow levels the population with the food of the world".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Robert_Malthus

Is a totalitarian state enforcing population control
any more terrible than the 'invisible hand' favored by
conservatives?

The population reduction('class enemies') in Khmer Rouge Cambodia was 20% killed.

The population reduction in Ireland under Queen Victoria's reign was 20% by famine(1 million) and 30% emigrated(1.5 million)---total of 50%.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)

majorian, I will try to answer:
"Is a totalitarian state enforcing population control any more terrible than the 'invisible hand' favored by conservatives?"

Answer: The solution seems to depend on wealth.

What is critical is the manner of population control.
(a) Reduce births using contraception; is this best mandated by the government or chosen by the people? How does the invisible hand do this – give women a greater role in the workplace – already underway. The government will not implement this as fairly as free choice, one only need to look at China’s policy to see the consequences. The wealthy have an advantage here, they can move to a different state and avoid the state’s mandate. Of course the wealthy have already reduced their own procreation numbers.
(b) Increase death rate with the rationing of health care. (a) Government develops criteria which are implemented by a bureaucracy. Example, no care for those over 80 years of age. Or even more severe, change law to allow euthanasia. How would the invisible hand do this? Care would be a choice like any other choice in how to spend resources. Change the law to allow all unused estate money to be transferred to the next generation, the elderly would have a fair choice to die and pass on their wealth or spend it on themselves, many would pass on the money. Today it is more or less decided by government that you may as well spend the money on your own care since the government will take a cut of the money that is left. Which approach is fairest depends on the faith you put in the bureaucracy. I tend to believe the government will be corrupt and mismanage this approach. Again, the wealthy would have the option of using their wealth to pay the bribes necessary to escape any part of the mandate that they wished.
(c) What is the other way to enforce population control: war, famine? In this case it is not subject to the invisible hand or the government mandate. These methods are inherently fair but use different selection criteria. War chooses the young in battle and is random in terms of choosing the population (collateral damage). Famine selects against the poor and the elderly but is random in operation.

In short, the question is readily one that depends on resources. The financially well off would not pass these choices freely to the government because they have more selection open to them under the free market. To the poor, the government offers a better coin toss. Of course a totally new means of control is available to the totalitarian approach, We could reduce society by random lot – very fair, but subject to a revolution.

a) Here Malthus's analysis look to be just wrong.
Malthus thought that the poor would reduce the number of children based on their income. Actually, in reality the higher the income the lower the number of children. In poorer countries people have more children to offset the higher death rate/ partly child mortality.
b) The object of health care is to prolong life and the rich are better able to withstand the costs. But here the
reality is nobody can tell how long they will live.
On average poor males live 5 years less than the rich and poor women 3 years less than the rich(NYT 2008).
It isn't really a huge difference, so really morality is largely a matter of chance(a lottery). The government will better allocate services than a market. OTH, private medical insurance will only help the insurance companies make money.

c)Malthus's point is that wars and famines are the result of scarcity and are means('invisible hand') of reducing the population to meet agricultural production. They are not evil at all.
In the case of the Irish Famine, the Victorian system by and large
did not organize to offset the famine, though there were some charities.

Finally you opine that equality before a population law could cause a revolution. I would say the reverse(such as forced sterilizing of the poor) would be more dangerous.

majorian:
Thank you for your reply.
Equality before a random government control may choose forced sterilization so they are the same – we agree about society not accepting some solutions. My approach was more like distributing poison in a random manner in widely accepted government food supplies. (fair but undesirable)

I see the point about Malthus, but Malthus was wrong about the timing and after about 15 years of error anyone’s analysis has the chance of being overcome by other events. Right now we don’t know whether to worry about climate change, energy scarcity, overpopulation, government debt, the next pandemic, or government brutality. In fifteen years we may better understand the threats, but each will change and new technology will exist.

Since there is little difference in mortality rates and since ill health is largely random I would prefer it to a government playing favorites with campaign contributors. (Thanks for the mortality comparison, I did not realize they were that close.) My concern about the government was if they started choosing people well before illness and mortality—that this would set off an insurrection.

I agree with you that wars, famines, and pandemics are not evil; if they are driven by scarcity they represent our natural desire for self-defense. Likewise, we may reach some world wide accommodation using free trade and invisible market forces if we are lucky and have enough time to develop alternatives to scarcity. This is also human nature depending on who is in charge at key decision points.

"To replace the total of 12.5 TW (400 Exajoules) of fossil fuel supply today would require 400 times the current space needed for fossil fuel energy, a spatial requirement of 12,500,000 km2, equivalent to the territory of the United States and India."

So this is another book about the energy transition that ignores nuclear?

Whatever you think about nuclear power, you can't discuss the energy transition away from fossil fuels without discussing it and including it in your models. Here you have a fuel with more energy "in the ground" than there ever was in all the fossil fuels that have ever existed, and a far higher energy density. But at the same time, using the energy is far more capital intensive and requires more careful management... so it's not a panacea and it's a very complex subject. But it can't be dismissed with a simple little hand-wave or not even brought up in a book claiming to be about the impending energy transition!

Or maybe it was in the book but wasn't in this review? What did this book say about it?

I wonder what the spatial requirement is for powering the French power grid?

@AdamI

Nuclear is covered in the book, I'll find the relevant parts tomorrow and summarize it here.

Rembrandt

@AdamI

About French Nuclear Smil writes 2 pages including the following:

"Nuclear electricity's share of the French primary energy supply rose from 0.2% in 1965 to more than 7% by 1985 ant to nearly 33% by 1990 and it has been above 35% since 1993 (peaking at just over 39% in 2005). This impressive gain has been a major factor in reducing the absolute level of French oil imports in 2008 by nearly 28% below their peak 1973 level. As in the British case, the expectations of futre shares based on apparently fixed rates of market penetration proved to be far off: Marchetti and Nakicenovic (1979) foresaw the French primary energy shares in the year 2000 at just 1% for coal, less than 10% each for oil and gas, and more than 80% for nuclear electricity, - while the real share were respectively, about 5%, 37%, 14%, and 37%."

The U.S. is also covered.

Page 45-47 deals with the development of nuclear energy from its inception to the current installed park of around 450 reactors

Page 70 deals with past expectations of future nuclear energy growth compared with actual development.

There is nothing in the book about future development of nuclear

Rapid change occurs when people are motivated. Would anyone have predicted in the 1930s that American industrial production could possibly soar to the heights reached during WWII?

Rapid change to renewable energy won't be easy, but the commodity most scarce is the will to do it.

I agree Doc...no one in 1930 would have predicted the industrial expansion of the US during WWII. And they would have been correct if the East Texas Oil Field had not been discovered. The US had a third rate army at the beginning of the war and, more importantly, an inadequate supply of enegy to fuel such an expansion. It isn't too much of a stretch to say that we all might be speaking German right now had it not been for this discovery. We didn't defeat the Germans with our will IMHO. We defeated them with a combination of Texas oil and the destruction of German fuel sources.

Now all we need is the leverage equivalent of one of the greatest oil fields ever discovered to propel the renewables to a comparable level. Even if the will were there we still need an affordable existing technology to get us there. We've made some gains but nothing of a magnitude to get us anywhere close to where we need IMHO. What's one of the "hot advances" we're talking about today: the Volt electric car. A vehicle that costs $81,000 to build with the govt subsidizing it to bring the cost down to $41,000....a price only the wealth can afford. I'm all for hoping for a few magic bulles. Just drop me a line when they show up.

AFAIK I see only one magic bullet on the horizon that will help us transition from oil: coal. Not a nice option but the only one I see that has sufficient economic support. I've seen nothing yet to indicate that society will require economics to take a back seat to human will.

Solar thermal can do anything coal can do except convert itself directly into liquid fuel, but given sufficient energy there's ways around that issue too, some which don't involve costly batteries.

ROCKMAN said:

We didn't defeat the Germans with our will IMHO. We defeated them with a combination of Texas oil and the destruction of German fuel sources.

Your comment made me dig up Dietrich Eichholtz' book "Krieg um Öl: Ein Erdölimperium als deutshces Kriegsziel (1938-1943)" [War for oil: A petroleum empire as german war objective], which I started reading more than a year ago, but stopped midway...

Anyway, the German oil situation in WW2 was precarious to begin with. Eichholtz writes

Unter den sieben führenden Erdölforderländern war Rumänien 1936 noch das vierte, zwar mit grossem Abstand hinter dem USA, der UdSSR und Venezuela, aber vor Iran, Niederländisch-Indien (Indonesien) und Mexico

[Among the seven leading petroleum producers, Romania was in 1936 still number four, admittedly far behind the USA, the USSR and Venezuela, but ahead of Iran, Indonesia and Mexico.]

At the beginning of the war Germany and the Soviet Union were allied; but even though they were the second greatest petroleum producer of the day, they were barely self sufficient, so no imports from there. Thus Germany was entirely dependent on imports from Romania. Not a good situation to be in, considering that the romanian oil industry was dominated by foreign operators, the largest parts being english and french.

OK, those foreign elements were squeezed out as the war progressed, BUT: Romania peaked in 1936, and not even the aggressive german exploitation could halt the commencement of steep decline. (And when the Soviets retook Crimea and thus could start bombing the end was nigh, literally).

Leading german oil experts Alfred Bentz and Ernst Fischer each produced, in 1940, a report on the future of german oil supply. Eichholtz writes

Die wesentliche Schlussvolgerung beider autoren war die, dass eine Selbstversorgerung ohne das Öl und die Ölreserven des Nahen Ostens "gänzlich unmöglich" sei. Bentz fasste zusammen und stellte fest: "Zur Versorgung Europas ist die Sicherstellung der Erdölreserven des Vorderen Orients unumgänglich notwendig."

[The important end result of both authors was that a security of supply without the oil and oil reserves of the Near East (i.e., the Middle East) was "quite impossible". Bentz summarized and concluded "For the supply of Europe, it is unavoidably necessary to secure the petroleum reserves of the Middle East"]

And, as they say, the rest is history...

Ya! Das ist klar Herr Kommissar.

KODE - Interesting...thanks. I still recall a book I read as a younf lad..."Low Level Mission" (?). About the Allied air raid on the Ploesti (sp?) oil fields that supplied the Germain with much of their reserves. For some odd reason I've never forgotten. Perhaps one reason: one of the commanders was asked if it was such a vital target to risk the air crews. His comment was simple: he would have orred the strike if he knew for certain he would loose every plane. And that he would send in a second strike if necessary and would be willing to lose every plane in it. And he would continue to do so until he had no aircraft left. I think I recall it was a one way mission: insufficient fuel to return to base. Had to ditch after dropping their loads. Basicly that's how critical it was to deny Germany the oil.

KODE: Hence, the push into the southern Caucauses and North Africa, eh?

Stocks tanking everywhere...even the Yen rising against the dollar. Down 2% after 30 minutes trading.

Anyway, summer marine cloud cover and cloudy wet winters above 50 deg lat preclude decent returns on solar investments. (For our home and few other million folks in this location). Wood heat and a woodlot takes care of our domestic heat. Conservation could be increased, (although we run a pretty tight ship), and would be done immediately if energy costs skyrocketed. Some ideas....limit showers and maybe do the sink thing more often like my folks did before the fifties. Lights...buy only what is necessary. Don't wash clothes to death. If our electricity rates were higher this would be normal behaviour.

We need much higher fuel prices, electricity rates, and a national mindset that this is a war against ourselves that requires warlike sacrifices and focused attention in all facets of our Society to develop needed energy technology. I don't see this in a Democracy until there are severe disruptions in our lives.

The economy is already in the toilet. I don't see how it is possible to meddle with it for energy needs without a need so obvious even a mouth-breathing sit-com addict understands the urgency?

What will it take to get the butts off the couch and out of the cars? I can't see it happening until there is a crisis rather than a slow decline. Maybe a big bump in the road like closure of the Straits of Hormuz.

respectfully....Paul

I agree that the "full and complete" transition from fossil "primary" energy to renewable primary energy sources will take longer than some of the more optimistic comentators have proposed. That's simply common sense, since such is just not necessary. However, to used, as Smil apparently does, arguments such as

he takes bio-energy as a replacement energy source assuming a plant energy intake of 1 watt/m2 from the sun. To replace the total of 12.5 TW (400 Exajoules) of fossil fuel supply today would require 400 times the current space needed for fossil fuel energy, a spatial requirement of 12,500,000 km2, equivalent to the territory of the United States and India.

in my view simply discredits him as a researcher. With modern eg. stirling dish solar collection systems capable of out-performing photosynthesis by at least two orders of magnitude, Smil must know that that was simply a statement trying to grab the unwary and unknowing.

Comparing present-day deployment capacities with those of 1890 as being equal is another bit of bogus work.

Utter nonsense. Let's have some realistic criticism, not this foolishness.

Don't you think it's just as likely that he was performing that calculation to give the reader a sense of the size of the problem?

Any serious student of energy knows that we will need (and have always used in modern times) a variety of energy sources. I disagree with Smil's conclusions and recommendations but he is quite clearly a serious student of energy.

Chimpanzees picking grubs are "very serious" too. That sort of nonsense just confuses the issue. Better he stays quiet. Sorry, but the determined ( defeatism / wishing that everyone else would be brought down to where person x has found himself reduced ) is just really annoying. I'm more egalitarian than most, often called socialist on blogsites, and FOR THAT REASON wish to see us collectively make the very best we can for ourselves within the natural constraints in which we find ourselves. Voluntarily choosing to not deploy eg. solar-thermal generation because you'd rather see society power-down to 1890's level or subsistence farming levels etc. frustrates me. I grew up on a subsistence farm in far northern Ontario, Canada in the 1950's and believe me, very very cold, hungry and without energy is NOT my ideal, though I could survive it much longer than most.

Anyone who focuses the discusion on biomass is being disengenuous.

Any serious student of energy knows that biomass isn't scalable. An analyst who isn't trying to confuse his/her audience will focus primarily on wind and nuclear, with solar distinctly secondary, and biomass far behind the pack.

@lengould, aangel, nick

There is not a focus on biomass in the book, it is only one example out of many also in the context of power densities. Why not take a more objective stance in stead of condemning everything based on a small bit of information?

"Solar radiation reaching the ground has the highest flux in cloud-free subtropics; for example. in northeastern Saudi Arabia the maximum power densities are more than 1100 W/m2 during he peak insolation hours and the highest daily means go up to 350 W/m2. Annual continental average has the global mean of about 170 W/m2 and the oceanic means is slightly higher at 180 W/m2. Average insolation densities of 10^2 W/m2 mean that even with today's relatively low-efficiency PV conversions (the best rates in everyday operation are still below 20%) we can produce electricity with power densities of around 30 W/m2, and if today's best experimental designs (multijunction concentrators with efficiency of about 40%) become commercial realities we could see PV generation power densities averaging more than 60 W/m2 and surpassing 400 W/m2 during the peak insolation hours."

"At the same time, energy is consumed in modern urban and industrial areas at increasingly higher power densities, ranging from less than 10 W/m2 in sprawling cities in low-income countries (including their transportation networks) to 50-150 W/m2 in densely packed high-income metropolitan areas and to more than 500 W/m2 in downtowns of large northern cities during winter. Industrial facilities, above all steel mills and refineries, have power densities in excess of 500 W/m2 even prorated over their entire fence area - and high-rise buildings that will house an increasing share of humanity in the twenty-first century megacities go easily above 1000 W/m2. This mismatch between the inherently low power densities of renewable energy flows and relatively high power densities of modern final energy uses (figure 4.2 in the book) means that a solar-based system will require a profound spatial restructuring with major environmental and socioeconomic consequences."

"Mass adoption of renewable energies would thus necessitate a fundamental reshaping of modern energy infrastructures, from a system dominated by global diffusion of concentrated energies from a relatively limited number of nodes extracting fuels with very high power densities to a system that would collect fuels of low energy density at low power densities over extensive areas and concentrate them in the increasingly more populous consumption centers. This is not impossible, but the challenges of this massive infrastructural reorganization should not be underestimated, and the tempo of this grand transformation would have to be necessarily slow."

This is not impossible, but the challenges of this massive infrastructural reorganization should not be underestimated, and the tempo of this grand transformation would have to be necessarily slow."

This is highly unrealistic.

Wind power concentrates "diffuse" wind energy very cost effectively, and wind power could be built relatively quickly. The challenges of wind intermittency are significant, but wind buildout does not have to be "necessarily slow".

I think it is likely to be slow, but not because of any technical challenge, even any inherent economic challenge. No, the problem can be summed up by one archetypal example: West Virginia has two votes in the Senate, and right now only one is needed to block any climate progress.

I would suggest that drastic reductions in energy consumption (and by extension, material consumption in general) are not only feasible but possible. We (as in "We the people") are reluctant to recognize this, much as I was reluctant to stop smoking. (Anybody here remember all the brouhaha about developing a Safe Cigarette, back in the 60's and even the 70's?) When a bad case of pneumonia convinced me to do so, I was amazed at how readily I could (and did) quit, and stranger still, that life was still enjoyable and definitely worth living. Likewise, life with drastically lowered energy need not be a life of misery & deprivation.

Specifically, I think of limiting energy consumption to its intended purpose. Does an entire house need to be heated or cooled, or just the part a person is occupying? Old technology handles this by appropriate dress (wearing an elegant guayabera, barong tagalog or dashiki instead of coat and tie in warm weather). I am certain that methods and means could be developed which are superior to technologies thousands of years old. And far superior to central air conditioning (or heating).

As often happens, military technology might provide an analogy if not an applicable method. For instance, a cruise missile targets a target; instead of big bangs over a large area (carpet bombing), attack what you want to attack. Like a rifle instead of a shotgun. This needs technology and intelligence of two kinds: to figure out what you need to attack, and how to target it. Supposedly, our civilization is advancing in technology and intelligence.

In Arthur C Clarke's "Childhood's End", Karellen the Overlord expresses to Stormgren how it would be simpler and more energy-intensive to disable a hostile Human by implanting an intense, painful noise in said human's ear, rather than by crude methods like weapons of war.

Back in the late 40's and early 50's, my brother and I cruised the Michigan Coast of Lake Michigan in a Lightning (a 19½ ft long sloop with a centerboard, which we also raced at times). For cruising, we installed a home-brewed swing rudder, so we could run up on a beach without ripping the transom apart. A canvas cockpit cover shielded us from the elements when they decided to descend in liquid form. The purpose was fun and low-hanging adventure; missions accomplished, all of them. (I read “Childhood’s End” under that cockpit cover, waiting out a three-day blow in Chrystal Lake.)

In other words, a high quality of life can be achieved without needing massive consumption of energy and goods. That is, once we had that lightning, its sails and rigging, our sleeping bags, camp stove, etc. (And bug repellent!)

Manufacturing is a separate issue, but the analogies are there, too.

I claim that more than technology is required. So too is imagination. Glamorous trend-setters are needed. And faith that life is not only possible without access to that which has us addicted: it can be great. To misquote Hamlet, wishing can make it so. To quote Scripture, seek and ye shall find. (Otherwise, abandon all hope ye who enter herein. Don't look for it, and for sure you won't find it.)

Supposedly, our civilization is advancing in technology and intelligence.

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe.” Albert Einstein

Though I do agree with most of what you say and your sailboat story resonates with me personally as I've spent a large portion of my life in, on and under the sea.

I think what many people fail to grasp is that technology such as the boat you describe is relatively easy to fabricate from readily available materials with the use of simple hand tools. It is a form of advanced technology if you compare it to a rough hewn log and a pole.

I have often argued that even though BAU is dead there is much knowledge that we will still have available to keep us from having to go back to logs and poles and living in caves.

KISS

I think this passage sums the real meat of the matter: "Affluent countries should thus replace their traditional pursuit of higher energy output and increased conversion efficiency with a new approach that would combine aggressively improved efficiency of energy conversion with decreasing rates of per capita energy use."

It seems to me that the fundamental issue isn't the existing technology available for renewable energy production; it's integrating the existing technology to the existing economic paradigm. Always, increased energy consumption has led to an increased standard of living. Looking at the scope of the problem from this paradigm, than, yes, no major transition can be made within a human lifespan as the rate of renewable deployment will never catch up to the rate of increased energy usage.

However, if we consider it from the perspective of a different paradigm, one in which energy usage is decoupled somehow from prosperity, then we can see a future in which a relatively quick change can be made, as the rate of renewable deployment accelerates while the rate of increasing consumption dwindles, or even begins to reverse as the planet becomes more efficient in harnessing it's primary energy supplies.

All things being equal, and ignoring such Devils of economics as Jevon's Paradox and so forth, I see this not as a technology difficulty but as a systemic ailment: we must derive an economic order in which prosperity is not intrinsically connected to consumption. I posit that this will be done for us by market forces, as we all know here how quickly we're exhausting this world's resources, however such a jarring transition may not be conducive to the perpetuation of our civilization.

But my rather long-winded point is that this is a problem intrinsic to our current economic paradigm. The technology will improve, but it's incumbent upon us to alter the dominant paradigm
when it no longer suits our purposes.

You're close here:

...we must derive an economic order in which prosperity is not intrinsically connected to consumption.

Just replace "prosperity" with "status".

Status is what the monkeys are after. Everything flows from what the other monkeys give you in socialisation, sex and support.

Would dramatically reducing CO2 emissions be expensive?

No, surprisingly enough.

The British Stern report projected a cost of 1% of GDP per year, and later Stern revised that to 2%. I think that's too high. Fortunately, we don't have to rely on some kind of authority to figure this out - at least for the US, I think we can do the calculations ourselves.

Most CO2 emissions in the US come from coal - a solution that eliminates coal and a large % of oil consumption will get us most of the way.

Well, replacing coal with wind in the US would only have a net cost of about $400 billion*. Light vehicle transportation accounts for 45% of US oil consumption - replacing it wouldn't cost anything at all, if you include all costs and savings over the vehicle lifecycle.

$400B divided into a $14T economy is 3%. Over 20 years, that's only .15% per year. Not much, really.

--------------------------------------------

*I said we could build enough wind capacity to replace coal for $400 billion. Coal supplies half our electricity - can we really do that?

Sure. Here's how I came up with that number:

We generate about 50% of our electricity from coal, which amounts to an average of 220 gigawatts. Wind, on average, produces power at 30% of it nameplate rating, so we'd need about 733GW of wind. Wind costs about $2/W, so that would cost about $1,466 billion. Transmission might raise that about 10%, to about $1,613 billion.

Now, roughly 50% of coal plants need to be replaced in the next 20 years, so about 50% of the $1.6T coal replacement investment is needed anyway; new coal plants are just as expensive per KWH as wind, so that half, or $800B of the investment can be eliminated from our considerations.

Coal plants cost about $.035/KWH to fuel and operate, which is about 50% of the cost of wind. That's an expense that we'll have either way, so we can eliminate 50% of the remainder, which is about $400B: all told, we can discount the wind investment by 75%!

Wind's intermittency is often raised as another source of cost: I address that here.

--------

So, that gives us a cost of roughly $400B, or $40B per year for 10 years. That's a small % of US manufacturing, and a very small % of GDP.

A bargain.

Wind, on average, produces power at 30% of it nameplate rating, so we'd need about 733GW of wind.

Interesting number.
If we take USA 2009 Added-GW numbers, as static, that's ~73 years

However, the Added-GW is NOT static
For USA wind, we have :

The five-year average annual growth rate for the industry is now 39%, up from 32% between 2003 and 2008.

So if we take a +30%/yr compound ramp-rate (lower than the past actuals), and work those numbers, then we hit USA Wind GW of ~768GW, by ~2021 !

Of course, at that trajectory, the last year adds ~179GW, but
as targets get close, the industry will not really peak-crash, they will taper off.
So, we might move that maths-intercept value of ~2021, out to maybe ~2030, to give investment/industry friendly ramps/peaks.

That's why, we need to switch sometime in the next decade, to working out just what transition time lines we want.

Makes sense.

The level at which we wanted the annual installation rate to plateau might be about 75GW per year.

The level at which we wanted the annual installation rate to plateau might be about 75GW per year.

Sounds reasonable, looking at the maths-trends, we have 11 years

48
64.9
86.87
115.43
152.56
200.82
263.57
345.14
451.19
589.05
768.26

and if we take the nearest match to ~75 of the 82 year rate, (345-263) and then go linear (+82) from when there, we get

48
64.9
86.87
115.43
152.56
200.82
263.57
345.14
427
509
591
673
755

which is just 13 years, to exceed 733GW.
If I drop back 1 year, to use +63GW as a ceiling, then it takes 15 years to hit ~767GW
Or, using +48GW, the next year-back, it is 17 years to hit ~728GW

So, it only takes 13 years, and the maximum cost per year is only about $150B - less than 1/2 the cost of the current ME oil war.

Yes, it is surprising how short some of these time-lines can be.
That's why decisions about those peak-rates, need to be made soon, as the factory leadtimes for 2013/2014+ output mean it's not far away.

The Auz study has some good peak-rate-limited numbers, for both wind, and Concentrating solar.

http://media.beyondzeroemissions.org/ZCA2020_Stationary_Energy_Synopsis_...
(2MB)

Table 3 : ZCA2020 Projected Annual Capital Costs of Wind (AUD 2010 prices) - Here they use 12% of targeted total, as added-ceiling.















Year $Million/MW Constructed Capacity MWOperational Capacity MW Costs $M
2011 2.2 1,250 2,000 $2,750
2012 1.9 3,250 2,500 $6,175
2013 1.9 5,500 4,500 $10,450
2014 1.65 6,000 9,000 $9,900
2015 1.65 6,000 15,000 $9,900
2016 1.25 6,000 21,000 $7,500
2017 1.25 6,000 27,000 $7,500
2018 1.25 6,000 33,000 $7,500
2019 1.25 6,000 39,000 $7,500
2020 1.25 2,000 45,000 $2,500
2021 -- 50,000 -
Total Capital Costs $71,675

Wind won't pass 20% of capacity unless drastic measures are taken to deal with intermittency. And that will take time.

We could do 30% without much modification of the grid. See: http://www.nrel.gov/wind/systemsintegration/ewits.html

Keep in mind, variance isn't the same thing as unpredictability/unreliability. Wind output can be predicted to a large degree, which allows planning, and reduces or eliminates a need for spinning reserves.

As we add multiple windfarms, presumably with output either non-correlated or only partly correlated, the ratio of variance to mean output falls sharply. Also, many windfarms are negatively correlated, so that careful site selection reduces system variance.

Geographic balancing between parts of the grid only requires transmitting balancing amounts, not the whole load. A cost optimized grid will not have world-girdling, massive transmission lines.

Only a small % of a region's wind power would need to be transferred between regions in order to provide balancing, and possibly not as far as one might think. Sometimes it's just a matter of a number of sub-regions getting their power, on average, 100 miles from their west, rather than 100 miles from their east, and in effect you've transferred power from the western edge of the overall region to the eastern.

We really don't need much more peak capacity - perhaps none at all for many years, with good time-of-day pricing and DSM. That renders most of this argument moot, at least as a boundary: we can use existing generation if we have to as a backup.

Wind farm peak capacity credits are a little like getting a dog to talk: the interesting thing isn't how well the dog talks, but that it talks at all. The fact that even a small cluster of wind farms can have a 1/3 of average capacity credit, or wind at a regional level have an average 55% credit, is important.

I see local wind capacity credit as solving roughly 40% of the diurnal intermittency problem; long-distance transmission solving about 30%, and DSM solving the rest. DSM alone could make an enormous contribution: think 220M EV's (with 2.2TW peak demand or output) doing a dance of load balancing with the grid. This doesn't even touch the legacy peak capacity which could provide backup - this we'd want to minimize to minimize CO2 emissions, but that wouldn't be hard with DSM as a short-term factor: we'd only need it for very unusual, long-term lulls.

Biomass would be enormously useful for grid stability. Biomass is the obvious, and workable, candidate for the job of providing backup for seasonal lulls in wind & solar production. OTOH, it's not necessary.

Solutions for seasonal lulls in renewable production include overbuilding; production of ammonia or other synthetic hydrocarbons with surplus electricity; compressed air storage; pumped storage; nuclear; overbuilt geothermal; etc, etc, etc.

There are a number of workable solutions to intermittency. Some are cheaper than others, some combinations are more optimal than others, but there are wide variety of ways to skin this cat.

We could do 30% without much modification of the grid. See: http://www.nrel.gov/wind/systemsintegration/ewits.html

Your link doesn't support your statement. This is a quote about a 20% target for 2030 from the executive summary:

"The 20% Report states that although significant costs, challenges, and impacts are associated with a 20% wind scenario, substantial benefits can be shown to overcome the costs. In other key findings, the report concludes that such a scenario is unlikely to be realized with a business-as-usual approach, and that a major national commitment to clean, domestic energy sources with desirable environmental attributes would be required."

There are a number of workable solutions to intermittency. Some are cheaper than others, some combinations are more optimal than others, but there are wide variety of ways to skin this cat.

Yes, there is. But my overall impression is that you are way too optimistic about them, and I maintain my view that 20% penetration is hard enough, and that to go further will require considerable time and money.

Well, first things first. Are we agreed that a reasonably fast, cost-effective transition away from FF is very feasible?

Your link doesn't support your statement.

I think if you read it with an open mind, you'll find that it does. After all, we have plenty of coal. Why would we go to a large amount of nuclear and/or wind, unless we make a "major national commitment to clean, domestic energy sources with desirable environmental attributes"??

to go further will require considerable time and money.

The key thing that will change is the electrification of vehicles: that will support a great deal more wind and nuclear. After all, what's the biggest problem for both wind and nuclear? Inadequate night time demand. EVs solve that problem.

Well, first things first. Are we agreed that a reasonably fast, cost-effective transition away from FF is very feasible?

For electricity, yes, through nuclear. Light transportation through plug-in hybrids, perhaps. Heavy transports, ships and air traffic, no.

After all, we have plenty of coal. Why would we go to a large amount of nuclear and/or wind, unless we make a "major national commitment to clean, domestic energy sources with desirable environmental attributes"??

Precisely because there are "significant costs, challenges, and impacts" to get to 20% in a 2030 time frame. While you guys talked about 100% in a shorter time frame, even though the challenges of intermittency increase the higher penetration you've got.

The key thing that will change is the electrification of vehicles: that will support a great deal more wind and nuclear.

First, nuclear doesn't need extra support. Wind however, needs a lot, and unfortunately, I don't buy that vehicle electrification will help much. It would require a high EV penetration, a smart grid and a willingness to put off charging until the grid feels like it. And even then it can only help with some of the hourly variations.

I'll try to answer as I have more time.

Well, replacing coal with wind in the US would only have a net cost of about $400 billion*.

Replacing with nuclear would probably have a net cost of zero or less.

We generate about 50% of our electricity from coal, which amounts to an average of 220 gigawatts. Wind, on average, produces power at 30% of it nameplate rating, so we'd need about 733GW of wind.

You can't exchange baseload generation with intermittent generation.

Wind's intermittency is often raised as another source of cost: I address that here.

Much, much, much too optimistically.

Light vehicle transportation accounts for 45% of US oil consumption - replacing it wouldn't cost anything at all, if you include all costs and savings over the vehicle lifecycle.

In time, that will likely be true. Currently, it is not.

Replacing coal powerplants with nuclear powerplants at essentially zero cost due to the savings in coal and environmental harm is almost the same as replacing todays heavy wehicle fleet with electrified rail, smaller cars, electric cars, biogas, bicycles and so on and pay for it with the gas savings and less environmental harm.

The main difference is that nuclear powerplants can be one for one replacements for coal powerplants but we need to combine manny solutions if we want to get rid of the gas gusslers. The number of possible combinations is immense and we realy need market solutions to not miss too manny opportunities.

The bottom line here is that we agree that a reasonably fast, cost-effective transition away from FF is very feasible.

-----------------------------------

Now, on to niggling details:

Replacing with nuclear would probably have a net cost of zero or less.

Perhaps, if the industry can succeed in achieving economies of scale.

You can't exchange baseload generation with intermittent generation.

See my other comment. Keep in mind that the only reason to move from coal to wind or nuclear is to eliminate emissions (mostly CO2). That's a kWh issue, not a capacity issue.

Much, much, much too optimistically.

Again, see my other comment.

In time, that will likely be true. Currently, it is not.

Yes, it will take about 5 years.

Keep in mind that the only reason to move from coal to wind or nuclear is to eliminate emissions (mostly CO2). That's a kWh issue, not a capacity issue.

Yes, kWh is the problem you are trying to solve. Intermittency is the problem you get if you try to solve the kWh problem with wind.

That's only a problem if capacity is a scarce resource. Due to our long-time proclivity for building our way out of problems, it's not. If we flatten residential demand curves with time-of-day charging, that will create quite a substantial surplus of peak capacity (which is the only capacity that matters, relative to intermittency).

Assume an average demand of 1000 KW and an average wind production of 200 KW. Then nameplate wind is 600 KW, and low demand periods may draw 600 KW.

Do you see where I'm going? At times of good wind and low demand, that 20% average wind may cover the entire demand. If you'd have built out wind to 40% average, in that same situation, half of your wind power would be stranded! (And then you wouldn't really have 40% average, as you'd have to forfeit some wind kWhrs.)

So, the problem isn't one of a lack of capacity, the problem is that wind outcompetes and strands itself, and that can only partly be rectified by lots of costly external adjustments such as DSM, smart grids, strengthened grids, stand-by capacity, pumped hydro and so on.

Also, to realize why wind and nuclear is a particularly bad match, consider the case where 50% of the electricity is nuclear, and you have that 20% wind scenario with good wind and low demand. Then half of the wind is stranded right there and then! At 40% wind penetration and good wind/low demand, fully 75% of the wind generation would be stranded.

Comparing Cyclic energy with base-load is always going to be apples to oranges.

Cyclic energy is an area-under-the-curve tool, and yes, of course it costs - the point is, you are using it to LOWER the usage of some other form of energy. One with either a finite supply, or a negative impact, or both.

Cyclic energy can also be smoothed, and will increasingly include smoothing, as the absolute costs of Cyclic drop, allowing headroom for storage to be included.

If your first target is to LOWER (rather than slash to zero) the displaced fuels usage, then storage is less important.

If you want to finally fully phase out your displaced fuel, then adding storage allows that.
ie You add the storage, as the cost/need makes sense.

This is already being done, with many storage/smoothing systems working right now.

The price trends show what is possible right now, and indicate what could be possible in 5-10 years.

This is a good example, of how significant opposite price-trends can be:

http://theenergycollective.com/oshadavidson/40559/study-solar-power-chea...

You can debate over exactly when the cross over might be (it will vary with Geography, and regulatory impost ), but the cross over is real.

If you want to finally fully phase out your displaced fuel, then adding storage allows that. ie You add the storage, as the cost/need makes sense.

Which it generally won't. Which is why wind is limited to some 20%. The sooner we realize this and start ramping nuclear, the better.

You can debate over exactly when the cross over might be (it will vary with Geography, and regulatory impost ), but the cross over is real.

No, it's not. The link you provide is simply absurd. Solar PV is very expensive (16 cents/kWh is cited, including subsidies!) will likely never come close to the price of nuclear power (3-6 cents).

The link you provide is simply absurd. Solar PV is very expensive (16 cents/kWh is cited, including subsidies!) will likely never come close to the price of nuclear power (3-6 cents).

Wow, if your claim is really true, you'd better write to Areva,
it seems they have poured Millions into Solar!!!
This just a few months ago:

[ Areva acquires U.S.-based solar thermal player Ausra
"This market is set to have 20 gigawatts by the year 2020. Areva has an objective to be a world leader in solar energy" by 2012 ]

Seems Areva DO grasp the importance of price trends.
(They already have investments in Wind power too.)

and this:
[" Building a nuclear plant has become a "bet-the-farm risk," ratings agency Moody's (MCO) says in a report... "]

Seems the smart money, is making up its own mind ?

Wow, if your claim is really true, you'd better write to Areva, it seems they have poured Millions into Solar!!!

Areva knows what I just told you. That they can profit from the production of luxury status items isn't surprising.

Seems Areva DO grasp the importance of price trends.

No, it seems Areva grasp the importance of subsidies trends. Again, solar PV is prohibitively expensive. It cannot be the bread and butter of our electricity production.

Building a nuclear plant has become a "bet-the-farm risk,"

Yes, in the US, it seems to be so. Regulations keep your operators small and strapped for cash, and your governments also present big political and regulatory risks.

This is precisely what I was talking about when I said that lack of night time demand is the problem that both wind and nuclear suffer from.

You see, this is a night time problem, and both wind and nuclear have it.

EVs help fix this problem, as they'll be charged at night.

Now, as you note, wind also has intermittency, and EVs help fix that as well, as they can expand their demand when wind production peaks.

Finally, a couple of other thoughts:

DSM is not costly, it's very, very cheap, and

Wind resources with even modest geographical dispersion have much lower peaks: they'll rarely reach 80% of nameplate, let alone 100%.

I said that lack of night time demand is the problem that both wind and nuclear suffer from.

Nuclear suffer from that when nuclear penetration is 60%. Wind suffer at 20%. That's a big difference. (And if nuclear penetration is 40%, wind start to suffer at a penetration of 20/3=7%.)

Some of the folks that post here need to be in a university. Hell, many of them are. I have to be honest, I would not read the book on my own, but now I might. I did want to share one thing however. I am a child of the Hollywood and TV generation. This is how I learned about energy issues in the 70's.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjkFCFeJH9Y
Who remembers this one?

hell what makes a university education better than a Hick from the sticks who uses his common sense? Problem solving is the name of the game, and a university education does not mean that you have the ability to do that.

This is how I learned about energy issues in the 70's.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjkFCFeJH9Y
Who remembers this one?

The Energy Blues energy conservation George Newall George Newall Jack Sheldon 1978

So that is 32 years old and virtually NOTHING has changed. Vaclav Smil certainly has a point on how energy systems change slowly.

But I still think that things will change much faster in the next 20 years . . . only because we will be forced to change.

I live in Manitoba. I'd appreciate it if you would correct the article to read "University of Manitoba" instead of "Manitoba University"?

Since Iraq will soon be the number one oil producer in the world, an additional transition will be to stop waging war for oil under a guise of bringing democracy to the heathen.

I don’t like the “job, jobs, jobs” argument for renewable power made by the politicos. Most renewable products are now manufactured off shore primarily in China and Germany.

Buying a wind mill creates jobs in these other countries not here in the US. I see no difference in buying imported renewables to buying imported oil; in the final analysis, its all imported energy and just as bad for the country. Acquisition of renewable equipment both deepens the balance of trade deficit and the long term national debt.

Convict and child labor, sweat shops together with currency manipulation and dirty energy give Chinese renewable products an undue economic advantage over home grown stuff.

An effective argument is to lobby for tariffs on imported renewable products to jumpstart renewable industry here in the US much like what was done for the ethanol industry by restricting ethanol imports from Brazil.

Once renewable products are produced by a unionized US workforce; their cost advantage can be more realistically compared with the cost of other energy technologies

"I see no difference in buying imported renewables to buying imported oil; in the final analysis, its all imported energy and just as bad for the country. "

There is certainly a difference. With renewables, you're Buying foreign equipment.. not energy. Sure, it would be better to have a domestic business and your local economy profiting, but it's still much different than sending continual payments for your refills offshore. You buy the RE equipment once. It has pluses and minuses for your country.. but on the plus side, you're adding to the stability of local sources, despite supply, price, transport, political or other interruptions.

I don’t like the “job, jobs, jobs” argument for renewable power made by the politicos. Most renewable products are now manufactured off shore primarily in China and Germany.

You shouldn't like it, but you should have good, not evil, reasons. The good reason is that we absolutely DON'T want to try to generate jobs by doing stuff less efficiently. First it doesn't work that way, and second it makes us poorer.

Convict and child labor, sweat shops together with currency manipulation and dirty energy give Chinese renewable products an undue economic advantage over home grown stuff.

No, it gives them due economic advantage. We shouldn't cut off developing countries from progress because they do as we did when we were at their stage of industrial and economic development. Such a cut off would hurt them, prolonging their sweat shop phase, and would hurt us. Protectionism is stupid and evil. (Sorry, I can't really frame it nicely.)

On the other hand do making stuff in less efficient ways make us richer when there are people without jobs. The key ought to be that we should have a pull to get people to jobs and not a push into lower efficiency.

On the other hand do making stuff in less efficient ways make us richer when there are people without jobs.

What scenario are you thinking of? If three do the job of two people, you have reduced unemployment but you have not improved output and so more can't be consumed. Also, the natural rate of unemployment isn't likely to change (at least not in a positive way) by a sector being less efficient, so the unemployment will be the same or worse and thus the production will actually be lower.

I assume that someone has to support the person who does not have a job and that the demand for products and services is not fixed. If the jobless person find a lower paying lower efficiency job instead of no job we get more stuff done in the economy and the more complex manufacturing might either be outcompeted or more likely we get a slightly lower price level and a larger market and that market can also pay a little more since the poor person no longer needs as much support.

The natural rate of unemployment can approach zero if it is easy to find lower paying temp jobs and you subtract people not searching for a job due to taking a vacation between jobs, studying, etc.

If the labour marker is diverse enough for people to not fall all thru it we also get a more robust society. But you can get an illusion about people being more "equal" if you have strong growth and can tax the high paying jobs a lot to be able to almost give the jobless the same net income as those who has a job. And as you know we have first hand experince in Sweden that this political idea breaks down when growth and also market change is slowed down by the taxation.

Ah, yes, wage stickiness, taxation (especially progressive), minimum wage laws and union wage fixing may all lead to "too much" efficiency, leaving some unemployed and hurting the economy.

Thanks, Rembrandt.

As I read the review, I came to realize that Smil's book didn't have much to offer in the way of realistic suggestions that he actually advocates.

It is, I think, only criticism of the advocacy of others. It would be nice to think that his criticism would motivate those who are criticized to improve upon their presentation of their ideas. But I really don't believe Al Gore believes what he writes, so I don't expect a new, better statement from him soon. As I recall he was using the phrase 'inconvenient truth' in the past, but has changed to hopey truthy changiness more recently --- the kind of hope that is offered to people who are suffering from incurable cancers.

the kind of hope that is offered to people who are suffering from incurable cancers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeiS7hYbb8c

AC360: Christopher Hitchens Talks Cancer and God

I know that BAU is dying and hopey changey ain't gonna change the way I think about it. I'll be an ABAUIST till the bitter end.

Hitchens is a colorful writer. I suspect that there will be more to come
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2010/09/hitchens-201009

@geek7

I'd say from having read the book that criticism is only a small part of it. The intent is to place things in the right perspective based on a combination of logical quantification and historical developments from which we can learn. Criticism is only a part of it, most of the book is focused on giving information/teaching.

We could power a complete transition to electric vehicles simply by shutting down the oil refining process; that's how inefficient it is. In other words, if you take all the energy needed to simply convert crude oil or tar sand into something you can put in your car, and instead convert that energy to electricity, it would be enough power to drive electric cars as far as the gasoline powered cars they are replacing. The obvious benefit of course is that we would no longer need any more crude! With cost competitive EV's coming to the market this year and prices only to go down in the coming years and performance only to go up, I foresee a major turning point coming in the near future.

I detail the calculations in my blog:
http://markbc.wordpress.com/why-we-dont-need-oil-or-gas/electric-cars/

How would all that power GET to the cars and be stored in them?

Some emerging examples of energy transition..

We already know about Hybrid cars, and electric cars, but the links below are a couple of more difficult areas, that seem to be progressing well ?

In 2009 :
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10238485-54.html

["General Electric on Tuesday committed $100 million to open a factory in upstate New York to manufacture batteries for hybrid locomotives and other industries such as power grid storage."]

and also
http://ge.geglobalresearch.com/industries/transportation/

and this week :
http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4206106/Lithium-ion-batteries-in...

["A123 Systems announced a deal to sell 44 megawatts worth of its lithium ion batteries to AES Energy Storage"] - used for Grid Load Smoothing.

In rail systems, (and especially passenger rail) the very peaky nature of power, is well suited to Electric-assist.
As electric Assist ramps, the peak Diesel power falls, saving weight, and further saving fuel.

This looks a good paper of the Railway Energy budgets
http://leiwww.epfl.ch/publications/destraz_barrade_rufer_speedam_04.pdf

where they claim, at the time of study, the 'sweet spot' was around 50% of the Diesel power, with 44% fuel savings, from 15,000 supercapacitors as storage bank (6.3 m3, 7.8 tonnes).
" The fuel reduction by 44 % is found in comparison to a standard solution. "

It seems the averaged power, (braking is treated as negative) is only ~6.6% of the peak.
(and of course, for Pure Electric solutions, local storage to smooth peaks, means smaller sub stations, and easier grid loads ...)

A small point on the oft quoted BAU (Business As Usual)

BAU is not actually static production mixes, as the planet's Energy sources has continually been moving about.

Right now, BAU means

1) Climbing number on Oil Sands

http://www.energybulletin.net/sites/default/files/images/2009-12-14_1525...

2) Climbing Wind power GWs

http://www.treehugger.com/earthpolicy/i10_worldwind2.GIF

3) Prices move: Falling prices / Rising prices, shift important relativity, and WILL impact future energy decisions.
Especially, those on falling price curves HAVE to continue to see Growth, whilst those on Rising price trends, will fade quickly
(just as has happened in history)

This claims Grid-parity, for Solar PV and USA Nuclear :

http://thephoenixsun.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Solar-Nuclear-costs.gif

So, a 'BAU discussion' should really be changed to BCFCT [Business Continuing to Following Current Trends ]