Monday, February 13, 2006
Another conversation
Greetings -

After my last post, I got REALLY sick. Last week SUCKED. I was in bed for three days straight. Now, I’m down to a miserable cough, but that’s a dramatic improvement.

A few years ago, I was posting on the Forums at newspeakdictionary.com under the name “Winston Smith”. I quickly tired of the dominant ideology of the conversation which was often of a rightwing Libertarian bent, and of a pigheaded variety at that.

Every six months or so, I’d go back and check it out, and find nothing improved. Last week, I went and found someone had re-kindled the Peak Oil conversation there – something I had tried to do at least 6 months ago.

A recent exchange went down, where I thought some basic points were covered in a very polite and reasonable way, and I am re-posting that post here. I hope you find it useful. Feel free to comment.

Hi Gold Rust.

I’ll do my best to ’splain answers to your points and questions.

You asked:

I’m not an expert in this or anything, so tell me if I’m wrong – but whats wrong with using solar or geothermal energy to do all that stuff? And who says the ER/EI has to be positive?

OK – sure – this one’s easy.

Let’s say you get (x) units of energy from burning hydrogen (H). But: you need energy to MAKE the H, and that value (due to the laws of physics regarding hydrogen) is *always* greater than (x) units. So, if you are cracking petroleum to get the H (Petroleum is MUCH easier to crack than water, and provides a lot more H per kilo), you’re better off just burning the petroleum. If you’re cracking water, you need electricity. And the electricity you’re using to crack the water comes from somewhere. If it is coming from petroleum, again: you’re better off burning petroleum than using it to make H. However: if you’re using solar power to crack the water to make the H, then you’re technically getting most of the electricity for “Free”. At that point, the ER/EI ratio gets much more favourable, and H makes sense as a kind of chemical battery. The problem is, Solar / Geothermal / Wind / etc. only accounts for a microscopic portion of the planet’s energy production, and this doesn’t account for another monstrous problem: H is extremely low density. To get it to a useful density for transport, it has to be reduced to liquid. The problem with that is it takes enormous amounts of power to liquify H, so we’re back to the ER/EI problem. Also, H is reactive and tends to make containers very brittle, and due to is tiny molecular weight is prone to leak from ANY container. To fight these problems requires more energy, and you’re back to an ugly ugly ER/EI.

ER/EI *must* be positive. Otherwise it’s not a fuel. Think of it like food. If you have food that costs more energy to eat than you get from eating it, you’ll starve. It’s basic physics.

The way I see it happening is, as petro runs low, it will rise in price, forcing people to look into alternative methods, that may not be as effecient at first but will be better than what they are using. It probably won’t be hydrogen, or maybe it won’t be any of the ones you mentioned as alternatives – maybe it will be a combination of several of them.

This explains the failure of “free market” solutions fairly well, from:

KURO5HIN

“We would like to believe that progress into new energy and more efficient use thereof is slow merely because not enough money is being put into it. As the price of oil rises, therefore, more money will go into such research, more progress will be made, and new technology will then be implemented and deployed to preserve our way of life. A common slogan is “the stone age didn’t end for lack of stones, and the oil age won’t end for lack of oil.” This faith is utterly misplaced, and comes from a misunderstanding of the free market.

This institution predates the invention of bronze. Even stone age tribes know how to barter, and how to use durable goods of stable value as a medium of exchange. The mechanisms of the free market are in tune with our psyches, and that makes the free market a wonderful institution for providing people with the motivation to do what the rest of humanity wants them to do. The free market can drive people to try all sorts of things. But whether they succeed depends primarily on the laws of physics, which the free market cannot defeat. It cannot drive new discoveries of oil if there isn’t any left to discover. It cannot get people to invent impossible technologies, but it can certainly get people to try. And people are already trying. Anyone who develops new solutions to our energy problems stands to gain such astonishing rewards, that it is ludicrous to think that if these rewards are increased by X amount, our savior will pop out of the woodwork. The rewards already go far beyond “fuck you money.”

While facile solutions to our energy predicament may emerge, taking faith in that scenario is foolish. It implies that you believe in the All Too Convenient Anthropic Principle – the principle that the laws of nature are tuned not only to cause the emergence of life on our planet and its evolution to include the appearance of our species, but also that the laws of nature are conducive and will forever be conducive to our species enjoying a Western consumerist lifestyle from now to eternity. Don’t count on it.

Gold Rust then says:

I agree that ethanol could not possibly be a single replacement for petro, but I have no hard time envisioning it in hybrid cars that run on it and solar, etc.

The problem is the production of ethanol requires industrial farming techniques that depend on pertoleum. Also, there is the ethical question re: using food to “bring Muffy to Soccer practice…” Especially as food costs skyrocket (I discuss that below).

I think your problem is that you don’t look at the whole picture – the world isnt going to just wake up one day and say “Oh my gosh, theres no more fossil fuels!” – it will be gradual.

I agree – which is why I am not a “Fast Crash Nihilist” like many peak oil researchers.

As petro becomes less common in the ground, prices will rise – ever heard of supply and demand?

I dismantled that argument with the kuro5hin quote.

Why can’t we just where sweaters in the winter? Thats what they do in Russia, and I still do it today – a sweater can keep you just as warm as a heater, at a fraction of the cost.

I do to. BUT: drive out to some suburb in say, Indiana, and go up to some McMansion – you know – one of those new big ugly houses with the SUVs in the parking lot, and all the lights on – and tell these people (often dupes of the Republican Party) that they

a: have to start wearing sweaters around the house
b: sell their SUV and buy a tiny toyota hybrid, or better yet, a used Toyota Echo, and ride their bicycles as much as they can – get a trailer for the bike and use it to buy things at the market
c: put timers on their lights
d: stop using the gas fireplace, and plant some trees in back for fuel in 15 years, and install a wood burning firebox/stove NOW.
e: stop using a gas range for cooking
f: forget the clothes dryer – set up clothes lines in the back and drying racks in the garage
g: buy a high efficiency front loading washer
h: learn to do the dishes by HAND
i: Abandon the TV set and read books to each other for entertainment, and learn a bunch of card and dice games
j: Install a solar PV panel set up for daytime electricity to power their new hyper efficient refrigerator
k: get used to Much Higher Indoor Temperatures in the summer, because their central AC is done for.
l: Open cans by hand
m: learn to chop food with a knife not a processor
n: learn to COOK food, from raw materials that do not require freezing or refrigeration
o: dedicate a corner of the basement as a root cellar for the winter storage of potatoes, parnsips, turnips, and rudabagas.
p: install a solar hot water heater on their roof
q: start a food garden.

Now, those are just SOME of the things people are going to have to get used to post peak oil. Sweaters in winter are just a tip of the iceberg. The suburbs (at least those that are not on a train line) are completely screwed. The loss of petroleum is going to effect every aspect of modern living, no exceptions, and no sympathy given. It’s going to be, as the book title suggests: A Long Emergency.

Cooking requires relatively little energy it could be supplied to a whole neighborhood by a solar panel or a wind turbine down the street. This obviously wont be the most likely solution, but I don’t think a lot of trouble will be in this area.

Sure. Tell that to the restaurant industry. The shift in cooking and food production will prove to be the most difficult, as it directly impacts everyone – the rich and poor alike will face the same problem. The restaurant industry will shrivel up, but not disappear. See it return to more of a “cafe” system, with electrically heated water for beverages, and wood powered onsite baking. Haybox and sun box cooking will provide more efficient hot dinners but many hours of cooking will reduce capacity and increase expense.

Winston Smith said:

Materials: All our high tech materials are dependent on the long molecular chains so easily produced from Petroleum. Our mining machines are dependent on petroleum.

And Gold Rust asked:

Recycling?

Recycling isn’t permanent. There is continuous loss in recycling due to oxidation of resources. Metals rust, plastics crumble, etc. We’ll be able to mine our landfills for years, but eventually they will also give out. It is the loss of metal resources that threatens industrial civilisation the most in the long term.

If certain steps will be taken, doesn’t it follow that we will continue to take steps to supply people with fuel?

IF and only IF: there is fuel to supply. As we go down the back side of the peak, petroleum will accellerate in price, and the fuel that’s left will be needed to develop more sustainable energy sources. None of the energy sources, outside of fusion, has nearly the power and none, including fusion, has the transportability and density of petroleum.

Basically, we’re looking at the loss of a one time gift of dense, transportable energy, and with it, the certain end of our style of civilisation. Because we use 7 – 10 calories of petroleum for every calorie of food we eat (farm equipment, fertiliser, harvesting equipment, transport to the food processor, transport from food processor to market, energy to keep market open, transport of consumer to and from market) we’re looking at a dramatic loss in the ability for society to feed itself. Example: Almonds. Almost all the almonds consumed in the USA are grown in Southern California (just drive around anywhere outside of Bakersfield – you’ll see). These almonds get to places like MAINE by way of truck. Add a zero to the cost of fuel for the truck and watch almonds get scarce in Maine, quick. Now, do that to the entire food industry, AND combine that stress with ever more mouths to feed from over population. Results: starvation in poorer countries, and massive re-alignment and rationing of the farming system in richer countries to prevent food riots.

Once petroleum is so scarce and expensive, fertilisers will disappear and desertification will rise exponentially. Permaculture farming will be the only sustianable alternative, but the yields aren’t high enough to feed the 10 billion people on the planet. Result? Malthus.

Winston Smith:

I would prefer a Die Down – where we depopulate peacefully and gracefully. But a depopulation is INEVITABLE. It’s not a matter of IF – it’s a question of HOW and WHEN.

and Gold Rust replied:

I quite agree – but HOW, most likely wont be from petro shortages, and WHEN will most likely be… erm, sometime between now and 500 years.

No, it has to be this coming century, and it has to be orderly, peaceful, and with dignity.

If we don’t depopulate as described, the results will be:

Duncan’s Olduvai Theory

I wish this peak oil issue was a point we could argue and make it go away. But it isn’t. It’s the real deal – a true crisis in Civilisation. I think we can manage it and make it a less bumpy road, but unless someone pulls fusion out of their butts in such a way that it is possible and practical, industrial civilisation is OVER.

Orwell’s 1984 will be seen as a quick signpost on the way down as we die off into something more resembling ancient Rome. If we don’t want to collapse back into a late iron age slave state system, we need to begin implementing post peak policies NOW, so we can pull the right hand side of the peak out – changing a crash into a slope.