Sustainability - The Long View

I am puzzled why this blog merited being re-posted here, now. It was originally written nearly 3 years ago.

The blogger is concerned that the world is running out of oil. Well, people have been worried about that for a long time, but oil companies keep finding new reserves so the estimates of the 'end of oil' are always short-sighted. As is this one. Numerous large discoveries have been announced since this blog was first posted in '07. And frankly, at this point in 2010, the biggest concern for new oil discoveries -- at least for the U. S. -- is the Obama Administration's ban on new drilling. The post-gulf oil leak analysis seems to be that the ban was a massive over-reaction.

The blogger suggests that nuclear power is inevitable but that we ought to consider alternatives, including changing our energy consumptions habits.

Someone (not sure who) once gave a critique which I am paraphrasing here: What the blogger says that is original isn't interesting, and what he says that is interesting isn't original.

Thanks for your input.

It is reassuring that the supply is in your view nothing to worry about.Surely there must come a point when the reserves are all but used up. Its not just motor cars but also heating oil for homes and offices

My concern is not a short term one. China is currently loading 300000 new vehicles a week onto the roads.

India will exceed the Chinese population within 30 years. What impact will the two of them have on consumption.

There are now more wealthy Chinese people than there are total Americans.

World consumption seems to continue unabated.Rio summit,Kioto,and Copenhagen have all come and gone and few if any governments are achieving their carbon reduction targets, engines are getting more efficient but in Europe we see larger engines being used and more people flying Budget airlines

I just cant see that oil will go on indefinitely and that we should all just carry on as if there is nothing at all to worry about or at least think about. As the world population increases so will the demand for food and the surface for agriculture is somewhat restricted. If we choose to start growing Bio mass crops then where will we grow the food.

I dont suggest for one minute that I have an answer - just interested to hear different views.

Its all fascinating and I welcome all the inputs from "Nothing to worry about through to we must take action now" Of course everyone has their view point. My intention was to seek opinion and I thank you for yours.

Welcome to CR4. I look forward to hearing more from you.

ga.

Chris

we ought to consider alternatives, including changing our energy consumptions habits.

Yes, you are right. Increasing the resources has no end, the demand also increases proportionately. We need to change out habits and life style.

Please read "No Impact Man".

BTW It is true that India will be surpassing China in population. But, in spite of huge population, Americans are way ahead in energy consumption (wastage) of Indians and Chinese. (Please refer whatever reports you want.) If same thing continues and besides, if Indians follow the American path (they are), what OP says also will be true. We will see end of human race in our own life span(present younger generation)

What? Has "necessity is the mother of invention" died and ceased to function along with "free enterprise" letting us down?

Fortunately, there are those always ready to enact new, better, and even more powerful legislation for our benefit because we are absolutely not capable to look after ourselves. Yes, government is the solution... not people. That's just BS!

Please stop, for a moment, and consider that for the last millions of years humans have been able to adopt to changing environments. How? Necessity is the mother of invention.

If oil and other commodity prices are allowed to free-float with supply and demand the whole issue becomes a self-correcting problem! Solutions will arrive when and where they are needed. Necessity is the mother of invention.

"Just think how many plastic items you use in a day. What alternative will there be when plastic is no more?"

First, that will never happen. However, even if/when plastic becomes more expensive, other materials (i.e., for foods: glass, wax coated paper, etc. or other synthetic materials) will easily fill the void. Necessity is the mother of invention.

"Does any one have an alternative view for the future?"

YES! It is called the free enterprise system where - necessity is the mother of invention.

"We are using the remaining fossil fuel in an entirely irresponsible way."

I think we are using our common sense in an entirely irresponsible way. Where you see a field of land mines and dragons, I see a world of opportunities. Necessity is the mother of invention.

I just refuse to buy "The end is neigh" campaign that is being touted here and everywhere else. That sign has been carried for millenniums by millions and not one of them has been right to date. Given the statistical accuracy of that cry so far, I am just not convinced nor will any reasonable person be either.

Thanks so much for your input.

I didnt mean to cry "the end is neigh" rather to cry "slow down". The rate of increase in consumption is in my view something to be concerned with or about.

I can believe we will find many alternatives but in what length of time. For example it has taken several years for the Hybrid motor vehicle to arrive and be acceptable.People are trying wind farms,solar PV etc and all these are as you say brought about by necessity or mans desire to try new things.I think that I agree with you to some extent that we will find new ways of doing many things but not sure that they will all maintain us at the standard we have become accustomed to.

How do you see Farm tractors being powered or air craft flying in years to come if instead of conserving fuels for their right applications irresponsible and un informed teenagers and old folk alike waste fuel heating un occupied houses and running 10 miles in a 5 litre motor car to pick up a news paper and a bottle of milk or millions of them running engines whilst sitting in traffic jams on the way to work and home again. It all seems pretty rediculous to me.

I like your theme "Mother of invention" and thank you for your input. I would say however that "neither Mother nor they" have actually found a cure for AIDS after twenty years of seriously hard effort and I am not sure of a greater necessity than that but I will be pleased to have your response but particularly in respect to the provison of fuel in the future. It seems to me to all be about timing.

I am sure that the mother of invention will find a solution to Global warmings,rising sea levels and forest fires but in the meantime look at the suffering in San Francisco,Russia and now Pakistan. I am not convinced that the mother of invention can be relied upon to arrive in the nick of time every time.

"The rate of increase in consumption is in my view something to be concerned with or about."

The US rate of consumption of fossil fuel has been pretty much a steady state for several years now. Actually, it has declined somewhat since 2000.

However, if you want to plead your case to anyone, then China would be the place to do it. China's consumption has doubled since 2000.

Source: UK Guardian

So, the problem is not the US (or Europe), but China. I am not stating that China is bad for growing, but I am critical to the idea that the US must compensate for other countries usage when the US consumption has not grown for the last 10 years.

"I am sure that the mother of invention will find a solution to Global warmings,rising sea levels and forest fires but in the meantime look at the suffering in San Francisco,Russia and now Pakistan. I am not convinced that the mother of invention can be relied upon to arrive in the nick of time every time."

San Francisco: I think their problem is their local government.

Russia: The problem with the fires in Russia have shut down 20% of their grain production, which is 20 to 25% of their export GDP. The problem is real, but I would be hesitant to link this to anything man-made.

Russia's real problem is not the fires. These are short term issues. The real issues for Russia is a steady population decline. Russia will most likely collapse in one to two generations at the rate at which the population is declining. This is driving Russia to recapture its former satellite East Block countries by force and intimidation to help buy Russia some time. The fallout of this will be at Europe's doorstep both long and short term. Russia controls a substantial grain and fuel supply to Europe and is not shy about using that for their own political ends.

Pakistan: The floods their have created an untenable situation for 20 million Pakistanis. While the weather may be the root cause of the situation, the exasperation of the situation falls squarely on the government's shoulders. The government's response has been poor and the military has probably done more for its people than the ruling government has. Pakistan is entangled with so many other geopolitical problems that the flood has created a crisis that saps the resources from Pakistan needed to keep its own internal affairs from falling apart. The power vacuum and confusion of the ruling party may tip the country further toward anarchy at a time where those consequences would ripple through the region and into the Mid East.

The common thread to the management of these issues you cited is poor government that suppresses its own people, not the consumption of oil.

"I would say however that "neither Mother nor they" have actually found a cure for AIDS after twenty years of seriously hard effort..."

I would beg to differ with you. I personally know friends afflicted with this disease and if it was not for the advances made to date they would have been dead 10 to 15 years ago. Recently, more advances have been made in the fight to combat this menace. What's this got to do with oil?

As far as oil is concerned, I really think you are overlooking the vast amount of oil and natural gas locked up in the US. Most of it is off limits to tap by government decree. We do not need to import a drop of oil if we tapped those reservoirs, which would last us 100 years at the consumption rate we have been using for the last 10 years (which is steady state or slightly declining for the last 10 years).

100 years is a long time to work the problem of what do we do next after we start exhausting our own supplies. We will probably have Fusion long before then. Meanwhile, we should be tapping and using natural gas to replace fuels for automotive use. It's cleaner and abundant and easy to convert vehicles to run on it. However, it is not a crises anyway, so why all the noise?

In closing, I am not advocating that the US run amok with oil usage and subsequent pollution. Obviously, our usage has reached a steady-state and we continue to employ some of the best pollution standards in the world along with Europe. It's not like we are not doing our part. Yes, we have a very high energy consumption rate, but we are the #1 producing economy in the world. China is now #2.

However, the media has no problems with giving developing countries a free pass when it comes to pollution production. It's always the US that is the enemy of the world. This lopsided view is the only possible outcome when politics rule the game. Just look what happened to the science of global warming, which can best be described as pathological science. The facts get lost in pretense, twisted by political agenda, and one's views and opinions are, over time, slowly aligned with that groupthink.

"Peak Oil" is a real misnomer. There is and will be for oil found within the earth to sustain very high rates of consumption for millenium(s). Read a book by Thomas Gold;" The Deep Hot Biosphere, The Myth of Fossil Fuels". Gold presents a theory of the origins of oil that is a result of astronomical origins rather than the pressure cooking of dinosaur and swamp remains. The abiotic approach explains how hydrocarbons are abundant in space and in the massive gas clouds. As new stars and planets are formed, this hydrocarbon is also part of the accreted material that form planets like the earth. The earth has plenty of this hydrocarbon material trapped deep in the lithosphere and it is constantly upwelling. That does not mean there are no real fossil fuels (peat, brown coal, some methane); however, that source (biotic) of hydrocarbon is minor in comparison to the abiotic source. Read the book and feel wowed by Gold's theory.

A bigger concern is the environmental residues this spent hydrocarbons will exert on the atmosphere, oceans, and land. I am optimistic that man will find a way to use these products in a safe manner... eventually. It may take a near disaster to jolt us humans into action. But I do believe we will take the appropriate steps.

Why are we tolerating a positive birth rate? Because it won't be a significant problem in our lifetime. Let our grandkids deal with it.

National debt, overpopulation, black gold goes bye bye. Most people are ignorant ... people who want to be in power can't inform the populous ... they need voters ignorant enough to vote for them and follow them blindly.

Burn it up as fast as you can, so the other guy doesn't get more than you! ... I'm not sounding a bit sarcastic ... am I?

What would you suggest doing to stop population growth? Specifically, what would you do to negate the population growth of nations in Africa, which has the highest rate of growth in the world and is approaching 4% per year?

When will the oil reserves be depleted (by your estimate)?

First - Africa. I see nothing wrong in the foreseeable future with the 'current growth' rates in Africa. The largest - The Democratic Republic of Congo for instance, has a 3+% population growth rate with 70+ million people. 1/4th the size of USA. 70x4= 280. USA = 310. 30/4 = 7.5 million to catch up with the USA about 10.5 % growth. So I think they have room to grow. Birth rate and growth rate are not the same. That region has been riff with war and genocide. There has been a vacuum created sorta speak. Refugees/immigrants make up more of the growth rate since 2004. .77 immigrants per original citizen = 43% ... yet war, disease and infant mortality (7.9%) is such a large problem that 3.17% is the estimate of the growth rate. Compare population/area to Japan - 126.8/0.37 million km^2 to Congo 70.9/2.34 million km^2. A lot more room to grow!

www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/cg.htm you can find all of the above info there.

I guess I wasn't sarcastic enough. My point was basically yours ... I believe Man will solve it 'when' it becomes a problem. From the other side ... why can't we solve it 'before' it becomes a problem. (The grandmother of invention?) The necessity of invention may not have a chance to work it's magic if the uneducated start wars and genocide ... oh no wait, that never happens. Or perhaps that was the working of an uneducated 'Mother'.

Education or by force ... Personally, I prefer education - doing my part now in fact.

Educating the masses. I'd start with a video of the earth covered with so many humans that there was no room to move like a Japanese subway ... then add one more, and ask who should this person stand on? This would be obviously stupid ... but perhaps a light would go off. Then show how at the current population growth rate this WILL occur in ... such and such a date. Next I would show ways that we COULD live on top (or below) each other. Sky-scrapers, subterranean, marine, and extraterrestrial. Then talk about the amount of resources that are needed to grow food for that many people ... basically work from a critical mass backwards to a point that one would be happy with the amount of "personal" space they can have with a given population.

Oh and the Earth will run out of 'petroleum' in 3031 however I expect man to have found abiotic oil on the moon before then. Yes that was sarcastic too. Long after I'm dead Regis ... that is my final answer.

One who fails to save for retirement, survives by any means "Mother of Inventions". Maybe not a perfect replacement but food for thought.

Glad to hear overpopulation brought up. My estimate is that abstinence or contraception needs to be happening at least, say, 99.9% of the time two people get together.

As an Engineer, living in a relatively cold country, I have often wondered what I would do if the energy did run out or become prohibitively expensive. Legislation has tended to discourage coal use in UK in favour of Nuclear Power but that is not a 100% pollution-free situation when the occasional leak is taken into account (small scale which are quite common, not the devastating situation of chernobyl).

But, as an engineer I think I will stand a reasonable chance of working out a solution that would sort out myself and my family. possibly a solution that would be unsustainable for a large population or nation - not everybody can cut every tree in sight and burn it in a wood burning stove without creating a sghortage of trees.

But the upside is that engineers who have been dealing with energy supply and use, and making consideerable efficiency improvements will probably suffer less than many others - unless they can afford to buy their way out of the problem.

The only problem then is one of conscience. Do we look after only our own interests only as, let's face it, most of us do, or do we apply our expertise to solve the problem for as many as possible?

What do others think?

Good points.

The problem has another dimension to it, which is what I have been trying to lead the original poster to. There are two types of problems that we encounter as a species. One is of a sudden onset. For instance, someone steers their car into our path. We must react quickly and decisively to avoid catastrophe.

The second type is of a much slower nature. The onset of Winter does not happen overnight. We have time to prepare the car, the house, buy and replace clothing, stock up on supplies.

The solution process is completely different between the the two. One demands split second instinctive reaction. The other benefits from careful measured thought.

Fossile fuel depletion will not likely come about overnight, a fortnight, or even next year. It will take many, many decades. We are cognitive of the problem now. There are steps already planned or in the planning and we will transition to better things in due course.

Yet you're not fond of swans?

()

There are some interesting premises being made in this conversation; one being that we as Americans are evil people for consuming an amount of resources greater than our proportion of population in the world.

We do use more resources than much of the world, and a fair amount of it is wasted, to our and others detriment; but we have also produced great value to the rest of the world, more than any other country in the world has done, over our short history of 234 years. We are not faultless by any stretch of the imagination and we could do much better with limiting waste and being efficient. If government beauracracy, legislators with viewpoints that limit free enterprise, capitalism, competition, environmental extremists who exert a lot of influence on that government beauracracy and public misconceptions of what technology works well, i.e. nuclear etc., would get out of the way, much more could be accomplished to solve the world's energy and technological challenges.

"Necessity is the mother of invention" is a great phrase because a large number of inventions that are useful to much of mankind have come about because of someone seeing a need and putting together ideas, theirs and others, and coming up with a solution for the moment. I say "for the moment" because situations, conditions and technologies change and make new solutions possible. We need to always be on the lookout for better ways of solving problems effectively and efficiently.

When we talk about limiting the population growth rates of countries there are serious consequences to zero growth rate, although it may help solve some of the energy use problems. One area here in the USA is a good example of the negative effect of near zero population growth, is in regard to Social Security, where the benefits of 1 individual used to be supported by 20+ working people. In the near future of 10 years or so it will drop to a ratio of about 1 to 1. We have limited our ability to produce by reducing our contributing population by about 30 million people since 1967 through abortion. The way to save the HUMAN RACE is not by killing it one at a time.

There are solutions to our energy use and how well we survive on this planet. The solutions come when many sharp people like the ones who participate on the CR4 Blog and others who work in the science, economic and political communities are motivated to come up with solutions to the problems we face. That motivation is usually in the form of financial reward. People aren't typically willing to risk time, money and effort without the chance of reward of some sort. Accolades and public recognition don't pay the costs of research.

The reason I added the "political community" up above is because the political system has huge impact on how countries function. That's why we as Americans have contributed so greatly to the welfare (not government handouts) of many people around the globe. We have had the freedom to pursue free enterprise and capitalism where many solutions come from and are are willing to risk much in the hope of personal, and corporate, reward.

We as Americans don't have it all together by any stretch of the imagination; we have lots of faults economically, ethically and politically; but we have had, up till now, a form of government that promotes personal initiative, where innovation and production come from.

there is an idea for nuclear plants... been around for awhile.

off shore nuclear plants.

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4302291.pdf

just think.

1) water stops radiation in just a few feet (40)

2) water cools.

3) we just need wires coming onshore carrying the electricity to the grid.

4) oceanic burial of waste products is one of the solutions (see 1 & 2)

5) safer from terrorism and natural disaster

6) consequences to humans minimal

7) consequences to environment manageable (unlike oil spills, the water is exactly what limits radiation)

8) control the water flow into the plant, you can control all the possible leak paths to the environment.

9) in the event of core meltdown... you can pour shiploads of concrete over the site, and the ocean cooling and limiting effect should take care of the rest.

10) the nuclear waste can be put into semiconductor energy panelled, lead sheilded, steel plated and finned spheres - cooled by ocean, to provide batteries with a 5,000 year halflife +

Chris

Chris,

I like the idea, but there are a number of populations that are not very near a shoreline.

Chris, I wasn't clear with what I stated about nuclear power. I am strongly in favor of nuclear power and we hould have nuclear power plants to a much greater extent than we do. It is a great source of energy that is long lasting with not a lot of downsides. There are risks to anything we do.

The public opinion that doesn't like nuclear power has been shaped by the media that has an agenda of it's own and that seeks to appease a group of environmental extremists that think we should go back to the Stone Age.

On the basis of overall risk to the population, nukes are probably among the lowest...

Now I'll put on my devils advocate hat.

Would you want your daughter of childbearing age to work in the mining or handling the radioactive materials? Most of these functions are handled remotely, but someone has to fix the robots don't they?

There is a bunch of baggage from less than adequate handling procedures in the past

wouldn't there be the tendency to just throw any mistakes in the water

I lived in the shadow of Pickering Nuclear Plant (CANDU) and could see the plant quite easily from the front door. After a while it is just background and no one thinks of problems or even the potential of problems. They have a very good record of safety and I never felt threatened. Many of my neighbours were employed as operators just like Homer Simpson. As far as I know the statistics of problems resulting from this plant are no higher than in the general population of non smokers.

Prior to that shadow I lived in a Uranium mining town. My father was a underground miner. The problem with mining uranium is to assure proper ventilation and monitoring of Radon gas, gross alpha, and gross beta. New mines keep tabs on it but in the 50s they did not. So I did see lots of cancer in friends of my father who were fellow miners as they aged. I do not know the statistics on relating uranium mining with cancers or genetic problems.

My kids seem weird though and I see a glow when they come home.

"Would you want your daughter of childbearing age to work in the mining or handling the radioactive materials?"

There are a lot of things I wouldn't want my daughter (or son for that matter) to do. But that doesn't mean society should avoid it. My daughter, and anyone else, should be able to make up her own mind as to whether the risk of mining or working on radioactive materials is worth the pay an employer is offering.

One of the reasons risky jobs pay well is that companies have to offer higher pay to attract workers.

Why aren't you posting as Visiguest?

noted, but....

methods have changed, reducing that risk. (read 'mining and milling process')

cheers,

Chris

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Spammer trash!

Maybe you can tell us how it feels to be scum!

Be patient

that's what the report button is for

Sent the report as well.

We can keep on this encouragement towards better surroundings. I am very delighted for these facts you have imparted us.

jane sustainability consultant