Much to like in your post. I'd be careful about who you consider to be "we" - are you familiar with the Export Land Model ? Saudi will still be fuelling their desalinators long after they have stopped exporting to us.
Global financial system implosion begins
- Thread starter Falcon
- Start date
free spirit
more tea vicar?
cheers
yes, I think I read the article referenced on the oil drum a while back. It's not really a particularly new concept, although the name for it probably is new.
I'm not entirely convinced about it's universal application, particularly in times of global energy constraint and huge potential economic gains from maintaining at least some level of export, but it's unquestionably a major factor that ought to concern us in the UK given that we've largely pissed away our fossil fuel inheritance and spent the resulting income on overpriced houses, imported tat and overseas wars.
I don't envisage us entirely running out of indigenous coal, oil or gas in my lifetime though, although production rates for oil and gas will be far far below their peak levels (possibly barring shale gas actually being demonstrated to have a useful EROI and not be ridiculously bad for the environment). Basically I see oil and gas production dropping rapidly, then tapering off as the price goes up and energy companies squeeze every last drop or bubble out. If needed though, we still have large recoverable coal reserves if the price is right, and we're willing to ignore the climate change impact. I reckon the government might actually have got this one about right, and we'll be using around 20% of our current fossil fuel use in 2050, and need to find 80% from energy efficiency measures and renewable sources (plus nuclear).
I really wish we'd started this journey 20 years ago after Rio, or preferably learnt the lessons from the 70's oil crisis, and begun the transition then. Fuck knows where we'd have been now if the fossil fuel and nuclear lobby hadn't conspired to kill off salters duck in the 80's, wind power in the 90s, and tidal power last year, or if any of our politicians actually had the slightest clue. IMO the thing history will judge the blair government for the worst may not be Iraq, but the fact that their dithering led to 9 crucial years from 1997-2006 in which this country basically didn't have an energy policy, and when they did finally agree one it had little support or credibility.
bedtime now, got another toy science project to install tomorrow
Backatcha Bandit
is not taking your calls
Perhaps. I'm not sure that it isn't safer than amplifying the scale of solutions.
1.28 p19
(The little graph shows PV over the last 10 years up to it's 2010 33 GWh pa, your estimate for max PV [25TWh pa] is almost exactly the total for all renewables, 2010).
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
So, trying to get the thread back towards the original topic a bit. What are the key impacts of resource depletion on the fucked up mess that passes for a global economy?
Here's an example of the sort of thing I mean, but I'd be very interested in any other points of impact that people have spotted. I really do intend this as just one case.
In order to keep consumer spending going while repressing wages a credit boom fuelled by a property boom has been created in places like the UK. This is actually a dual purpose thing, because as well as allowing workers to keep spending on credit, it also provides investment potential that helps address the crisis of over-accumulation that's been building up since Pinochet, Thatcher and Reagan.
... but ...
If we take the interesting part of the discussion over the last pages seriously, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that massive demand reduction is in order. One of the places where that demand reduction might occur is in the energy consumed by our homes.
If we look at the UK though, what we see is a huge mass of housing stock built during the age of cheap fossil fuels, with virtually no though for stuff like insulation. So not only is that housing stock massively over-valued for the reasons described above, but it's also hopelessly unsustainable.
Now, one might argue that this is an economic opportunity. That a boom in the building and renewables trades might be generated by the need to sort that housing stock out and make it sustainable. There are a number of challenges to that view though.
1) In many cases it'd be cheaper just to knock it down and start again.
2) Reducing fossil fuel demands in our food systems pretty much mandate significant changes in the distribution of homes.
3) By the time the need to do this on the scale necessary becomes clear, it'll be too expensive due to rising energy costs.
At some point, some variation on the above will come to the attention of the bunch of irresponsible coke-addled bookies who apparently run the world, only this time it won't be a concern that people can't pay back debts secured on those assets, but the concern that the assets themselves are worthless, and there'll be a massive housing price crash which will tank the messed up global economy yet again.
Here's an example of the sort of thing I mean, but I'd be very interested in any other points of impact that people have spotted. I really do intend this as just one case.
In order to keep consumer spending going while repressing wages a credit boom fuelled by a property boom has been created in places like the UK. This is actually a dual purpose thing, because as well as allowing workers to keep spending on credit, it also provides investment potential that helps address the crisis of over-accumulation that's been building up since Pinochet, Thatcher and Reagan.
... but ...
If we take the interesting part of the discussion over the last pages seriously, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that massive demand reduction is in order. One of the places where that demand reduction might occur is in the energy consumed by our homes.
If we look at the UK though, what we see is a huge mass of housing stock built during the age of cheap fossil fuels, with virtually no though for stuff like insulation. So not only is that housing stock massively over-valued for the reasons described above, but it's also hopelessly unsustainable.
Now, one might argue that this is an economic opportunity. That a boom in the building and renewables trades might be generated by the need to sort that housing stock out and make it sustainable. There are a number of challenges to that view though.
1) In many cases it'd be cheaper just to knock it down and start again.
2) Reducing fossil fuel demands in our food systems pretty much mandate significant changes in the distribution of homes.
3) By the time the need to do this on the scale necessary becomes clear, it'll be too expensive due to rising energy costs.
At some point, some variation on the above will come to the attention of the bunch of irresponsible coke-addled bookies who apparently run the world, only this time it won't be a concern that people can't pay back debts secured on those assets, but the concern that the assets themselves are worthless, and there'll be a massive housing price crash which will tank the messed up global economy yet again.
But we've done that. I've pointed to ALL the studies that exist. I've pointed to the fact that none of them reference any infrastructure beyond that proximate infrastructure required to manufacture the device. I've pointed to the fact that you have been unable to produce any that do.
If the stuff that was missing was advertising posters and bunting, I'd have some sympathy with your reasoning. Since the stuff which is missing includes entire tranches of 21st century global supply chain based industrial manufacturing process, I'm afraid I'm at a loss to understand why this is a requirement that falls on me, but from which you appear to believe you are immune.
Specifically, if the claimed base EROEI was close to hydrocarbon, the burden might be on me to demonstrate that the embodied energy in the missing elements could be so high that it materially dragged the EROEI to levels that should concern us. Since the claimed base EROEI is already at levels that should concern us, the burden appears to be on you to demonstrate that the embodied energy in the missing elements does *not* drag the EROEI to irrelevant positive, or negative, levels.
Would that be more, or less, strident than the first word to issue from your electronic lips on the subject to me: "bollocks"?
Thanks Bernie for steering us back into less choppy waters.
Having built a couple of houses, one in Scotland and one in Norway, it is interesting to compare how building standards constrain how you go about things. In Norway, you will regularly see things like power cabling snaking round walls and ceilings in ways that would never pass a Building Warrant inspection. But they are insulated to the hilt and often easy to connect to district heating systems. In the UK, plumbing, wiring and fit and finish standards are very high, but the authorities don't give a toss about insulation. The wrong emphasis, you might conclude.
The Germans are doing amazing things with computer designed, modular housing designs which are manufactured to remarkable tolerances (read: draft proof) in controlled factory conditions and assembled on site. Economies of scale actually do work in these circumstances and material requirements and costs are dropping fast. My problem in the UK is I can't find suitably skilled contractors who can put together airtight buildings that pass the requisite leak tests.
One of MacKay's ("Energy Without The Hot Air") learnings was that it was fiendishly expensive to retrofit energy saving measures to his 1950's stock terrace house. As Bernie says, it is much cheaper to build new (for the nation, if not for the individual home owner). And a kWh saved is an order of magnitude cheaper than a kWh generated.
Put these together and interesting possibilities emerge. Alter the planning regulations to incorporate best practice thermal efficiency standards (e.g. the PassivHaus standard). Prioritise and incentivise district heating systems in local plans. Fund vocational training courses in modern house construction methods to increase the supply of skilled contractors. Divert boondoggle grants and subsidies from dubious renewable energy schemes (sorry folks) into reconstruction grants for individual homeowners and investment in modular house construction capability. We'd end up with a useful new economic sector (efficient home construction), radically improved housing stock, a more durable basis for home-equity based savings, reduced energy bills for people and reduced energy consumption. Add a bit of land to each plot and get folks to grow veggies (the physical equivalent of the internet's "long tail") and you've made a useful contribution.
All is not lost, though, on old housing stock. I was in Cascadia (Oregon and Washington, mostly) recently, which is something of a mothership for the US's energy and environmentally conscious citizens, and there is loads of interesting, beautiful and inexpensive innovation taking place in home design and retrofitting there . There is quite a movement growing dedicated to retrieving and organising the shedloads of stuff that was compiled in the '70s during the first oil shock - design sheets for homemade solar and wind power generation, wiring load schedules, insulation ready reckoners, stuff on how feed your kids from your back garden, create local currency schemes, etc. (John Michael Greer has loads of great material on this in his blog, if you dig through the archives). The point is that a lot of people looked hard at this 40 years ago and we have sort of collectively forgotten what they learned. Now some are doing it again and rediscovering what works and what doesn't, and there is no reason why we can't.
Having built a couple of houses, one in Scotland and one in Norway, it is interesting to compare how building standards constrain how you go about things. In Norway, you will regularly see things like power cabling snaking round walls and ceilings in ways that would never pass a Building Warrant inspection. But they are insulated to the hilt and often easy to connect to district heating systems. In the UK, plumbing, wiring and fit and finish standards are very high, but the authorities don't give a toss about insulation. The wrong emphasis, you might conclude.
The Germans are doing amazing things with computer designed, modular housing designs which are manufactured to remarkable tolerances (read: draft proof) in controlled factory conditions and assembled on site. Economies of scale actually do work in these circumstances and material requirements and costs are dropping fast. My problem in the UK is I can't find suitably skilled contractors who can put together airtight buildings that pass the requisite leak tests.
One of MacKay's ("Energy Without The Hot Air") learnings was that it was fiendishly expensive to retrofit energy saving measures to his 1950's stock terrace house. As Bernie says, it is much cheaper to build new (for the nation, if not for the individual home owner). And a kWh saved is an order of magnitude cheaper than a kWh generated.
Put these together and interesting possibilities emerge. Alter the planning regulations to incorporate best practice thermal efficiency standards (e.g. the PassivHaus standard). Prioritise and incentivise district heating systems in local plans. Fund vocational training courses in modern house construction methods to increase the supply of skilled contractors. Divert boondoggle grants and subsidies from dubious renewable energy schemes (sorry folks) into reconstruction grants for individual homeowners and investment in modular house construction capability. We'd end up with a useful new economic sector (efficient home construction), radically improved housing stock, a more durable basis for home-equity based savings, reduced energy bills for people and reduced energy consumption. Add a bit of land to each plot and get folks to grow veggies (the physical equivalent of the internet's "long tail") and you've made a useful contribution.
All is not lost, though, on old housing stock. I was in Cascadia (Oregon and Washington, mostly) recently, which is something of a mothership for the US's energy and environmentally conscious citizens, and there is loads of interesting, beautiful and inexpensive innovation taking place in home design and retrofitting there . There is quite a movement growing dedicated to retrieving and organising the shedloads of stuff that was compiled in the '70s during the first oil shock - design sheets for homemade solar and wind power generation, wiring load schedules, insulation ready reckoners, stuff on how feed your kids from your back garden, create local currency schemes, etc. (John Michael Greer has loads of great material on this in his blog, if you dig through the archives). The point is that a lot of people looked hard at this 40 years ago and we have sort of collectively forgotten what they learned. Now some are doing it again and rediscovering what works and what doesn't, and there is no reason why we can't.
Thats all well and good but without alternative sources of energy utterly pointless ...unless you want to scrape a living eating hand to mouth out of your back garden.
What is needed is more investment in renewable energy.
JimW
支那暗杀团
Saw this report on a 30-year trial of organic farming posted elsewhere (only read the summary). Claims to require 45% less energy than convential farming and be able to deliver the yields: http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/fst30years/energy
Barking_Mad
Non sibi sed omnibus
As a small aside - Grand Designs on Channel 4 featured a UK couple building a new home that came from fabricated pieces coming from Germany. IFAI remember, they had to bring all the German engineers over from the company that built and would assemble it as it was so specialised.
Crispy
The following psytrance is baṉned: All
Barking_Mad
Non sibi sed omnibus
I remember that one well as it was the episode that got me interested. You do remember correctly. That was quite a while ago and things have moved on, but regionally it is still patchy, with not a lot of skills availability away from the main urban centres.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Issues of home insulation got mr quite excited last decade, only for my hopes to be dashed quite quickly. Not only did regulations fail to match up with the stated aspirations, it also became clear that the regulation was poorly enforced and that too many builders didn't give two shits about this sort of thing, cutting corners and botching merrily away.
This wikileaks page is a quite reasonable starting point for exploring legislative changes over the years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_efficiency_in_British_housing
When the government started talking about zero carbon standards for homes by 2016 I became quite hopeful for a while, but nothing much happened to really sustain this hope.
This wikileaks page is a quite reasonable starting point for exploring legislative changes over the years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_efficiency_in_British_housing
When the government started talking about zero carbon standards for homes by 2016 I became quite hopeful for a while, but nothing much happened to really sustain this hope.
elbows
Well-Known Member
I'm somewhat suspicious of new builds too, they are better than the old stuff but Im not convinced they always live up to the aims of the regulations. I would hope that certain aspects, such as what percentage of walls can be windows & doors, are properly enforced at the design stage, but I am concerned that thermal bridging guidelines are often spoilt by botches, and that the models used to calculate suitable materials, designs etc to ensure compliance are faulty. The fudging of the home information pack stuff further eroded my faith.
In my lifetime of 36 years I've seen tangible progress with things like double-glazing in existing housing stock, but there is such a long way to go, and I am somewhat dispirited by how cold my home still gets despite getting double-glazing and loft insulation bit by bit over the last 5 years.Having a malfunctioning boiler over the Christmas holidays a number of years back was a useful wakeup call as to what the house would be like without central heating, although it would have been an even more frosty and powerful experience if it had happened at certain points during the last couple of winters since those were rather nippy. When I was a child I used to enjoy getting up early and playing with the ice that had formed on the inside of our windows, but thats not much of a consolation now when I consider the future.
toblerone3
Grrrrr
What does Urban make of Moody's downgrading of UK banks this morning?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15211230
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15211230
Greece is going to default on its debt. Every bank exposed to Greek debt is going to be hit. The European economy is going to contract because of the impact of the Greek default, impacting the banks again. The UK government has said there will be no financial support if this pulls these banks under. That's not a statement of discretionary choice - one that the government might be persuaded to reverse. That's a statement that there is, in fact, no financial support available to the government to give. So their credit rating has been dropped.
What's interesting to me is what the US credit rating agencies will do. European contraction will hit the US banks. The Saudis are ramping up social spending following the Arab Spring uprisings and need $90-100 oil price to finance it, so will cut production even though the low oil price is demand not supply led. Historically, the US economy crashes every time the price exceeds $80. Petrol prices are up nearly a dollar on last year which, being the most inelastic good, is sucking spending out of consumption, hitting the banks again. Further petrol price rises will stress the banks more. Meanwhile all that toxic debt is putrefying on their bottom lines, bank share prices are falling, one in three Americans are "one pay check away from losing their homes", and a wave of new mortgage foreclosures is building. Hmmm.
Crispy
The following psytrance is baṉned: All
This effect of high oil prices preventing growth is nicely put by Chris Skrebowski here: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/8410 (can't remember if you linked this already, falcon)
toblerone3
Grrrrr
zombie world economy. Waiting for the shit to hit the fan.
magneze
🎧
Something I've just noticed which has confused me.
How are Co-op, Nationwide, Santander & Yorkshire both downgraded and upgraded?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/oct/07/euro-fear-spain-italy-downgraded
How are Co-op, Nationwide, Santander & Yorkshire both downgraded and upgraded?
Another Madoff moment:
Bank of New York going down
ETA
Another interesting interview with Prof Steve Keen on the Keiser Report.
He says we need to see more (some??) bankers behind bars and to stop the exponential creation of public debt to bail out ponzi parasites.
Bank of New York going down
ETA
Another interesting interview with Prof Steve Keen on the Keiser Report.
He says we need to see more (some??) bankers behind bars and to stop the exponential creation of public debt to bail out ponzi parasites.
TruXta
tired
I wouldn't put too much stock in that study, for several reasons such as
- They only used 14 subjects
- Optimism bias is shaped by cultural norms
- It's very unclear how this very basic finding translates into reasoning around complex problems such as the economy
- It tells us nothing about aggregate and emergent effects and what feedback loops might exist
Backatcha Bandit
is not taking your calls
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