Global financial system implosion begins

[elbows]

I would think that consensus on the full story will be somewhat hard to come by. Could probably get most people to agree that this is a long event, and that there are fundamental imbalances that have yet to be tackled in a really meaningful way. And even under best case scenarios it will take years to escape the danger zone. So in some senses even if powers that be sort this out, kicking the can further down the road will be involved one way or another. Its what they do with the breathing space that counts, and in that regard I think consensus is lacking.

I think there are a number of big factors that send peoples thinking off in very different directions when it comes to the detail and predictions for the future. Some are focussed on the underlying energy & resource picture, others on particular aspects of the banking system that caused problems. Or the problems capitalism brings, or specific grotesque aspects of certain flavours of capitalism. Or international aspects such as the rise of India and China.

I think that there have now been enough shocks, and enough undermining of confidence, that far more people are starting to think the unthinkable. But its still early days, this thought process has only just begun, there are few clues as to what it is likely to produce because they have yet to completely exhaust the stale old remedies. The door to the room where the unthinkable is possible is now open, but the atmosphere in there is not yet breathable. People are gawping in through the windows, but the space is not well lit, and some are obsessed with what they think they see in the shadows. Some are shining torches in, but their beams are rather narrow.

 

[toblerone3]

So what's the concensus? Will the powers that be sort this out or are they just kicking the can further down he road?

Kicking the can further down the road in the hope that something happens which either improves the economy or a crisis emerges which justify the harsh consequences of dealing with the sovereign debt issue properly.

 

[extra dry]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-15134806

protesting in the states about the whole thing...

 

[Falcon]

England has a total building footprint of 2376km2 according to the land registry data.

so no, not a toy science project.

Yes. A large fraction of which doesn't face south. A large fraction of which is inaccessible or otherwise unsuitable. The entire fraction of which is located above the 50th parallel, and a significant fraction of that where it gets dark in the winter around 3.30pm. And only a tiny fraction of which anyone can actually afford to put anything on without a government subsidy which the government can't afford.

I'd been operating under the assumption that the equipment we install every day was produced overnight by pixies from pixie dust.

You have not once acknowledged, let alone responded in any recognisable way to, the central point that there are no studies which consider the full energy requirement of the full supply chain. Nor have you countered the unarguable point that the elements of the supply chain which are excluded from your EROEI calculation have colossal energy requirements which, if properly accounted for, would significantly degrade real world EROIs. So, yes, your position is indistinguishable from one who assumes your equipment is produced by pixies from pixie dust, and I could not have expressed it better myself.

... I take it from this waffle that you're not going to back up or retract your previous assertion about solar PV having a negative EROI then. I usually find this occurs when the other person in the argument is wrong, and this will be my working assumption here until you're able to supply compelling evidence to support your case.

Just as I invariably find that, when an opponent resorts to incivility, he has more or less exhausted any intellectual component of his argument. Your attempt to reframe an argument about whether the colossal primary resource demand of low EROEI energy sources is viable, into an argument about whether your science projects are low or negative EROEI, is misdirection, and irrelevant to the main argument. As you suggest later in the thread, your argument is silly and, to my satisfaction, dealt with.

 

[Falcon]

We can also see, rather more insidiously, neo-liberal capitalist governments re-aligning the law in order to supress dissent in these areas. For example by redefining "terrorism" to include most effective kinds of direct action, by introducing restrictions on protest,

This is a great analysis, Bernie, with which I agree. For more on law re-alignment, can I recommend Ahmed's "A User's Guide to the Crisis of Civilization: And How to Save It". It's a hokey title but an extremely well researched, well referenced and well written academic book, with a compelling and radical argument. You will find its chapter on the "securitisation" of peak oil in general, and Islamic fundamentalism in particular, fascinating. He defines "securitisation" as speech-act in which particular issues are labelled as existential threats to the continuity of the state and therefore requiring extra-legal measures to ensure continuity of government and maintenance of order. Because of their extreme nature, existential threats justify going beyond the normal security measures which are within the rule of law. This allows the state to move them outside the remit of democratic decision making and into the realm of emergency powers. These powers are not the prerogative of the parliamentary system, but of the extra-legal dimension of the state, or "deep state". They are therefore beyond public scrutiny and accountability, satisfying the goal of concealing vested interests.

Other chapters deal with the neoclassical economic model's dependence for stability on energy growth, and goes some way to explaining the mechanisms (for example, a system which formally eliminates labour from manufacturing processes can only maintain full employment by expanding; an interest bearing, debt based fiat currency system is only formally stable under growth conditions, etc.). It advances a conception of a global political economy in which the resources of client southern (hemisphere) states are co-opted by industrial northern (hemisphere) states, and the implications of peak oil on that relationship, and concludes with a reinterpretation of certain Marxist concepts to construct one possible family of responses.

A very interesting text, I think.

 

[Falcon]

Many of us could hopefully come to agree with statements such as 'renewable energy technologies can play a meaningful role in the decades ahead'

I agree with this. In my view, the role of renewables is to mitigate the rate at which society-as-currently-constructed collapses. But whether they can act a parachute or a pocket handkerchief is irrelevant if things only work at all (as I suspect they do) when the plane is going up.

My concern is the obvious one that we are far too late, that the chief impediment to progress is the lack of public awareness and contingent political mandate, and that we are mismanaging the balance between talking up the benefits of renewables and the effect that has on perpetuating complacence.

 

[free spirit]

Yes. A large fraction of which doesn't face south. A large fraction of which is inaccessible or otherwise unsuitable.

Which still leaves a hell of a lot of suitable roof space, certainly far more than would justify the 'toy science project' tag you used.

The entire fraction of which is located above the 50th parallel, and a significant fraction of that where it gets dark in the winter around 3.30pm.

Which still leaves a hell of a lot of potential generation availability during times when additional generation is needed - daytime hours.

And only a tiny fraction of which anyone can actually afford to put anything on without a government subsidy which the government can't afford.

ah, but unlike nuclear, this subsidy is peanuts paid upfront to stimulate the market to the point where economies of scale make it cost competitive without subsidy. Compared to all previous government schemes, this would look to be working remarkably well so far given the 25-30% fall in installed costs in the 18 months since FIT started (granted most of this is down to international market growth and related factors, but without FITS we'd not be benefiting from this reduction).

You have not once acknowledged, let alone responded in any recognisable way to, the central point that there are no studies which consider the full energy requirement of the full supply chain.

You've not yet made this point, if you had then I'd not have been asking you to supply references for your stated POV as there clearly can't be any. Basically what you're saying is that all studies ever conducted are more than 500% out in their estimates (other than a couple that I've already demonstrated to contain major flaws), but you've been able to see where they've all gone wrong, and produce your own data that leads you to a very different conclusion to everyone else.

In the absence of any published studies to back up your POV, could you at least supply your own data for the bits everyone else is missing. In the absense of this it's impossible to have anything approaching a rational discussion of the issue.

Nor have you countered the unarguable point that the elements of the supply chain which are excluded from your EROEI calculation have colossal energy requirements which, if properly accounted for, would significantly degrade real world EROIs.

Of course I've not countered this arguement, being as it's one you've not so far made. You've previously argued that these factors are so large that they would result in solar PV having a negative EROI. If you're now backtracking on that claim (which is obviously utter bollocks), then we can maybe have a more nuanced discussion about the relative impact of these elements that you claim to be missing from the existing studies. First though, I reckon you need to clarify your position on your original negative EROI statement.

Just as I invariably find that, when an opponent resorts to incivility, he has more or less exhausted any intellectual component of his argument. Your attempt to reframe an argument about whether the colossal primary resource demand of low EROEI energy sources is viable, into an argument about whether your science projects are low or negative EROEI, is misdirection, and irrelevant to the main argument. As you suggest later in the thread, your argument is silly and, to my satisfaction, dealt with.

I was merely waiting for you to produce any evidence to support your claim, as I'd done my own research and couldn't find anything credible to support your claims. If you're abandoning that claim, please state this more clearly, then I'll stop asking you for evidence to support it. BTW, if you are abandoning your claim, then this means everything I wrote in that paragraph was correct, you were waffling because you couldn't produce evidence to support your case as you were wrong.

 

[Backatcha Bandit]

My concern is the obvious one that we are far too late, that the chief impediment to progress is the lack of public awareness and contingent political mandate, and that we are mismanaging the balance between talking up the benefits of renewables and the affect that has on perpetuating complacence.

At the risk of further derailing the thread, I'd echo that concern. I lose sleep over it.

I while away the sleepless hours playing 'spot the renewables':

​

When that gets too exciting, I can gaze at the pulsating heart of our civilisation, watching the pulse quicken as it wakes to meet a new day.

It doesn't help, but it's kinda soothing.

 

[phildwyer]

perhaps to someone who hasn't read, nor understood volume 3 of Capital - but to anyone who has (and i'm sure Marx did given he wrote it) Marx's working distinction between real and fictitious capital is fairly clear and an important distinction within his overall conceptual framework - something which forms a fairly fundamental part of his theory of crisis overall

what you're doing is applying a different (your own) perspective onto something and then serving back up as though it's Marx's.

Anyone could argue that capital itself isn't 'real' from a number of perspectives but an understanding of the Marx's technical usage of ficticious capital (or anything else for that matter) isn't achieved by saying nothing is 'real'

You are once again confusing "empirically existent" with "real."

Of course capital exists empirically, but from a Marxist perspective it is nonetheless essentially or substantially unreal and indeed non-existent.

To forget this is to abandon an important part of the ethical case against capital.

 

[elbows]

I agree with this. In my view, the role of renewables is to mitigate the rate at which society-as-currently-constructed collapses. But whether they can act a parachute or a pocket handkerchief is irrelevant if things only work at all (as I suspect they do) when the plane is going up.

My concern is the obvious one that we are far too late, that the chief impediment to progress is the lack of public awareness and contingent political mandate, and that we are mismanaging the balance between talking up the benefits of renewables and the affect that has on perpetuating complacence.

Cool, thats helped establish just what the common ground is and the point where we start to diverge.

I certainly agree that we left it far too late, the transition was never going to be easy but if we had started it in a more meaningful way well before the peak then it would have been much easier than its going to be now.

The issue of 'things only working at all when the plane is going up' requires more discussion. Personally I have mixed feelings about this, I anticipate that the present economic & political systems won't be able to handle these conditions. But other underlying fundamentals, such as the workforces, industrial capacity, infrastructure & still available resources can be put to extremely productive use in these conditions, so long as the management of these things is radically changed so as to ensure efforts are directed to where they are really needed for this transition.

Public awareness & political mandate are important, and if these things had been different then we may have been able to start much earlier. There are the usual reasons for not promoting public awareness such as fear that people will behave stupidly in the face of the news (e.g. by treating it as an in immediate short-term issue and stupidly queuing up for petrol), or not wanting to let people know its a top issue because then if you want to have an oil war you may struggle to disguise the energy motive. And all the other reasons why those doing well out of the present system wouldn't want the party to end until the last possible minute. The problem with the present system is that although its exploited a great chunk of the world & people, and there are many losers, and inequality has soared, it has still managed to deliver a grotesque form of plenty to large enough numbers of people that the forces against change are broad, powerful, and well entrenched.

Indeed I expect that one of the reasons why there are actually quite a number of people prepared to face up to energy realities these days, is that limits to energy availability are one of the few scenarios where the death of capitalism, or at least capitalism as we know it these days, seems at all plausible. This statement may seem silly in view of the economic turmoil of recent years, but since I cannot separate that turmoil from the energy picture, I'll stand by it.

If we arrive at a clear and undeniable point where there is an acute energy crisis, and it is described as such by all, then we don't have to worry about a lack of public awareness anymore. Such awareness could emerge in a big way almost overnight. Instead we've had a bit of a slow build, where its heavily mixed in with climate change and kept mostly separate from the economic woe, which is much ess than ideal. A few years ago it was bloody Noel Edmonds who was trying to alert the people of the uk to the looming issues with our electricity grid, tabloid style, and this is not a great sign.I'll be very worried if we find ourselves in a situation where big new policy decisions are taken that have implications for millions, if awareness is little better than present levels. All sorts of horrors could be walked into out of ignorance. But for now as we are still at the stage of the management trying to make as little change as they can get away with, all the lack of awareness about these issues are doing is wasting more valuable time. Thats bad, but as I already indicated I doubt this wil change until well into the phase where business as usual cannot be sustained for a monet longer, and big things start happening.

 

[elbows]

And on the subject of public & political awareness, which I've gone on about quite a bit here recently, try this wikileak to add some April 2008 flesh to the bones we think we know so well:

http://news.scotsman.com/wikileaks/WikiLeaks-energy-cables-UK-Energy.6779188.jp

This is the paragraph that I find of most interest but there is other stuff in the full cable too.

Minister Wicks told U/S Jeffery on March 31 that climate change and energy security went hand-in-hand for the UK, and stressed UK leadership on climate change issues were supported strongly by the British public. As evidence, Wicks pointed to a bill in Parliament targeting carbon emission reductions of 60% by 2050. Wicks stressed, however, that energy security was equally important for the UK, although less well-understood by the general public. The UK will see its indigenous gas and oil stocks drop by eight percent per year over the next several years, and will import 60-80 percent of its oil and gas supply by 2020. To address this deficit the UK needs to ensure a diversity of supply, and has been in discussions with Qatar and Norway, Wicks said.

As usual it is not addressing global total energy availability issues, but it still gives a few clues about certain aspects of government awareness and their thoughts on public awareness.

 

[Falcon]

Which still leaves a hell of a lot of suitable roof space, certainly far more than would justify the 'toy science project' tag you used.
Which still leaves a hell of a lot of potential generation availability during times when additional generation is needed - daytime hours.

Great! Lets go from "Hell of a lot" to something a little more specific, shall we? Go and find out how much electricity generating capacity the UK is about to lose due to a combination of ageing facilities, EU large combustion directive and retirement of nuclear capacity. Use the next 20 years as your window. Using a reasonable annual average real output (i.e. one which accounts for technical unavailability, service outage, etc.) for milliwatts / square meter, and reasonable parameters for *usable* roof area, work out how much roof space you would need to service that capacity deficit, in multiples of UK roof stock capacity. Using a reasonable pounds / kwH metric, work out the installation cost of that capacity. Then, recognising that you have to rebuild the hydrocarbon generating capacity anyway (since there is no functioning storage technology at that scale, and no other way to keep the UK's ageing population from freezing to death in the winter), work out the pound / kwH metric of the conventional replacement generating stock. Add the two, and tell us (1) how much more housing you would have to build (2) what the average unit cost of electricity would be and (3) using the facility closure schedule, the annual capital demand schedule of the combined investment. For extra credit, assume retrofitting carbon capture technology consumes 1/3 of the remaining coal fired plant capacity's energy output - what multiple of UK roof space (using your assumptions above) would be necessary to provide this energy, to avoid having to increase plant capacity (and plant manufacturing material and energy resource requirement, coal consumption, and waste disposal) by an equivalent amount ?

Then we can have a nice chat about the relevance of your hobby. Of course I'm not suggesting you could ever replace what we are losing this way. (Very shortly, someone is going to suggest we divide problems like these between several basket case technologies, on the assumption that energy economics of technologies which are individually thermodynamically unviable becomes thermodynamically viable when you slice and dice them. Rather like dividing individually toxic securities into lots of little toxic securities did for the financial markets). But it is a useful exercise that decouples the debate from the peak oil one, based on imminent and pressing problems at a fractional (and therefore more tractable) scale of the peak oil problem, which will serve to illustrate how hopelessly inadequate solar is to address the practical problems we face.

 

[Backatcha Bandit]

Bah. Trick question?

You left out the cost of replacing the grid infrastructure.

 

[Pickman's model]

Yes. A large fraction of which doesn't face south. A large fraction of which is inaccessible or otherwise unsuitable.

among the 'otherwise unsuitable' are you including buildings which are a) listed; b) in a conservation area; or c) where the roofs would be unable to take the weight without considerable work?

 

[elbows]

I've just been amusing myself with the 2011 International Energy Outlook from the rather optimistic US Energy Information Administration. I'll post about the broader data in the peak oil thread when I find time, but for now here is the data showing world energy intensity projections by region, expressed in Thousand Btu per 2005 dollar of GDP.

Basic pdf version: http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/ieo/pdf/ieokayatab_3.pdf

Fancy web version where you can see graphs and the picture year by year:

Table H3. World energy intensity by region

 

[Backatcha Bandit]

That time of year already?

Wake me up if there's any change in the trend.

Nice graph-y thing. Mmmm... It's like an interactive 'write your own' story. I can't seem to select 'zombie apocalypse' under the 'scenarios' tab, though. Should I update my java?

 

[elbows]

That time of year already?

Wake me up if there's any change in the trend.

The stuff I linked to was from the US energy agency, not the international energy agency. So no, not quite that time of year yet. Similar sort of thing though, although off the top of my head I think the US one tends to have even less credibility that the IEA. In particular the production rises they've projected for Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Canadian tar sands, and several others made me raise my eyebrows. And for lots of the ones they show in decline, the output seems to magically stop declining at some point. I not take such numbers seriously, although I think it might be a mistake to utterly reject every single aspect of the optimistic view, since even if they have got the overall picture well wrong, they might be right about at least something, and I shouldn't cherry-pick only the gloomiest of predictions to suit my own expectations.

 

[Nylock]

Great! Lets go from "Hell of a lot" to something a little more specific, shall we? Go and find out how much electricity generating capacity the UK is about to lose due to a combination of ageing facilities, EU large combustion directive and retirement of nuclear capacity. Use the next 20 years as your window. Using a reasonable annual average real output (i.e. one which accounts for technical unavailability, service outage, etc.) for milliwatts / square meter, and reasonable parameters for *usable* roof area, work out how much roof space you would need to service that capacity deficit, in multiples of UK roof stock capacity. Using a reasonable pounds / kwH metric, work out the installation cost of that capacity. Then, recognising that you have to rebuild the hydrocarbon generating capacity anyway (since there is no functioning storage technology at that scale, and no other way to keep the UK's ageing population from freezing to death in the winter), work out the pound / kwH metric of the conventional replacement generating stock. Add the two, and tell us (1) how much more housing you would have to build (2) what the average unit cost of electricity would be and (3) using the facility closure schedule, the annual capital demand schedule of the combined investment. For extra credit, assume retrofitting carbon capture technology consumes 1/3 of the remaining coal fired plant capacity's energy output - what multiple of UK roof space (using your assumptions above) would be necessary to provide this energy, to avoid having to increase plant capacity (and plant manufacturing material and energy resource requirement, coal consumption, and waste disposal) by an equivalent amount ?

Then we can have a nice chat about the relevance of your hobby. Of course I'm not suggesting you could ever replace what we are losing this way. (Very shortly, someone is going to suggest we divide problems like these between several basket case technologies, on the assumption that energy economics of technologies which are individually thermodynamically unviable becomes thermodynamically viable when you slice and dice them. Rather like dividing individually toxic securities into lots of little toxic securities did for the financial markets). But it is a useful exercise that decouples the debate from the peak oil one, based on imminent and pressing problems at a fractional (and therefore more tractable) scale of the peak oil problem, which will serve to illustrate how hopelessly inadequate solar is to address the practical problems we face.

..So what's your answer to the calamity we face? (serious question btw)

 

[ayatollah]

..So what's your answer to the calamity we face? (serious question btw)

Yes indeedy... This thread has been in many ways the most interesting and intellectually challenging of all on Urban (Well it's nearly caused my small brain to melt following some of the well argued positions....Gawd some people have read and apparently UNDERSTOOD vol. III of Capital - I honestly couldn't get beyond Vol I - only O level maths you see ).

But the thing I have noticed is that the most apparently technically knowledgable contributors are also the ones very unwilling to offer up any possible routes to progress for us all. Who was it who said something like " The point is not to interpret the world but to change it" ? Oh yeh, that beardie weirdie guy who all the Neo Liberal idologues comprehensively defeated and wrote off years ago. Karl must be laughing happily in whatever passes for the afterlife for a confirmed materialist !

 

[Dr Jon]

Interesting interview:

David Stockman: Blame The Fed!

David Stockman, former US Representative and Director of the Office of Management and Budget under Reagan, does not mince words. He sees the monetary systems of the world coming apart.
How did we get here? He identifies the root cause as the intentional over-leveraging of world economies by central planners in a misguided effort to enjoy growth without consequence.

 

[Ae589]

Interesting interview:

David Stockman: Blame The Fed!

I think there are some compelling arguments there that have been repeated by others.

 

[Jon-of-arc]

..So what's your answer to the calamity we face? (serious question btw)

Wait for the implosion which "begun" at the start of this thread to actually happen (if it does happen), so that we see chaos in the streets, queues for food round the block, mad max stylee oil wars and other serious shit, and try to turn it into a left wing revolution. Embrace, support and promote the less theory-heavy but still overtly anti-capitalist campaigns (Wall St seems a good example...) ASAP, so that when the shit really hits the fan the left is there to offer the solution, having already framed the story of what went wrong in such a way that makes marxism seem the best/only option.

Piece of piss, when you think about it.

 

[ayatollah]

Wait for the implosion which "begun" at the start of this thread to actually happen (if it does happen), so that we see chaos in the streets, queues for food round the block, mad max stylee oil wars and other serious shit, and try to turn it into a left wing revolution. Embrace, support and promote the less theory-heavy but still overtly anti-capitalist campaigns (Wall St seems a good example...) ASAP, so that when the shit really hits the fan the left is there to offer the solution, having already framed the story of what went wrong in such a way that makes marxism seem the best/only option.

Piece of piss, when you think about it.

It's just so obvious now you've said it !

 

[free spirit]

Bah. Trick question?

You left out the cost of replacing the grid infrastructure.

also, he's missed the fact that I've already pointed out that I'm not arguing that PV can be 'the' replacement for all our energy requirements, merely that it can be a significant part of it, and not the 'toy science project' he makes it out to be.

 

[Backatcha Bandit]

I have no doubt that PV will provide a significant contribution to future energy generation - quite how that future generation matches up to current 'requirements' is what concerns me.

How about: If we can come up with a 'back of the envelope' insanely optimistic figure for the best case scenario for PV in the UK (I'm sure MacKay did this, but I can't find it), we can see how it looks on the 'Flowchart' sankey (above)?

I've been meaning to do this for a while, but don't have up-to-date figures to hand. What sort of kWp per m² are we looking at these days? My last figure was 0.16r, but that's probably well out of date/wrong.

2,376,000,000 m² of buildings?

I think this might give us a good idea of scale, perhaps even a basis from which to examine Falcon's charge that the public perception of current renewable energy technology is 'perpetuating complacence' because it is actually 'hopelessly inadequate'.

 

[free spirit]

How about: If we can come up with a 'back of the envelope' insanely optimistic figure for the best case scenario for PV in the UK (I'm sure MacKay did this, but I can't find it), we can see how it looks on the 'Flowchart' sankey (above)?

ok, how about we both come up with some figures then compare notes.

I had a look at this the other day, but have lost my workings.

 

[Backatcha Bandit]

Cool - name the panel... (& give me the dims / Wp(stc) if you have it to hand), then PVGIS (or SAP if you prefer). Then mash that into H.4 DUKES 2011 (since it's in TWh and I'm feeling too lazy to do the conversion to MTOE).

 

[Falcon]

..So what's your answer to the calamity we face? (serious question btw)

Well that's the question. Obviously, one possibility is that there is no answer. Oil is an energy carrier, not an energy source. Around 3-4 billion people are living off energy that arrived on the planet a few hundred million years ago, got captured in the massive algae blooms and forests associated with a couple of periods of global warming, and stored and concentrated in oil. Since the current energy surplus is temporary, so is the planetary carrying capacity associated with that surplus. It's hard to see how the rapid transition back to the carrying capacity consistent with real-time energy flow won't be brutal.

Set that aside (since it doesn't permit much conversation).

I've no original ideas. The most plausible I've seen are in https://www.amazon.co.uk/Prosperity...3235/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1317697742&sr=8-1. Big issues are food, keeping warm and domestic energy sources, a plausible economic model, a plausible living arrangement and a plausible basis for a monetary system.

Industrial agriculture is a machine for converting hydrocarbon into protein in a sterilised medium (formerly known as soil) via fertiliser, pesticides and massive irrigation. It quadruples grain yields achievable without hydrocarbon, which will become unaffordable as oil price rises, then collapse as oil production falls. Permaculture offers the best option for delivering materially higher protein delivery, absent hydrocarbon. In the 1850's, the Germans kick started their industrial revolution by establishing a network of technological schools (Technische Hochschulen) and a network of Handelshochschulen. German universities placed emphasis on the natural sciences, and a parallel system of Fachschulen for the training of skilled tradesmen was developed. The net result was a dramatic increase in the technological competence of the German working population after 1870. We need to get rid of media studies and all those distractions and build a permaculture skills training capability and a similar dramatic increase in in the permaculture competence of our population.

Domestic energy has to be based on radical energy reduction measures (I'm building a house to German Passivhaus standards, for example, in which the principle heat source for space heating will be us). But the technologies will have to be along Schumacher's "Intermediate technology" principles - there won't be a global supply chain to replace the rare earth components sourced from China in the current crop of exotic wind turbine designs, and devices will have to be capable of being maintained by the communities that own them, using locally sourced materials.

Finding an economic model to replace capitalism will be appallingly difficult. It needs to be steady state, but it isn't obvious how a steady state model will be stable, particularly with respect to offering full employment. One requirement will be to reverse automation and increase the manual labour element of manufacturing, reducing working week lengths, and expand job sharing. We'll need a different system for recognising "wellbeing" - GDP isn't it. We will need a different financial model to support economic activity. Radical banking reform will eliminate the current business model in which profits arise from interest charges. Banks will be allowed to charge for transaction processing only. We'll need an alternative to a debt based, fiat currency system. Commodity monetary systems (e.g. gold backed) aren't terribly satisfactory. I suspect a monetary system backed by energy production capacity will simultaneously create the capital necessary to finance such capacity, and ensure that the resulting debt is always matched by commensurate assets with real value.

Living arrangements will have to be redesigned to eliminate distance (which requires transport, which requires energy). I don't think autarky will offer the best arrangement - there will still be some requirement and opportunity for regional specialisation and inter-community trade. But economies will of necessity have to be local, with local food production, energy production, employment and trade. The Transition Movement has so much to offer, here.

 

[Falcon]

Wait for the implosion which "begun" at the start of this thread to actually happen (if it does happen).

Interesting. What's the basis for your belief that it hasn't begun ?

 

[Falcon]

also, he's missed the fact that I've already pointed out that I'm not arguing that PV can be 'the' replacement for all our energy requirements, merely that it can be a significant part of it, and not the 'toy science project' he makes it out to be.

Compare with

Very shortly, someone is going to suggest we divide problems like these between several basket case technologies, on the assumption that energy economics of technologies which are individually thermodynamically unviable becomes thermodynamically viable when you slice and dice them. Rather like dividing individually toxic securities into lots of little toxic securities did for the financial markets.