actually, I think that's misleading in this situation.
This is key, though, isn't it? Properly evaluating costs. There needs to be a whole new way of measuring economic performance based on a full evaluation of the costs of production. But there's no reason we can't do it. 'Growth' is our concept. We can redefine it as we wish. Currently we have a situation in which a country can be experiencing economic growth while the living standards of the majority deteriorate.
No, I really didn't. If you prefer the longer expression "multiple of renewable" to make it relative rather than absolute, then knock yourself out - it doesn't change or rebut the point. This is merely your device of straining on gnats to avoid having to swallow elephants. My point is simple: the existing system was built using energy sources of energy characteristics which are very different and EROEIs which are very much higher than the energy sources you propose. Your assertion that it might be run on such sources is speculative. Meanwhile, until you familiarise yourself with the substantial body of literature which relates the complexity of society that can be sustained by given multiples of EROEI, your protests lack force.
Of course not. You don't grasp thermodynamics, and there is a level below which it cannot be simplified. If I try and simplify it even further, you will start your "straining on gnats" comedy routine.
Well the "bullshit" merely drew attention to your peculiar view that a statement about the viability of solar could be made independently of a statement about the viability of the system of which it was the product. I point which, despite a considerable amount of smoke and mirrors, remains unexplained.
erm
Certainly no more so than your assertion that it can't be.
good one, an appeal to the literature always works a treat in such circumstances. Personally though, I'd consider 18 years reading around the literature on the subject from all angles to be sufficient to form a reasonable well balance viewpoint on the subject.
You made the following statement, which I responded to directly.
If you meant to pose a different point entirely, then it'd help if you stated that point rather the something else as I'm all out of mind reading powers at the minute.
aaaand again you're making the mistake of assuming that this is an all or nothing situation, which it isn't.
I beg to differ.
nope, merely my observation on what you wrote.
This right here is bullshit.
Excellent. The seminal work on civilisational collapse mechanisms is Tainter's theory of diminishing energy returns to increasing complexity as civilisations attempt to solve the inherent problems presented by a given state of complexity by increasing its complexity, eventually exhausting the scarcest critical resource and, from the position of overshoot sustained by that resource, collapsing. From your 18 years of reading and well balanced viewpoint, what are your thoughts on how that can be overcome in a complex system in severe overshoot undergoing rapid, uncontrolled substitution of its primary energy source by one of significantly lower EROEI?
I beg to differ. In the period 1994-2004, we spent $2.4 trillion to increase the worldwide rate of oil production by 12 million barrels a day. In the period 2005-20010, we spent $2.4 trillion and the the rate of oil production fell 0.2 million barrels a day. There are no more major discoveries and, because of the pattern of exploitation of the resource base, production from this point will fall like a stone.
1 it's a theory
Actually I thought I'd check the paper out again, and it's really not very good is it?
What on earth do you think this has to do with the current energy situation?
How can anyone take a paper seriously that analyses the decline in productivity of the US health care system without considering that this is actually down to it's privatisation and the vast profits being wrung out of the population by the insurance companies and private health care providers?
you're entirely missing the point. I'm in no way saying that we can continue to extract oil at anything like the current rate, and I'm also not focussing on oil. Actually my point is entirely clear in the post I just made, you just choose not to see it.
fucks sake, you really want to drag out that bullshit 2 billion carrying capacity figure again? really?
really. Do tell. Why should I focus on what's possible in 1000 years time rather than what I can directly influence through my actions now?
Unmitigated bollocks. Really. An attempt to display familiarity with the topic from a quick wiki-search which conveys precisely the opposite impression. A total waste of electrons.
Yes, lets. But the comparison with the UK is specious and self serving - the UK had (1) trading links and (2) ready access to increasingly dense energy sources, permitting energy diversification. The proper comparison is between Easter Island and the world, which has (1) no trading links to other planets and (2) access only to increasingly diffuse energy sources. Easter Island didn't collapse because it had no sources of energy left - the function of the trees was to provide the material for boats, and the function of the boats was to go fishing to secure protein because agriculture alone couldn't sustain the population that fishing sustained. They were in population overshoot with a society which had reached a level of complexity which its resource base could no longer sustain - just like us. And some fucking idiot chopped down the last tree for a ritual, knowing full well he wouldn't be able to go fishing. Just like some fucking idiots are squandering our last oil reserves building techno-ritual white elephant wind turbines, knowing full well they will stop working the moment we can't get single-point-failure rare earth components from militant and energy starved China. It's an exquisite example of civilisational stupidity, for which I thank you.
We know the rate at which renewable energy and efficiency productivity will have to increase in order to offset the declining productivity of our existing energy system - 12% per annum uninvested depletion rate, 6% invested (the uninvested depletion rate, and the Hubbert projection depletion rate, of the global hydrocarbon system under constant economic and technical conditions, noting economic and technical conditions are in relative decline). In reality, it is increasing at a pace which is, at best, an order of magnitude less than that. In what way do you think that I've only picked up part of what he's saying, and that your quotation helps your case?
Umm - no disrespect, but I was referring to "The Collapse of Complex Societies" - I apologise for overestimating your familiarity with the literature, of which this is the seminal work - it seems I took your boasts about the breadth of your research rather too literally. This is undergraduate ecology 101 material.
What on earth are you doing selecting random quotations from a body of work which runs to thousands of printed pages, and acting as if I had advanced it?
See above.
Ahh. Selection of a random paper in order to mount the inevitable ad hominem fallacy. How funny - read "Collapse" and you'll discover how foolish and uninformed you sound portraying me as right wing. Fail.
Yes of course I do. But not one that requires anything other than the most basic technology, constructed from resources that can be obtained locally, and maintained locally, or which requires significant CO2 emission. Which rules out anything which depends on a global industrial manufacturing system, and therefore solar PV, current wind turbine technology and, of course, nuclear.
IMO
yes, so it was able to become increasingly complex in it's energy sources and industrial nature, whereas Easter Island wasn't.
Renewable Energy Growth Rates (EU)
If you want to reference a specific text, then reference it. I'm not about to go rereading the entire book for you, and tend to think that if an author has a valid point to make, then they ought to pick the best examples they can from their book to illustrate the shorter articles they then go on to write on the subject. If you have some better examples you want to post up then be my guest.
as I say, feel free to quote the specific bits of the work that you feel are most relevant.
am I wrong though?
Thank you. Readers will make their own minds up.
The UK didn't "diversify" its energy supply. It replaced it with supplies of increasing density and EROEI and, in doing so, specialised first in coal then in oil. The planet is diversifying its energy supply, but replacing them with supplies of *decreasing* density and EROEI.
Yes. Something that goes from "infinitesimal" to "insignificant" has increased in size by 100%. We are interested in replacing the 40 million barrels per day of energy dense oil production capacity that will disappear in the next 7 years.Renewable Energy Growth Rates (EU)
What efficiency gains and demand destruction? 80% of the planet subsists on 20% of your consumption. Imperialist hubris.
Are you wrong to infer that my ideas are contaminated by right wing ideology, and therefore capable of being dismissed irrespective of any actual argument I might make, on the basis of a single paper you misidentified?
That's not the sole basis for me to think you might be more likely swayed to those viewpoints though is it.
You have other reasons to believe my views are consistent with right wing US anti big government? Is this your affirmation of the consequent fallacy? "(1) People who are right wing are anti big government (2) Falcon believes big government is unsustainable therefore (3) Falcon is right wing"?
The hell we do.
I said there was credible evidence, you responded that this was unmitigated bollocks, I supplied one of many credible sources.
The industrial revolution started with water and wind, prior to coal, which remained important industrial power sources pretty much until electricity took over, but don't let that stop you.
We're now well on course for renewables to be supplying 20% of EU electricity supplies by 2020, probably quite a lot more if the electricity prices rises caused by gas price rises and shortages following the impact of the coal plant closures in the run up to 2016 are as big as I expect them to be, so I dispute that this can still in any way be classed as being insignificant.
so they can avoid making the mistake of developing their economies into economies that are as oil dependent as ours. eg China turning to the electric bike more than the petrol / diesel car.
you've previously told me that you used to be that way inclined, so that would be the other reason I'd have to suspect you'd be more likely to accept viewpoints that came from a similar basic analyses of the situation.
Have another think about that statement when you consider the fact that there isn't sufficient uranium available globally at anything like the concentrations that makes any real sense to even power another generation of nuclear at the current levels.
Imperialist hubris. They don't want to "avoid mistaking the mistake of developing their economies etc." They want light bulbs.
Hilarious. The white man knows best, eh? I think they would ram your sanctimonious laptop up your arse for suggesting it.
no, actually the exact opposite.
I find that encouraging. It implies there was some interest in the first place, in which case there is some hope of establishing basic energy literacy, without which the general public is hopelessly at the mercy of propaganda machines of every stripe.
Is it wrong, then, to say that a solar panel repays the energy used for its production in two years? I do understand the problems with the global manufacturing system and the need to produce far more locally, but if global manufacturing can produce an eroei of 10:1, why is that not sustainable, assuming we can switch to transport that isn't reliant on oil, or can put aside enough oil for this kind of useful transport?
Then why are German companies closing down their plants and moving overseas?Indeed, renewables in Germany have reduced the cost of wholesale electricity for industrial use during the working day to such an extent that companies running fossil fuel power generators are crying foul. A fine turnup for the books
Actually, I did get the statistic wrong.
increasingly the carbon imperitive will be to produce energy intensive goods where there is the greatest renewable energy supply available.
Of course not. You were trying to suggest that the UK had "diversified" its energy supply, and could therefore do so again, presumably via renewables. In fact, the migration from biomass to hydropower to coal to oil - energy sources of increasing density and EROEI - is intensification, not diversification. We are undergoing the reversal of that process - migration to successively more diffuse energy sources of successively decreasing EROEI.
LBJ I'm loth to open up another front in this thread or argue with you. But it is wrong, and the reason it is wrong is quite simple to understand, if not to rectify.
