Global financial system implosion begins

[free spirit]

Best we don't talk about crap authorship, Free Spirit.

why? why do you post up links to articles littered with basic errors then want to brush that under the carpet when it's pointed out to you? I asked for data not a second rate overview of the situation from someone who's nothing like an expert in the field.

Translation: "The models aren't completely accurate yet. So it's OK to act as if they were totally inaccurate, and to base our plans on doing more of the process we know is promoting a species extinction event that we have visible evidence has begun."

I think this is deranged.

well it would be deranged if that was anywhere even close to what I was saying. Try reading what I wrote, that's actually my point.

Posting up some target figure as if this was a figure that if we hit it we'd definitely stop runaway climate change, and if we went one iota over it then we were utterly fucked - that's lunacy, it's a total misrepresentation of the science and it will only come back to bite us as campaigners when we pass those levels and the sky doesn't immediately fall on our heads. Taking this a stage further and predicating energy policy upon the notion that this will actually come to pass is either extremely naive, or a gross misrepresentation of what's actually likely, and then doing what you've done in the past and stating that by extension of this logic there is therefore no energy available to make the transition to the low carbon, low energy intensity economy... well that's really the logical fallacy at the heart of your entire position in a nutshell.

This in no way means that we shouldn't take action as rapidly as practicable to address the problem in a sustainable way by transitioning as rapidly as possible to a low carbon, low energy intensity economy globally - something I'm personally assisting with through my work every day, can you say the same? I thought you'd gone back to working in the oil industry, but maybe you've now got out.

Translation: "To maintain the integrity of my argument, I am now forced to adopt the position of the most extreme climate change denier."

I've forgotten more about climate change science and the politics surrounding it than you'll probably ever know, and every time I look into any statement you make on here it proves to have no foundation at all and be based on some poorly researched article, or a misrepresentation of data that actually doesn't support your statements. You've certainly not even come close to earning the right to take me to task on climate change - I've got at least a decade more learning, activism, and campaigning in this field than you, so lay off with this shit.

I notice you're now entirely ignoring and deflecting from the initial point that started this argument instead of openly accepting you got it wrong. Good skills if you're a troll, shit behaviour if you're actually serious about any of this.

 

[Frank Merton]

Thats an oversimplification which has some contradictions and has been severely tested in the last 5+ years.

It's hard to find a post hereabouts that can't be described as an oversimplification, I guess because its too complicated a business to summarize in a few paragraphs.

They seemed powerless to prevent the price rising to levels that damaged demand some years ago, and thats partly what forced the mainstream to pay attention. And the price they have 'allowed' oil to settle at based on that hypothesis is sufficiently high that alternatives have been stimulated. But this may not bother them that much since they know that there is no alternative that has quite the advantages and scaleability of oil within sight.

Production takes time and investment to gear up, so they naturally will wait a while to be sure the increase is not short-term. They also have an interest in keeping consuming nations reasonably well satisfied, as otherwise the world economy tanks and takes oil prices down with it. Of course they don't have exact control, and I think they were pleasantly surprised when prices shot up a few years ago with what was really not that much damage to demand, because of the Chinese.

I would also say its more production figures than reserve figures which they have traditionally used as a tool to maintain price within a certain range, albeit with mixed results given many OPEC countries tendencies not to adhere fully to production quotas. Not that this has been such a big issues in recent years as most OPEC countries ran out of spare capacity to produce more even if they wanted to.

Yes; production sets prices, not reserves. Reserves are not announced and only roughly guessed at by outsiders. I suspect, from their behavior in sharply increasing domestic spending during the recent Arab Spring, that they aren't worried about running out anytime soon.

 

[free spirit]

2. On primary energy depletion rate, you were provided a reference to "World Energy Outlook 2008", published by the International Energy Authority - an authoritative institution comprising leading scholars and economists, constituted by the European Goverments to undertake research and policy advice in global energy. I have given detailed quotations and references to the relevant data previously

Again, you're conflating the depletion rate for oil with primary energy - 2 distinct metrics as we've discussed previously.

extensive graphs throughout this post derived from this data applied to IHS CERA (another authoritative energy institute) data e.g.

yes, you've been posting the exact same graphs up for around 4 years now.

Is there not a version of this graph around now that actually shows the impact of the last 8 years of massively increased oil industry spend on exploring and developing new fields, instead of one who's hard data on discoveries seems to end around 2003/4 when exploration rates were at pretty much all time low levels before the impact of rising oil prices sent the industry into overdrive?

 

[Falcon]

yes, you've been posting the exact same graphs up for around 4 years now. Is there not a version of this graph around now that actually shows the impact of the last 8 years of massively increased oil industry spend on exploring and developing new fields, instead of one who's hard data on discoveries seems to end around 2003/4 when exploration rates were at pretty much all time low levels before the impact of rising oil prices sent the industry into overdrive

Firstly, thank you for conceding that post peak oil industry costs have increased massively, while production rate growth has been extinguished - one of the drivers of global financial system implosion.

You've mistakenly assumed those increases are on exploration:

There has been an apparent surge in oil and gas investment in recent years, but it is, to a large extent, illusory. Drilling, material and personnel costs in the industry have soared, so that in real terms investment in 2005 was barely higher than that in 2000
- World Energy Outlook 2006, IEA

That cost position has worsened - day rates for floaters (the rigs you need to get the oil you imagine exists) have increased 200% from the period 2000-2005 to 2005-2010 (ref). This is a reasonable proxy for overall costs. (Please note - the propaganda my industry writes will not make the distinction for you, and label it all as "Exploration")

You've also mistakenly assumed that the (much smaller) increased non-operating expenditure has been on the discovery of new volumes through exploration. It is now on depletion replacement from pre-discovered resource volumes. That is what the thick red lines in my figure shows. There is some incremental capital expenditure relative to historical average that could maintain above-depletion production growth. But this would take place at the expense of much more aggressive post peak depletion - delaying, then intensifying, the implosion of the financial system.

But your post is really another example of your inability to distinguish between short term noise and long term trend. You imagine there is some volume of discoverable resource that would make a material difference to the argument that the dominant energy source is now undergoing accelerating contraction. That is trivial to falsify.

The left hand graph shows the impact on peak of a single, arbitrary 75 billion barrel discovery, equivalent to the remaining reserves of the largest current producer, the Russian Federation (note: so such discovery has been made). Immediate replication of the system's current largest producer would extend peak 8 years (such a discovery might actually take 10-20 years to deliver, depending on location). The further past peak we go, the larger the discovery quantity necessary to deliver an incremental 1 year peak delay. The right hand graph shows 5 of these hypothetical discoveries at 5 year spacings - 375 billion barrels - 150% of Saudi including its paper barrels. This is the profile that would be necessary to sustain demand growth at its historical rate. It implies the immediate reversal of a 40 year historical decline in the rate of discovery returned to the highest historical rate of growth, achieved in the 1940’s, then sustained. That adds only another 6 years. I'll leave it as an exercise to convert that into trillions of dollars of exploration and development expenditure.

These are net discovery figures, by the way. Gross figures are higher in the ratio of the EROEIs of the unconventional sources comprising these hypothetical volumes and the EROEIs of the conventional volumes comprising the reference. And the discovery rates are necessary, but not sufficient, to delay peak - the discovery must be convertible into production at the rate determined by the contemporary natural depletion rate - not technically achievable with e.g. the Orinoco Tar Sands that are now claimed as examples of exploration discovery.

What discoveries were you referring to?

 

[junglevip]

Dig up a corpse for and steal gold teeth or how to beat poverty the old fashioned way

 

[Dr Jon]

An interesting read:
Secret and Lies of the Bailout

We thought we were just letting a friend crash at the house for a few days; we ended up with a family of hillbillies who moved in forever, sleeping nine to a bed and building a meth lab on the front lawn.

You can't trust money-juggling parasites further than you can shit.

Meanwhile, in Iceland...

Iceland went after the people who caused the crisis — the bankers who created and sold the junk products — and tried to shield the general population.
But what Iceland did is not just emotionally satisfying. Iceland is recovering, while the rest of the Western world — which bailed out the bankers and left the general population to pay for the bankers’ excess — is not.

 

[free spirit]

Firstly, thank you for conceding that post peak oil industry costs have increased massively, while production rate growth has been extinguished - one of the drivers of global financial system implosion.

You've mistakenly assumed those increases are on exploration:

I don't understand your position, surely you're not denying that there was a massive increase in exploration and development activity from around 2004 through 2009 that's missing from the graphs you keep reposting?

My best mate has for the last 15 years worked as the pilot / geophysical mapping lead on one or other of the boats used to explore the sea bed around the world searching for oil - well, he has other than for a period around 2002-04 when their company and all the others laid off most of the staff, and mothballed most of the boats because there wasn't enough demand for their services due to low oil prices and an apparent excess of supply over demand.

Since the price starting rising in 2004-5 all those mothballed boats and crews have been back out working 365 days a year all over the world surveying the sea bed in the search for new oil fields.

That cost position has worsened - day rates for floaters (the rigs you need to get the oil you imagine exists) have increased 200% from the period 2000-2005 to 2005-2010 (ref). This is a reasonable proxy for overall costs. (Please note - the propaganda my industry writes will not make the distinction for you, and label it all as "Exploration")

The reason the day rate goes up is largely because demand has gone up, and demand has gone up because there is more exploration and development work going on - as the follow up article to that one makes explicitly clear.

A doubling of day rate would seem to indicate somewhere in the region of a tripling in the utilisation rate.

There are now nearly double the number of active floaters that there were in 2004, though there was a reduction in the number of Jackup rigs in 2009-10 following the oil price reduction - either way, there was a significant upsurge in both between 2005-2009.

Anyway, my point was simply to ask why you're still using graphs that are using data that's around 8 years out of date, and what the actual picture is if you include the impact of these years of increased exploration and development spending. I'm a bit bemused to find you even questioning the idea that exploration and development activity went up significantly in that period.

 

[Crispy]

exploration is one thing, discovery another...

 

[free spirit]

exploration is one thing, discovery another...

you don't think the 2 might be somewhat related?

anyway, if there's nothing to hide in the data then why are those claiming we're already at peak and on the point of irreversible decline still referring to a graph based on 8 year old data from prior to a massive increase in exploration and development spending?

I think I've now worked out why...

OPEC 2011

now, granted around 200 our of the 270 billion barrels of increased reserves from 2007-11 comes from Venezuelan heavy oil / tar sands additions, and Venezuela's a bit of an odd case as it's not been investing heavily enough in its industry to even keep production levels up, but even without that it means that reserve levels have increased by 70 billion barrels in the last 5 years, which is a bit at odds with the picture painted by Falcon's outdated graphs.

If you included the Venezualan discoveries then that would put the discovery rate for the last few years at somewhere in the region of the highest rates on that graph from the 60's, which kinda blows a massive hole in the narative that seemed potentially valid in the mid 2000's, but doesn't now.

 

[free spirit]

(1) the energy supply is dominated by hydrocarbon (60%) and, in the case of the gobal transportation process critical to the industrial manufacturing system, liquid hydrocarbon (90%)

agreed

(2) the supply of liquid hydrocarbon is constrained by physical supply factors

Should read
(2) the supply of liquid hydrocarbon is constrained by a combination of physical, economic and political supply factors at present.

(3) the combustion of all hydrocarbons is constrained by emissions disposal factors

Well, they should be constrained by CO2 emissions restrictions if those restrictions actually were global restrictions that had any teeth, but unfortunately they aren't at present, so pretending they are or are even likely to be in the immediate future has little relation to reality.

Going on to use this to make out that these are limitations on energy supply that dictate that we don't have the energy available to make the transition to a low carbon economy, as you've done in the past, is a particularly stupid and counter productive position.

(4) the gap between demand (flat or growing) and physical- and combustion-constrained supply establishes a non-negotiable, time bound substitute demand schedule

what gap? there is no gap.

OK there is a massive disconnect between current energy supply situation and policies, and those needed to avoid the worst problems from climate change, but this just isn't going to result in the politicians suddenly turning around and deciding to actually turn off the fossil fuel energy tap to the world economy before the replacement low carbon, low energy intensity technologies are in place.

It just is not going to happen, and this is one of the main fallacies at the heart of your entire argument.

(5) there are no substitutes of equivalent EROEI in this timescale

You're obsessed with dealing with EROEI in isolation, but don't seem to get that above around 20:1 it's largely irrelevant as the actual energy available to the rest of the economy is between 95/100 at 20:1 and 99/100 at 100:1, and between 8:1 and 20:1 it only reduces from 95/100 to 87.5/100.

Beyond that point it does become more seriously relevant, but even at 5:1 that still gives 80/100 units of energy produced available to the wider economy which is still pretty useful.

If you compare that to the efficiency figures for an internal combustion engine which are around 35% average to 45% top end diesel, it's pretty obvious that efficiency gains over the last few decades will have more than made up for any reduction in EROI in oil. For example, an improvement in efficiency from 30% to 40% would offset all the reduction in EROI figures from 100:1 to 10:1 - the overall well to wheels efficiency would be identical.

As I pointed out earlier, and I don't think you commented on, with electricity production the comparison is actually a hell of a lot different as you're looking at eg for coal, 50:1 EROI or 98/100 units of energy x 35% thermal efficiency = only 34.3/100 units of energy available to the wider economy and 65.7 / 100 units lost in the extraction and conversion process. That's an equivalent EROI figure of 3:1, and yet that's been the main form of electricity generation around the world that's powered the last half century of economic development.

All renewable electricity generation methods (other than biomass replacing coal) have an EROI figure for electricity production that's far in excess of that 3:1 figure at around 8:1 for solar, 15-20:1 for wind, and 50:1+ for hydro and tidal.

So anyone making out that these renewables have a lower EROI than the fuels they're replacing really is just demonstrating that they haven't really thought about what the different figures actually mean.

The material components of my argument are (2) and (3) - the ones you have - understandably - avoided.

Sorry, there are so many holes in your arguments it's hard to know where to start. I trust this is sufficiently not avoided now?

 

[Falcon]

Well, they should be constrained by CO2 emissions restrictions if those restrictions actually were global restrictions that had any teeth, but unfortunately they aren't at present, so pretending they are or are even likely to be in the immediate future has little relation to reality. Going on to use this to make out that these are limitations on energy supply that dictate that we don't have the energy available to make the transition to a low carbon economy, as you've done in the past, is a particularly stupid and counter productive position.

So, your argument:

1. Using the hydrocarbon that is available to us if climate change is ignored to pursue a low carbon economy is likely to trigger climate change that would render that economy non-viable.

2. We *are* using the hydrocarbon that is available to us if climate change is ignored to pursue a low carbon economy, thereby triggering the climate change that would render the low economy non-viable.

3. Therefore, pointing out that there are limitations on energy supply that dictate that we don't have the energy available to make the transition to a low carbon economy is a particularly stupid and counter productive position.

Deranged.

Sorry, there are so many holes in your arguments it's hard to know where to start.

As I say. I'm ready to move on. I suggest you do.

 

[Falcon]

you don't think the 2 might be somewhat related?

They are. Unfortunately, you don't understand the relationship. Specifically, you don't understand the difference between the discovery of new resource, and the mobilisation of previously discovered resource. The latter is what is meant by "reserves". My industry exploits your willingness to believe the former is what is meant by the term to fool you into imagining that there is a process called "exploration" that yields "discoveries".

An analogy, to provoke a cornucopia of straw man fallacy arguments from you.

Your eccentric Aunt left 2 trillion pounds to you, and died. But she bequeathed it in a series of instalments into an account (call it the "Savings Account") administered by her lawyer which you don't have direct sight of.

They make an annual payment to you from the Savings account into your account (call it the "Deposit Account"), which has increased every year.

You want to know what your future income will be.

If you are particularly stupid (to use your nauseating argot), you will draw a straight line through a chart of the money paid into your Deposit Account by her lawyers.

If you are not, you will try to determine the schedule of payments made by your Aunt into the Savings Account. Working out the schedule of deposits, and applying some elementary statistics, will allow you to work out how much is in the trust fund, and therefore how long your trust fund will last at the expanding rate of withdrawal. One of the ways you can do that is to examine the dates on the bank notes the lawyers give you, and try and reconstruct the timing of the original payments from which the money is being paid.

The money being paid into your Deposit Account is what we call "Reserves". The money in the Savings account is what we call Ultimate Recoverable Resource. The process of examining the dates on the bank notes and reconstructing the payments is what we call "backdating". An extrapolation of cumulative backdated data yields Ultimate Recoverable Resource.

The data I've presented is the backdated data. New payments into our Deposit Account (this year's reserves mobilisations arising from this year's investment) get plotted at the date of the original discovery. Because they are now so small in relation to historical discovery, the graph doesn't appear to change at this scale - that's why you wrongly believe the graph isn't changing. There are some minor bumps representing modern discoveries - they are not material to the discussion. To calibrate - the smallish bump centred around the 1970's represents the combined discovery of the North Sea and Alaska plays. The others are the now declining contribution from Deep Water technology, and the recapitalisation of the undercapitalised (and now exhausting) Former Soviet Union.

Your little graph and critique of my data has been your efforts to draw a straight line through the payments into your Current Account. The extrapolation is an accounting entity - it has no physical interpretation.

By the way. The Venezuelan resource you talk about was discovered in the early 20th century.

 

[free spirit]

well I gave you the chance to post up your own stats, but you seem incapable or unwilling to do it, so I posted up the best approximation I could find that demonstrated fairly clearly that things had gone the other way since your graph ended in 2004 or so.

If what I'm saying is wrong then post up some stats that prove it. Surely 8 years down the line there should be stats that either show that the extrapolation line was correct, or that it wasn't.

 

[Falcon]

If what I'm saying is wrong then post up some stats that prove it. Surely 8 years down the line there should be stats that either show that the extrapolation line was correct, or that it wasn't.

You mean - apart from the one I already have? You prove it.

 

[free spirit]

So, your argument:

1. Using the hydrocarbon that is available to us if climate change is ignored to achieve a low carbon economy is likely to trigger climate change that would render even that economy non-viable.

2. We *are* using the hydrocarbon that is available to us if climate change is ignored to achieve a low carbon economy, thereby triggering the climate change that would render the low economy non-viable.

3. Therefore, pointing out that there are limitations on energy supply that dictate that we don't have the energy available to make the transition to a low carbon economy is a particularly stupid and counter productive position.

Deranged.



As I say. I'm ready to move on. I suggest you do.

Let's get this right,

You argue that we definitely don't have enough energy available to us to make the transition to a low carbon economy without causing irreversible climate change, therefore it is impossible for us to make that transition, therefore we're actually all just completely fucked and we're just going to have to just destroy the economy by leaving an arbitrary 80% of all fossil fuels in the ground and just accepting the end of industrial society as we know it and the consequent destitution and deaths of billions that would follow from this as a necessary consequence of possibly preventing irreversible climate change.

I'm saying that this is a fucking nuts way of looking at the issue, particularly given that the carbon numbers involved are based on probabilities not certainties, and that there's a fair chance we might actually be able to make the transition before we caused too severe problems (above those we've already set off in the arctic anyway), and even if we do then we're going to be a lot more capable of dealing with them as a high tech industrial global economy than we are if we're back to hunter gathering (and then potentially find that the climate had already been pushed over the edge into runaway greenhouse effect anyway).

In my scenario it's not even as if we actually don't have the option at some stage down the line of switching more of our energy and resources from existing uses to making the transition if the political situation improves, it just means that we actually are in a position to have that chance available as opposed to having already given up on wider society in favour of setting up a survivalist community.

I'll move on when you and your ilk stop hijacking the environmental movement for your own bizarre end times fantasies. If you're not going to be part of the solution then please get the fuck out of the way and let those of us trying to address the problem get on with it without your constant 'the end is nigh' sniping from the sidelines - it's really not helping the situation you know.

 

[elbows]

By the time this argument ends I think the sun will have run out of energy!

 

[free spirit]

By the time this argument ends I think the sun will have run out of energy!

Possibly.

From my position though this argument is symptomatic of an argument that needs to be had across the environmental movement as it's largely been co-opted and subverted by peak oilers like Falcon who're actually serving as a massive distraction from the real issues facing the world of climate change and the need to make the transition to a low carbon, low energy intensity economy as urgently as we can*.

He makes a plausible sounding hypothesis, but very little of it actually stacks up against the actual evidence - oil production isn't falling, net energy is rising not falling, EROI is falling but not fast enough to cause a net energy decline for probably decades yet, and efficiency rates are rising which offsets the impact of the EROI falls anyway.

I am starting to get a bit bored of it all now mind, but I thought it worthwhile really digging into what Falcon has been claiming to check if it had any validity or not - my conclusion is that it mostly doesn't.


*but apparently I'm a climate change denier.

 

[free spirit]

You mean - apart from the one I already have? You prove it.

Do you mean this bit?

You've mistakenly assumed those increases are on exploration:

There has been an apparent surge in oil and gas investment in recent years, but it is, to a large extent, illusory. Drilling, material and personnel costs in the industry have soared, so that in real terms investment in 2005 was barely higher than that in 2000
- World Energy Outlook 2006, IEA

so in answer to questions about why you're relying on 2004 data you post up a reference to a 2006 statement written about 2005 data... classic.

Now here's a graph showing the total tender activity for the seismic surveying vessels, clearly showing the number of active tenders in the market rising dramatically through the 2005-2008 period. Yes the activity fell back as the oil price crashed in 2008/9 but that was a temporary blip.

 

[Dr Jon]

Dennis Meadows describes the properties of global problems, linked via Quote Of The Year. And The Next

 

[free spirit]

Dennis Meadows describes the properties of global problems, linked via Quote Of The Year. And The Next

This graph proves that we are actually capable of taking proactive global action to solve a problem before it really becomes a serious issue.

Having said that, it took having an actual trained scientist as a leading world politician with the US presidents ear to make it happen. Something that's sorely lacking in world politics IMO (though not the rest of her policies).

The increased power of the industry lobbies since then, combined with the growth of this anti-science rightwing movement, combined with the more conspiracy theorist movement... all makes the process of actual rational decision making on these issues far more difficult / nie on impossible without politicians who're actually prepared to make a stand on the issue.

eta - not that I have much objection to that actual quote the article is based on, just it's take on it being a universal truth.

Meadows: The problem that faces our societies is that we have developed industries and policies that were appropriate at a certain moment, but now start to reduce human welfare, like for example the oil and car industry. Their political and financial power is so great and they can prevent change. It is my expectation that they will succeed. This means that we are going to evolve through crisis, not through proactive change.

 

[Falcon]

You argue that we definitely don't have enough energy available to us to make the transition to a low carbon economy without causing irreversible climate change, therefore it is impossible for us to make that transition,

… and even if we do then we're going to be a lot more capable of dealing with them as a high tech industrial global economy

Bingo.

No, I absolutely do not argue that we definitely don't have enough energy available to us to make the transition to a low carbon economy. I argue that there is no such thing as a low carbon high tech industrial global economy.

 

[Falcon]

He makes a plausible sounding hypothesis, but very little of it actually stacks up against the actual evidence - oil production isn't falling, net energy is rising not falling, EROI is falling but not fast enough to cause a net energy decline for probably decades yet, and efficiency rates are rising which offsets the impact of the EROI falls anyway.

Now here's a graph showing the total tender activity for the seismic surveying vessels, clearly showing the number of active blah blah blah

So we are all clear. You repeat - without evidence - the unexamined myths of the resource optimism lobby. The "actual evidence" you submit in service of your rebuttal of the observation that oil production must now follow the depletion curve determined by the exploration history is a graph of seismic survey vessel activity?

It's almost as if you don't quite grasp that rising *inputs* and falling *outputs* is precisely the outcome you expect in a depleted system.

I've told you the data you need to present to us to get your argument off life-support:

1. Evidence that we are on track to discovering the equivalent of 150% of current Saudi resource
2. Evidence that such discovery is new resource, not mobilised previous discovery
3. Evidence that such new resource can sustain the same production rate as the depleted resource did

When you've done that, you'll have shown that peak can be deferred 14 years. It would take 50+ years to build out your hi-tech systems. And that we will have discovered more new hydrocarbon to roast our planet with than even a climate skeptic like you can deny.

Let's see some "actual evidence". You are arguing that we are currently replicating the discovery conditions that pertained around the time of the 2nd world war, at the height of our discovery phase. This really ought not to be difficult.

You will find rather a lot of this kind of stuff. It's thrilling - filled with words like "giant", and "billion". 500 million barrels is 6 days of world supply. The Telegraph helpfully points out it will take 10 years to bring to market.

 

[Frank Merton]

I argue that there is no such thing as a low carbon high tech industrial global economy.

With all of the sustainable energy sources on the horizon, and some now coming into their own, that is hard to imagine anyone actually thinking this, absent some ideological axe grinding.

Even if none of them pan out short-term (a huge "if"), natural gas is coming on-stream to form a decent bridge, and even petroleum supplies will last longer than the doomsayers think.

I am sure you have a library of web sites that say something different; I've read many and am unconvinced. The sheer logic and economics of the thing is that mankind will do fine. I think sometimes people get a sort of perverse pleasure out of thinking we are doomed and this is the last generation.

 

[Falcon]

that is hard to imagine anyone actually thinking this, absent some ideological axe grinding.

I'm sure, of you, that is a true statement.

I am sure you have a library of web sites that say something different; I've read many and am unconvinced.

The hope of running high grade energy consuming high tech economies on low grade energy is indistinguishable, thermodynamically speaking, from the hope of turning a bath of tepid water into ice cubes and hot water. But if you don't understand thermodynamics (as most don't) then you won't realise that. Might I suggest, rather than websites, you read a foundational textbook in thermodynamics? 1st year university level is probably sufficient.

 

[Frank Merton]

I'm sure, of you, that is a true statement.

The hope of running high tech economies on low grade energy is indistinguishable, thermodynamically speaking, from the hope of turning a bath of tepid water into ice cubes and hot water. But if you don't understand thermodynamics (as most don't) then you won't realise that. Might I suggest, rather than websites, you read a foundational textbook in thermodynamics? 1st year university level is probably sufficient.

I don't need your patronizing insults. Either actually answer the question of ignore me.

 

[Falcon]

I don't need your patronizing insults. Either actually answer the question of ignore me.

Thanks for the unprovoked accusation of ideological axe grinding preceding your protest about feeling patronised and insulted. What question?

 

[Frank Merton]

What question?

OK you got me there; either respond or ignore.

 

[Falcon]

OK you got me there; either respond or ignore.

Respond to what? I don't detect a question.

 

[Falcon]

With all of the sustainable energy sources on the horizon, and some now coming into their own, that is hard to imagine anyone actually thinking this, absent some ideological axe grinding.

The highly diffuse, low grade energy arriving at the surface of the planet is renewable. The apparatus that is required to concentrate and up-convert that low grade energy into forms which an industrial society can consume is most definitely not. Specifically it must be manufactured, then operated and maintained, and continuously replaced. Those manufacturing, operation, maintenance and replacement processes require a functioning, global industrial manufacturing system and, therefore, very large quantities of high grade energy - currently supplied by hydrocarbon - that would be the product of the system. A system which must consume its own energy output for its own existence is not a system that solves any of our energy problems.

Even if none of them pan out short-term (a huge "if"), natural gas is coming on-stream to form a decent bridge

Provided you ignore emissions limits. And the newest source of gas replacing currently depleting sources - fraccing - has a higher carbon footprint than coal due to their associated fugitive methane emissions.

and even petroleum supplies will last longer than the doomsayers think.

A point which would be so much more convincing if you would address the elementary sensitivity analysis I presented above.


I'm sorry you feel the argument has no integrity and could only be deployed by an ideological axe grinder.

 

[Frank Merton]

Interesting; you manage to respond even when there is no question.

The low grade energy arriving at the surface of the planet is renewable. The apparatus that is required to up-convert that low grade energy into forms which an industrial society can consume is most definitely not.

Bald assertion. Means are under almost constant development, and is pretty much here now (i.e., my pocket calculator). It is bold of you to assert something is "definitely" not going to happen. How do you know what might be found in future?

Provided you ignore emissions limits. And the newest source of gas - fraccing - has a higher carbon footprint than coal.

Another bald assertion that strikes me as singularly outrageous. The problems of fracking can be avoided with appropriate regulation (I don't doubt there would be problems if the oil companies are left free to do what they want, but they won't be).