[GJM] Peak Everything [Richard Heinberg on energy]

[W. Curtiss Priest]

Subject:       Peak Everything [Richard Heinberg on energy]
	       A CITS Capital & Debt Watch Supplement
	       November 30, 2007

Dear cyber-folk,

Once again I am grateful to Mary Rose Hampton for
posting the article pasted in below.

When I chatted with a fellow physicist and information
maven, he blithly referred to a switch to uranium, as
a long term solution.

I could not reply because I had seen no "peak uranium"
data and my only sense was that, it, like gold, silver,
copper, coal, natural gas, oil, etc. are all at, or well
past, peak economic availability.

I think the word "economic availability" is critical
to think about all this, as, there will always be a
way of extracting any of these "natural resources" from
the earth if the price is high enough.

Now.  Thanks to Heinberg's web site:

        http://www.richardheinberg.com

I now have a citation for a "definitive" study on the
peak availability of uranium, and the peak date is
around the year 2050 !

OK!  This is not far behind everything else.  I presume
it lags everything else because the US and other countries
got leary of "nuclear power" and disposal issues.  So,
we have this quotation from Heinberg (in his museletter #179,
March, 2007):

  Where could 10 quads of new energy production capacity come from? The
  expansion of nuclear power is problematic given future constraints in
  the availability of uranium (another study by EWG, "Uranium Resources
  and Nuclear Energy," published in 2006, estimates that global
  production will peak before 2050 even with robust resource estimates),
  and also given the high expense and time lags associated with
  constructing nuclear power plants. Tar sands and oil shale face
  practical hurdles such as shortages of fresh water for processing.
  Biofuels suffer from low energy profit ratios, and their development
  likewise requires substantial quantities of fresh water. Other
  renewables_solar, wind, tidal, wave, and geothermal_have significant
  potential for increase; however, there is arguably no credible
  scenario in which these could grow fast enough to offset projected
  declines in any one of the three principal fossil fuels, much less all
  three together.

The EWG referred to here is the Energy Watch Group which
also issued a "definite" piece on coal, and found that "peak
coal" will be sooner than anticipated as "known reserves"
are lower than previously believed.  See the entire newsletter
for more:

        http://www.richardheinberg.com/museletter/179

*****

There are enormous implications of all of these drainings
of natural resources and that many such drainings are past
peak.

First, most people simply will not be able to hear this
news, and will go about their resource-intensive lives,
as always.

This does not mean they won't feel it ... it is just that
it will sneak up on them in the form of:

        1.  home/business heating and cooling costs
        2.  required home/business retrofits of all kinds
                and all costs (but, as most will not act
                to conserve, they will simply pay more than
		the annualized cost of the retrofits).
        3.  food prices, based on the increased costs of
                producing food and the increased costs of
                transporting it.  For example, it simply
                will not make economic sense to grow
                potatoes, other than close to home.  Many
		exotics such as oranges from Africa to the
		US will simply disappear (and be remembered
		as an odd odyssey -- stories to be told by
		future generations about this bizarre period
		in history).
	4.  all energy intensive and energy related economic
		activity will become considerably more expensive,
		and so, via the supply/demand curve, the demand
		will drop as will overall revenues and overall
		profits
	5.  as a vast percentage of the US economy fits in #4,
		the impact on stock prices will be enormous,
		and extremely negative
	6.  as debt is already staggering in the US, debt
		will continue to mount as folk attempt to
		maintain the lifestyles and standards of
                living they have come to expect in this
                grand place, North America.
        7.  many will counter that the economic activity
                of the "retrofits" (above) will provide
                the new jobs, etc., but, these are not
		"product" as we have come to know it, it
		is really substituting a smaller cost for
		the ever rising costs of resources
	8.  inflation (and I prefer to use the word to mean
		what some term "spiraling inflation") will
		become uncontrollable as everyone loses
		any notion of what anything should cost and
		the avarice folk will try to get ahead by
		tacking on fictitious cost rises -- thus
		the word 'spiral.'

So, unfortunately for all of us we will live in a vastly
different world, quite soon.  Those Boomers entering
retirement will first lose much of what "they have" to
the reckless risks assumed on their behalf by the Generation-X,
"nomadic," non-caring money managers who have played vast
games with Boomer "wealth" and then the Boomers will find
that even if they had the money "promised them" in countless
ads about how money compounds and how rich everyone will be
in retirement, the trips to exotic lands will simply be
too costly as jet fuel becomes more costly than cheap
champagne.

Whichever, I do suggest that everyone look at the savings
from resource conservation.  Demand to get what the furnace
purveyors promise in that 20% increase in efficiency, not via
a $7000 purchase of a "new furnace," but by a few hundred
dollars of well chosen retrofits.  My 1893 soft coal
furnace, e.g., is just fine, and is about as close to maximum
efficiency via 1.)  a flame retention oil burner, 2.)  damper
closer, 3.)  chimney liner/heat extractor of the "last 400
degrees," 4.)  sizing the nozzel correctly so that the
furnace is on 24 hours a day, on the coldest day (sounds
unintuitive ... yes, "sounds," 5.)  a "wet pack," light
weight fiber combustion chamber that glows cherry red, further
increasing efficiency.  But none of this is new.  I brought
similar furnaces up to 90% efficiency in 1974.  Insulation?

Yeah, start with the basement walls!  Floor to ceiling, based
on a 1973 Canadian article that showed partial insulation
is short-circuited by the vertical rise of heat in stone/concrete,
heat conducting walls.  Don't be fooled by the fact the
basement runs cooler.  If it is at 65 degrees and outside
it is 22 degrees, the delta T (65-22) is not much different
than say 72-22 of a first floor room.  Read a fine booklet
we produced in '73 for more, "In the Bank or Up the Chimney"
that we wrote for HUD.  Or, just move to a berm house with
a solar exposure ... done right, heating and cooling costs
are nil.

Yeah, peak everything.

Regards,

WCP

["fair use," "teachable moment," "archival," Section 107(a), 1976
Copyright Act and 1998 Digital Millennium Act]

Apocalyptic Vision of a Post-Fossil Fuel World By Paul Eccleston The
Telegraph UK

Thursday 22 November 2007

An apocalyptic vision of how the world will look after the oil runs
out has been given by a top scientist.

Richard Heinberg, one of the world's leading experts on oil reserves,
warned that the lives of billions of people were threatened by a food
crisis caused by our dependence on dwindling supplies of fossil fuels.

Higher oil prices, the loss of farmland to biofuel crops, climate
change and the loss of natural resources would combine with population
growth to create an unprecedented food shortage, he claimed.

The only way to avoid a world food crisis was a planned and rapid
reduction of fossil fuel use - oil, coal and gas - and a switch to
more organic methods in the growing and delivery of food. It would
mean a return to living off the land not seen for 150 years.

The stark predictions were made by Heinberg in a lecture to the Soil
Association in London.

Heinberg, an author and former advisor to the National Petroleum
Council, specialises in 'Peak Oil' - the point where oil production
reaches its maximum and begins to decline - and the implications it
has for climate change and food security.

He said for thousands of years, until the 19th century and the onset
of the Industrial Revolution, all food production had been local. In
good years there was enough to eat and to store and in bad years there
was starvation.

The invention of the petrol engine increased the amount of arable land
available to grow food, the size and efficiency of farm machinery
improved, and better pesticides were developed - all of which
contributed to a better food supply.

As food became more plentiful and cheap, the threat of famine
disappeared and obesity became more widespread than hunger. Food,
grain, meat and vegetables began to be exported around the world and
the world population increased six-fold.

By the 1960s industrial-chemical practices had been exported to the
third world and in the next half century food production tripled - but
at an unrecognised cost of water and soil pollution and enormous
environmental damage.

Heinberg said that, unfortunately, it was all unsustainable and the
abundance of food depended on depleting, non-renewable fossil fuels
whose burning produced climate-altering carbon dioxide.

The depletion of oil stocks, the demand for biofuels as an
alternative, environmental degradation and extreme weather caused by
climate change, were coming together to pose massive problems for
world food production.

The situation would be made worse by a shortage of fresh drinking
water. According to UN estimates, one third of the world's population
lived in areas with water shortages and 1.1 billion people lack access
to safe drinking water. The situation was expected to worsen
dramatically over the next few decades.

While the human population had tripled in the 20th century, the use of
renewable water resources had grown six-fold.

The UN Environment Program had concluded that the planet's water,
land, air, plants, animals and fish stocks were all in "inexorable
decline" much of it due to agriculture, which constituted the greatest
single source of human impact on the biosphere.

Heinberg said that to get to the heart of the crisis a comprehensive
transformation of world agriculture was needed - greater than anything
seen in many decades - which would produce a system that was not
reliant on fossil fuels.

He cited Cuba as an example of what could be achieved. In the 1980s it
had become reliant on cheap fuel supplied by Russia and was using more
agrochemicals per acre than even the US. But after the fall of
communism, supplies dried up. The average Cuban lost 20lbs in weight,
living standards collapsed and malnutrition became widespread.

Cuban authorities responded by redesigning the food supply system.
Large state-owned farms were broken up and given to families and they
were encouraged to form co-operatives, biological methods were used
for pest control, oxen replaced tractors, urban vegetable gardens
flourished and people began to keep chickens and rabbits for food.
Twenty years later food production was 90 per cent of its former
levels.

Heinberg said what was needed was a return to ecological organic
farming methods which would require the transformation of societies.

And with oil supplies rapidly running out the full resources of
national governments would be needed to achieve it.

The amount of food transportation would have to be reduced, food would
need to be grown in and around cities, and producers and consumers
would need to live closer together.

The use of pesticides would have to be reduced in packaging and
processing, draft animals would be reintroduced and governments would
have to provide incentives for people to return to an agricultural
life. Land reform would be needed to enable smallholders and farming
co-ops to work their own plots and population growth would have to be
curbed.

"All of this constitutes a gargantuan task, but the alternatives -
doing nothing or attempting to solve our food-production problems
simply by applying mere techno-fixes - will almost certainly lead to
dire consequences," he said.

"All of the worrisome trends mentioned earlier would intensify to the
point that the human carrying capacity of Earth would be degraded
significantly, and perhaps to a large degree permanently."

Heinberg added: "The transition to a fossil-fuel-free food system does
not constitute a distant utopian proposal. It is an unavoidable,
immediate, and immense challenge that will call for unprecedented
levels of creativity at all levels of society.

"A hundred years from now, everyone will be eating what we today would
define as organic food, whether or not we act.

"But what we do now will determine how many will be eating, what state
of health will be enjoyed by those future generations, and whether
they will live in a ruined cinder of a world, or one that is in the
process of being renewed and replenished."

--

-- 

	   W. Curtiss Priest, Director, CITS
		Research Affiliate, MIT
      Center for Information, Technology & Society
	 466 Pleasant St., Melrose, MA  02176
   781-662-4044  BMSLIB at MIT.EDU http://Cybertrails.org