We cannot drill our way out of this oil crisis. Since 2000, oil companies working in the U.S. have doubled the number of wells drilled per year.
Although increased drilling has added new oil to the nation's supply, it has not done so fast enough to offset the terminal decline of existing fields.
We are going to have to import more of our oil. Period.
Posted: Thu Sep 16, 2004 6:59 pm Post subject: Liebig's Law & Overshoot; Why There Will Be a Die-off.
My background is that of National Park Ranger, ecologist, environmentalist, and desert naturalist. I have studied, photographed, and written about complex ecosystems for many years. I have seen a lot of debate about the post-peak world and how there will or will not be a die-off of the population. As we all know, we are about to enter an era in which each year, less net energy will be available to humankind, regardless of our efforts or choices. Energy is not the only factor, however; the operative principle in determining the carrying capacity of an ecosystem is known as Liebig's Law, which states that whatever necessity is least abundant, relative to per-capita requirements, sets the environment's limit for the population of any given species.
The Second Law of Thermo Dynamics states that whenever energy is converted from one form to another, there is an energy loss in the form of heat. This is the law of entropy as well, which is a measure of the amount of energy no longer practically capable of conversion to work. Entropy within an isolated system inevitably increases over time. Since it takes work to create and maintain order within a system, the entropy law tells us that, in the battle between order and chaos, it is chaos that ultimately wins. Look at a child's bedroom and the chaotic disarray that happens overnight. It takes more energy to put that room back in order than it did to mess it up. The only truly isolated system we know of is the universe. But there are two other system types: open and closed. The earth is an example of a closed system. It exchanges energy with the universe, but not matter, save the occasional meteorite. Since it is a closed system it's environment is always being degraded by entropy, but the thermodynamic equilibrium with space is maintained by the input of solar radiation.
Living organisms, on the other hand, are an example of an open system, where both matter and energy are exchanged. It is because of this exchange that living systems can afford to create and sustain order. Take that usable source of energy away and they soon die. This is true of human societies and technologies as well. Human societies can increase their level of order by increasing their energy flow-through; but by doing so they increase the entropy (random movement towards disorder) within the open system. The energy available in an ecosystem is one of the most important factors in determining its "carrying capacity," which is the maximum population that can be supported on an on-going basis. This brings us back to Leibig's Law. The limiting factor for any population may change over time. Nature prefers stable arrangements that entail self-limitation, recycling, and cooperation. Energy subsidies as the results of disturbed environments (mining, oil, coal, LNG, extraction) or colonization (invading Iraq) provide giddy moments of extravagance for the species, but crashes and die-offs usually follow. Balance eventually returns.
Man has increased his energy flow-through in many ways: colonization, tool use, specialization, globalization(trade), and the use of nature's stock of non-renewable resources: coal, oil, natural gas, and uranium. This last strategy has been the most successful in increasing the carrying capacity of the environment. The human population did not reach 1 billion until 1820; so in 184 years, it has increased six-fold. If we were to add up the total energy consumption that keeps us in the life-style we are accustomed to, compared to the energy a human body can produce, we find that every American has the equivalent of 50 "energy slaves"working for us 24 hours a day. Far-out, you say! It has its costs: ecological destruction, pollution, climate change, and an every increasing dependency on sun-light carbon that went underground millions of years ago, which is not a part of the earth's closed carbon cycle system.
Please note this caveat:
If the availability of these "fossil fuels" were to decline significantly without our having found effective replacements, then the global human carrying capacity could plummet perhaps even below its pre-industrial levels.
Nature has feedback loops that keep its populations in check. We have found ways to circumvent most of them: medicines to combat disease, increased production of food, and the exploitation of non-renewable energy sources. In the closed system of earth, energy is limited to renewables, but since we have opened the treasure chests of earth-bound goodies, we have been able to keep entropy in check.
When there is lots of food-energy made available through the exploitation of a heretofore unavailable resource, a population blooms. Obviously, it can't go on forever, eventually there will be more population than there is food-energy to support it. Over the long-term, nature will strike a balance between the numbers of a given species and the available food. However, the momentum of population increase may lead the population to what is referred to as "overshoot, " and exceed the carrying capacity of their environment.
This thread's premise assumes that we are, indeed, in "overshoot."
Here's where peak-oil and Liebig's Law comes in. Since the proliferating, ever-energy-hungry population may consume the energy(the least abundant limiting factor) faster than it can be produced, the population may actually reduce their carrying capacity even as their numbers and energy consumption is increasing. If this occurs, the population will not simply gradually diminish until balance is achieved: instead, it will rapidly crash--that is, die-off. As we are not bacteria in a petri dish competing for sugar, the rate of decline of our extraction of fossil fuels will determine the rate and magnitude of this crash.
At this point, depending on how seriously the human population has altered it's carrying capacity(as a die-off usually decimates the species environment), we will either adapt or we could die out altogether if alternative food-energy sources are not found and the environment restored. We wouldn't be the first large mammal or human to do so. If we reduce our consumption of energy(powerdown) so that we could meet demand with renewables, then we just might stabilize at a lower population level over time, by attrition, with minimal tragic die-off.
How we will "adapt" remains to be seen, but unless we find a new treasure chest of an heretofore unexploited energy-food resource equal to oil and other fossil fuels, we will be subject to the rebalancing and limiting forces of Liebig's Law.
And even if we find the requisite energy, water, climate change, loss of biodiversity, or soil fertility may be the next limiting factor that lowers our carrying capacity.
No species is immune to Liebig's Law. The party is over, the beer is gone, and the harsh light of morning is in our eyes. _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
Last edited by MonteQuest on Thu Apr 19, 2007 11:46 pm; edited 13 times in total
I highly recommend the book Entropy by Jeremy Rifkin, who was the first to put the Entropy Law into layman's language, years ago. I consider this one of the most important books I have ever read in my entire life, number one or two on my list.
Yes, it was on that book that I cut my teeth. It forever changed the way I looked at the world. This law rules the universe. _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
Rifkin's book, Entropy: Into the Greenhouse World, was written in 1980, almost 25 years ago He predicted:
Quote:
Between 1995 and 2010, the OPEC nations are expected to cut back their production, forcing world-wide prices of oil to go up again, triggering a new world energy crisis similar to the one experienced in the 1970's. This time, however, the energy experts warn that the crisis will only deepen over time, plunging the world into a long-term depression.
_________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
Joined: May 26, 2004 Posts: 309 Location: Ontario, Canada
Posted: Thu Sep 16, 2004 9:41 pm Post subject:
Rifkin's 1990 book The Hydrogen Economy is almost entirely on the peak oil problem - only the last two chapters deal with hydrogen at all! You'd almost swear you were reading a book about oil/energy/society, not hydrogen.
Unfortunately, he glosses over all the techinical problems with hydrogen, and jumps very quickly to everyone producing their own power and trading hydrogen like it was the internet. He seems to assume that better technology and economies of scale would bring the cost of renewables and hydrogen generation and storage down, incredibly dramatically. (Like, the 3rd world should seriously be considering hydrogen). _________________ "Our forces are now closer to the center of Baghdad than most American commuters are to their downtown office."
--Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, April 2003
Posted: Thu Sep 16, 2004 10:02 pm Post subject: Re: Leibig’s Law, Why There Will Be a Die-off.
MonteQuest wrote:
As we all know, we are about to enter an era in which each year, less net energy will be available to humankind, regardless of our efforts or choices.
No one knows what the ultimate result of our efforts might be. You're position is ideological, not scientific. Are you saying that we shouldn't even make an effort?
Quote:
Nature prefers stable arrangements that entail self-limitation, recycling, and cooperation.
Nature doesn't "prefer" anything. You're simply trying to foist your own biases onto Nature, much like conservatives who try to tell us nature prefers heterosexuality. You're using nature as a surrogate God to try to advance your agenda.
Quote:
However, if the population were to consume the energy to the point of total elimination, the carrying capacity would be reduced to zero, and the people would die out altogether.
Sloppy thinking, and an obvious fallacy. Even if all fossil fuels were exhausted, we would still have considerable energy input from hydro, nuclear, solar, wind, geothermal and plants. Oil is important, but it's not air, Monte. We're not going to all suffocate and die if the tap runs dry.
Monte - after such posts it seems foolhardy to challenge the Law of Entropy, but I think in a sense that is just what we are here to do.
If we accept it at face value, positing fossil fuel dependence as the sole operating factor, then overshoot and severe dieback are inevitable.
If on the other hand we can foresee the process and take action to redeem our position, specifically by the development of sustainable precedents of local energy self reliance, surely the outcome is changed, at least to the extent of significantly reducing both the dieback and the risk of extinction ?
This is why the thread on Jevons Paradox rang so true for me: improved fossil energy efficiency options not only tend to accelerate the resource's depletion, since they do nothing whatsoever to get beyond dependence on that resource, and even assuage peoples' concerns, they are also a distraction from constructive developments.
Therefore my faith is in the power of precedents of sustainable energy production, about whom the general public's ignorance seems near-total. The extent to which the latter can be informed, and induced to invest effort and money in their deployment, is maybe the extent to which entropy can be driven back ?
Posted: Thu Sep 16, 2004 10:18 pm Post subject: Re: Leibig’s Law, Why There Will Be a Die-off.
kochevnik wrote:
As a society, the Entropy Law says we should use the smallest amount of energy possible to maintain the lowest level of order possible to achieve a viable community.
Boy, the quacks are really crawling out of the woodwork today. The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is a value neutral inequality which has no moral content. It doesn't say we "should" do anything. Chemistry and physics are not concerned with questions of "should". If you think we should do X, that's fine, and we can discuss that. But we're not all so stupid that we'll buy into your quack tactic of trying to "prove" your agenda from physical first principles.
Posted: Thu Sep 16, 2004 10:53 pm Post subject: Re: Leibig?s Law, Why There Will Be a Die-off.
JohnDenver wrote:
MonteQuest wrote:
As we all know, we are about to enter an era in which each year, less net energy will be available to humankind, regardless of our efforts or choices.
No one knows what the ultimate result of our efforts might be. You're position is ideological, not scientific. Are you saying that we shouldn't even make an effort?
You have to look at the text, John, "net" energy. No other source of energy we know of can meet that net demand.
Quote:
Quote:
Nature prefers stable arrangements that entail self-limitation, recycling, and cooperation.
Nature doesn't "prefer" anything. You're simply trying to foist your own biases onto Nature, much like conservatives who try to tell us nature prefers heterosexuality. You're using nature as a surrogate God to try to advance your agenda.
This is not my bias, it is a basic tenet of ecology recognized by the entire scientific community. My agenda is to submit the facts as I know them and let discerning minds figure out what is salient and what is not.
Quote:
Quote:
However, if the population were to consume the energy to the point of total elimination, the carrying capacity would be reduced to zero, and the people would die out altogether.
Sloppy thinking, and an obvious fallacy. Even if all fossil fuels were exhausted, we would still have considerable energy input from hydro, nuclear, solar, wind, geothermal and plants. Oil is important, but it's not air, Monte. We're not going to all suffocate and die if the tap runs dry
Basic Liebig's Law, John . The rule here is whatever necessity is least abundant, relative to per-capita requirements, sets the environment's limit for the population of any given species. The adaptation to a new energy source(renewables) is critical to avoid a complete die-off. What are the necessities for life? Food, air, and water. Fossil fuels, in this case is the least abundant necessity, so it sets the carrying capacity. If we find ourselves having to adapt to other forms of energy quickly, we may not be able to sustain a breeding population with enough genetic diversity to maintain a viable population. For example, the Blue whale and the Grizzly bear are two examples of animals on the verge of "biological extinction". Over generations of inbreeding, a gene pool this small of any animal becomes predisposed to genetic defects which can lead to outright extinction. If you think for one minute that man is different, you are sadly mistaken.
You seem to have a lot of pent up anger, John. It would do you well to redirect it. You will be better received in the process. _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
Last edited by MonteQuest on Sat Mar 19, 2005 9:33 am; edited 3 times in total
If we accept it at face value, positing fossil fuel dependence as the sole operating factor, then overshoot and severe dieback are inevitable.
If on the other hand we can foresee the process and take action to redeem our position, specifically by the development of sustainable precedents of local energy self reliance, surely the outcome is changed, at least to the extent of significantly reducing both the dieback and the risk of extinction ?
Yes, but we have a lot of forward momentum. Switching to the energy within the closed system of earth (the renewables) is going to come at a huge price. We needed to move in that direction long ago. If the rate and magnitude of peak-oil is quick, there is little we can do to avoid chaos. On the other hand, if it is slow and we make huge leaps to downsize everything, which means we will literally have to stop all births and force those who won't stop consuming. The competition could get quite fierce. They don't call it the struggle for survival for nothing. It is all about how fast and how big it happens. Rate and magnitude. In ecology, we have an axiom: if it becomes readily apparent to everyone that there is a problem, it is too late to do anything about it.
Yes, the outcome can be changed. Look at all of us here. If we didn't think we could make a difference, we wouldn't be here would we? _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
Brilliant post Monte. Entropy is such an amazing concept that I think only the most intelligent can fathom it's reach.
Thank you very much. And I concur with your last sentence. _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
I'd actually put a lot of thought into the effect of entropy on society before I ever learned of peak oil.
I remember learning about the laws of thermodynamics in Grade 11 Physics. I basically remember asking my teacher that since we're probably by far the most complex society to date doesn't that mean we're pretty much hooped on the grand scale of things. I don't remember exactly what he said but I think it was along the lines of "Yes, but hopefully we won't have to deal with it for a long time."
All I know is that since then I feel like the world is a ticking time bomb. As the years pass my conviction only grows stronger. From what I can remember of the eighties the world seemed to be a lot more chillin'. Everyone was just a little more relaxed, a little friendlier. And wasn't the 80's supposed to be the "me" decade? It seems to me that in the 90's and now carrying on into the new century, there's plenty of the "me" attitude to go around. Only now it's coupled with apathy. Now we just don't care if the world falls to crap around us as long as we still have our nintendo. At least that's what the people I seem to see around are like. Either that, or they've got unrealistic beliefs that everything is great, the economy is great, and our politicians care. Which makes me laugh, and laugh, because they don't.
What are the necessities for life? Food, air, and water. Fossil fuels, in this case is the least abundant necessity, so it sets the carrying capacity.
Small correction, but important. What are the necessities for life? Food, air, and water. Fossil fuels(food), in this case is the least abundant, so it sets the carrying capacity. Food can mean derivatives of sunlight, i.e., plants or old plants(fossil fuels) or renewables, but the renewables must be currently exploitable (ready) and available. A system can get awful hungry for energy flow to counter chaos while waiting for plants to grow or the wind to blow, or the sun to shine. The law of diminishing returns or entropy takes over once more. Hope this clears up any head scratching.
Sorry for the mistake, John Boy got me flustered! _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
Last edited by MonteQuest on Sat Mar 19, 2005 9:36 am; edited 1 time in total
Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2004 3:03 am Post subject: Re: Leibig’s Law, Why There Will Be a Die-off.
MonteQuest wrote:
JohnDenver wrote:
MonteQuest wrote:
As we all know, we are about to enter an era in which each year, less net energy will be available to humankind, regardless of our efforts or choices.
No one knows what the ultimate result of our efforts might be. You're position is ideological, not scientific. Are you saying that we shouldn't even make an effort?
You have to look at the text, John, "net" energy. No other source of energy we know of can meet that net demand.
You didn't answer the question: Are you saying that we shouldn't even make an effort to develop new sources of energy?
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Nature prefers stable arrangements that entail self-limitation, recycling, and cooperation.
Nature doesn't "prefer" anything. You're simply trying to foist your own biases onto Nature, much like conservatives who try to tell us nature prefers heterosexuality. You're using nature as a surrogate God to try to advance your agenda.
This is not my bias, it is a basic tenet of ecology recognized by the entire scientific community.
which means we will literally have to stop all births and force those who won't stop consuming.
Here, Monte shows his true colors. You really gotta wonder when he starts talking about the necessity of mass death, and forcing people to behave. On the outside, Monte's a warm, cuddly park ranger who loves animals. On the inside, he's Mao Tse Tung.
What you are stating here, backstop, is the core of the PeakOil optimists argument, that if society simply reduced the amount (or type) of energy use then entropy can be decelerated.
I've enjoyed the thread, but it presents the argument that really depresses me. Sooner or later we have to hit a brick wall. When we carry it a step further, I think we have to hit the wall while accelerating.
I was at family gathering when the discussion veered to population and consumption and lifestyle. One relative provided an excellent argument as to how much better off we would be if we consumed less ourselves and shared more. If only we would each choose to be less greedy and more generous. We could choose to sacrifice and conserve. We could make a better world.
Jevon's Paradox clicked into my mind. "Suppose we agree that everything would be better if we all behaved that way. Wouldn't that just mean the human species would be more successful? Wouldn't that just mean that we would grow faster and hit the wall harder?"
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Personally, I believe that while a soft landing is clearly technologically possible, it is the social and psychological factors which will negate the possibility of a smooth transistion.
I suppose I agree if we included the economic issues as part of the social and psychological baggage, but I don't think it is necessary to really consider these factors in this discussion. We can stick to the real sciences. I think it comes down to biology. We are designed to grow our population. Every species is designed to grow the population.
If our intelligence could be successfully used to overcome the drive to survive and reproduce, it would not have evolved. If we get smarter we get more successful and in biology that means more.
An immutable law of physics plus biology equals a train wreck. That's how I add it up. In terms of human misery I'm not sure whether it matters whether we lose half the global population over ten years or over a hundred years. Either way it is a way of looking at the problem that paints a very bleak picture.
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got me flustered!
