[tom_s2]

Hi Pops,

What about electric cars, which have been introduced by every major manufacturer in the last few years, with many more coming? What about Tesla building a gigafactory? What about electrification of rail all over the world, so that most rail traffic is electric now? The German Energiewende? The California mandate to get 33% of its electricity from renewables by 2020, which it's on track to meet? Similar mandates from approximately 20 other states, and from many other countries? Solar power dropping in price by 80%, and deployments increasing by leaps and bounds everywhere?

Granted, this stuff is still in the early stages. I think EVs are about 1% of total sales. I think that "new renewables" (such as solar and wind) provide about 2-3% of electricity in the US and Europe.

However, this was all starting from a base of approximately zero in 2011. There wasn't a single plug-in car on the market 4 years ago. Solar power was so tiny that it barely existed.

All of this started long before any actual declines of fossil fuel production.

-Tom S

[Pops]

I hope all that stuff and more comes down the pike, Tom. We need to invest a lot of the FFs we have left to build a non-FF system we can live with while we can. Then if we can continue to bend the population curve and the worst climate models are wrong maybe we have a shot.

I don't believe in fate, in either direction.

[vtsnowedin]

Hi Pops,

What about electrification of rail all over the world, so that most rail traffic is electric now?

-Tom S

I think you need a reality check.

[tom_s2]

Hi vtsnowedin,

I just did a quick google search ("electrified railroad world") and the first link which came up was a wikipedia article on railroad electrification:

In 2006, 240,000 km (25% by length) of the world rail network was electrified and 50% of all rail transport was carried by electric traction. (my emphasis)

In 2012 for electrified kilometers, China surpassed Russia making it first place in the world with over 48k km electrified.[14] Trailing behind China was Russia 43.3k km, Germany 21.0k km, India 18.8k km, Japan 17.0k km, and France 15.2k km. By the end of 2015, China planned to have about 72k km electrified.

If you didn't know this, then you should have typed it into google before reflexively rejecting it.

Germany uses electricity for the majority of its rail traffic. Almost 30% of that electricity comes from renewables now.

-Tom S

[sunweb]

tom_s2 - My remarks to and about you are because I have been down this path before and found it a waste of time. Perhaps you feel the same. I post now in respect for others so they can see how solar and wind energy collecting devices are extensions of the fossil fuel supply system and the global industrial infrastructure.
Are you in the solar or wind energy devices business?
I did post an answer but it got lost.
Underwriting every one of the process you propose there is a global industrial complex. As I understand it you are proposing to replace this complex with another complex. You will manufacture with all the energy and materials needed the four story diesel/electric dump trucks and the even larger scoops for mining. Replacing the global glass industry with the energy sources you propose that will provide not only energy but also the massive equipment that is needed to achieve the economies of scale.
The EROI of solar energy collecting devices is low. If you have an argument with that take it up with Charles Hall, Pedro Prieto and Graham Palmer. http://sunweber.blogspot.com/2014/01/en ... eroei.html
Here is information on glass. The low iron glass used in solar energy collecting devices isn't recycled because of impurities. http://sunweber.blogspot.com/2015/03/ma ... ass_8.html
Aluminum can be recycled saving 95% of the energy it takes in mining. This brief video illustrates the industrial equipment involved. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Plp7HYXCpZA
All of this must be made with your switch to another complex situation. We will need copper, rare metals, concrete and rebar for wind turbines, plastics, and fuel; lots and lots of fuel. Here is another essay showing what you are proposing to replace without using fossil fuels. And it was fossil fuels that allowed industry. http://sunweber.blogspot.com/2011/12/ma ... aking.html
The solar and wind energy collecting devices are not immune from the oil plateau we are on right now. They are not a separate sphere of activity.
My main concern is business as usual. My main concern is that people will do anything and everything to maintain their present personal level of energy use and the comfort it affords us. We will do anything and everything to the earth, to other people and even to ourselves to continue on this path. And if we don’t have the energy level we see others have, we will do anything and everything to the earth, to other people and even to ourselves to attain that level. The proof of this assertion is simple; we are doing it.
This is a global issue. If this is an egalitarian approach, a humane approach you are proposing it will be interest to see.
In 2000 using an Excel spread sheet and using energy as a measure, I took all the countries of the world; got their population, petroleum use, natural gas use, and electricity use. I figured the per capita use for each of these energies for each country. I then rank order each of the per capita uses for each energy from the least to the most and then did a population accumulation so that I could ask what did 75 to 80% of the people use.
For petroleum 72% of the people in the world in the year 2000 had access to 4 barrels of oil or LESS each year. The United States that year had access per capita to 25 barrels of oil. The per capita use in many countries is misleading because the wealthy get the bulk of the energy. With electricity, 75% of the world population had access to 5kWh a day. And that again is misleading because the wealthy got the lion's share.
I have done this multiple times since the 80s and the numbers have remained essentially the same. With scrapping the bottom of the petroleum barrel and the ongoing threat of climate change, the outlook is bleak initially for the poor.
It seems to me all this promotion of solar and wind energy collecting devices are either envisioned as worldwide or it is simply more imperial colonizing of countries with resources and no power. Then think of the resources and energy required.
I don't wish you success because I want the next generations to have a viable earth to live on along with many other species.

[GregT]

'What about electric cars, which have been introduced by every major manufacturer in the last few years, with many more coming?"

Built from resources extracted and refined with fossil fuels.

"What about electrification of rail all over the world, so that most rail traffic is electric now?

Built from resources extracted and refined with fossil fuels.

"The California mandate to get 33% of its electricity from renewables by 2020, which it's on track to meet?"

So if California meets it's goals, and manages to get 33% of it's electricity from alternates (there is no such thing as renewable energy sources) by 2020, where do you believe that the other 67% will come from? Never mind the added electricity needed to power electric rail and electric vehicles.

"All of this started long before any actual declines of fossil fuel production."

All of this "started" with fossil fuel inputs. Take fossil fuels out of the equation and all of this is gone in less than a couple of decades, whatever small percentage that we do manage to build out for the transition to a vastly reduced energy future.

You are still in a very serious state of denial Tom. Learn how to grow your own food now, while the opportunity still presents itself.

[Newfie]

I hope all that stuff and more comes down the pike, Tom. We need to invest a lot of the FFs we have left to build a non-FF system we can live with while we can. Then if we can continue to bend the population curve and the worst climate models are wrong maybe we have a shot.

I don't believe in fate, in either direction.

Sounds a lot like Lovelock. You been reading him?

[GregT]

Hi vtsnowedin,

I just did a quick google search ("electrified railroad world") and the first link which came up was a wikipedia article on railroad electrification:

In 2006, 240,000 km (25% by length) of the world rail network was electrified and 50% of all rail transport was carried by electric traction. (my emphasis)

In 2012 for electrified kilometers, China surpassed Russia making it first place in the world with over 48k km electrified.[14] Trailing behind China was Russia 43.3k km, Germany 21.0k km, India 18.8k km, Japan 17.0k km, and France 15.2k km. By the end of 2015, China planned to have about 72k km electrified.

If you didn't know this, then you should have typed it into google before reflexively rejecting it.

Germany uses electricity for the majority of its rail traffic. Almost 30% of that electricity comes from renewables now.

-Tom S

In 2006 Tom, 65% of the electricity in the world was generated from fossil fuels.
http://www.tsp-data-portal.org/Breakdow ... tspQvChart

By the end of 2012, 71% of China's electricity was generated from fossil fuels, and 66% from coal..
http://www.eia.gov/countries/cab.cfm?fips=ch

You are unable to see the forests through the trees Tom.

[tom_s2]

Hi sunweb,

Thanks for your thoughtful reply.

The EROI of solar energy collecting devices is low. If you have an argument with that take it up with Charles Hall, Pedro Prieto and Graham Palmer.

sunweb, you are quoting fringe material from a lone source as if it were accepted scientific fact.

As I've pointed out previously, Charles Hall made severe errors in his mathematical calculations which invalidate his conclusions. Over and over again, he is counting waste heat as energy returns for fossil fuels, greatly exaggerating the ERoEI of fossil fuels relative to renewables.

Other researchers have looked into the same question. They did not commit the same errors which Hall committed, and they arrived at very different conclusions. You are cherry-picking a fringe outlier and treating it as scientific fact.

It's also worth nothing that Hall predicted that we'd be down to almost zero net energy by now, in which case civilization should already have collapsed. His predictions were very, very far off, which means there is something seriously wrong with what he's saying.

If you have an argument with that take it up with Charles Hall, Pedro Prieto and Graham Palmer.

sunweb, you are assuming it's true and relying upon it.

As for the rest of what you said. I just don't see how any of that supports your point. I realize there are complicated supply chains in the economy today. However, the economy carries out complicated transitions and supply chain transitions all the time. The world economy is a dynamic thing which is constantly changing and adapting all the time anyway.

This particular transition (from fossil fuels to renewables) is an easy problem of asset and resource allocation. I realize it looks overwhelming because of complicated supply chains, but it is a series of basic asset allocation problems which economic decision-makers at glass companies etc carry out all the time.

I certainly sympathize with your ethical considerations for the poor. I'm definitely not speaking against that. The point I'm making is that industrial civilization is not collapsing or reverting to a medieval state because of peak oil.

-Tom S

[sunweb]

Tom S - "sunweb, you are quoting fringe material from a lone source as if it were accepted scientific fact."

Actually, there are two sources, which underscores what I think of your reply. Your glib throw away of the works I cited without citing your own sources, also underscores what I think of your replay.

You as usual discount the infrastructure and the various URLs I provided. This is why I knew it would be a waste of time. I provided essays that given your quick response I question if you truly read them. They are actually quite interesting.

You also glibly pass over the challenge of providing for the global population.

You didn't answer the one question I asked, besides your obvious fervent emotional involvement, are you directly involved in the business?

It is comforting to prefer the noise of delusional magical thinking and pretending that the system of perpetual growth can work forever; that some variant of business as usual can persist. There is just too much tied up with it and any unraveling would be far too chaotic and unpredictable. Wrapping our heads around the eventualities of global warming; of overshoot; of the desecration of world wildlife; of the acidification of the oceans; of the poisoning of pollinators stymies. A world no longer powered by fossil fuels, no matter what incarnation, is almost inconceivable and for many terrifying.

It is incredibly difficult to wrap our heart, mind and spirit around the massive changes facing us. It is indeed traumatic for what it might (probably) mean not just for us but for our love ones, children, grandchildren. Our hearts break. We want to fix it. So we do more technology and more ultimate harm. They are all first order solutions:

Watzlawick,P.; Weakland, J; and Risch, R. 1974. Change: Principles of Problem Formation and Problem Resolution. Norton. N.Y.
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
Dilworth, Craig. 2010. Too Smart for Our Own Good. Cambridge Univ. London.

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." - Albert Einstein

Again, I don't wish you luck because I believe you are very much a part of the problem.
I will no longer respond to any post of yours I encounter at any time.

[Poordogabone]

Hi Desu,

Ultimately, those products do not require any oil for their construction. There are obvious substitutes for every usage of fossil fuels. Those substitutes have already been developed, and no further technological development is required.

Fossil fuels are not some unique irreplaceable substance. They are ordinary chemicals. They have obvious substitutes, such as electrified transportation and renewable power. Even for the very few usages which really require a chemical combustible fuel (such as air travel), there are many obvious ways of manufacturing such fuels. For example, there are: anhydrous ammonia, dimethyl ether, alcohol fuels such as methanol, biofuels, and many, many others. It's also possible to use metal fuels, such as aluminum, magnesium, and others. It's also possible to manufacture natural gas and oil using renewable energy, using the Sabatier process or the Fischer Tropsch process. There are also many other alternatives being investigated and developed now. As a start, you can find more information about this here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_fuel

Fossil fuels are used because they're the CHEAPEST way of accomplishing certain things right now. That's the only reason. Fossil fuels are modestly cheaper than alternatives, that's all.

Oil will deplete gradually over more than a century. That is VASTLY more time than the economy requires to transition to alternatives. The economy ROUTINELY and AUTOMATICALLY transitions to alternatives as they become cheaper. This is an EASY PROBLEM for the economy to manage. This is something which the economy does all the time. Some things may become more expensive, but there is no imminent end of civilization because of peak oil.

-Tom S

Hi Tom.
Take NG, oil and coal out of the equation and all the fancy alternatives that you mentioned amount to basically 0.
All those processes are energy intensive and can not be done on a large industrial scale without a cheap energy input like NG, oil and coal. None of these alternatives except solar (includes wind & hydro), lunar, geothermal and nuclear is an energy source but an energy carrier.
Those alternative sources (sun,...etc)
1- will never pack the punch that we got from fossil fuels.
2- requires a whole lot of fossil fuels to be built and maintained in the present and foreseeable future.
Conclusion PO not necessarily the end of civilization but certainly a game changer. We will never again have such abundance of ready available energy to play with and such complex society. Growth is over.

[ralfy]

Fossil fuels are used for significant components of mining, manufacturing, food production, and shipping, especially in the use of heavy machinery and container ships. It is also used as petrochemicals for thousands of applications. These include components used for renewable energy, infrastructure to distribute power, and various goods, including electric cars.

The global economy which employs such is free market capitalist, which means it requires continuous economic growth due to capital accumulation, profit, and incredible credit levels. According to the IEA, up to around a 2-pct increase in oil demand during the last few decades was needed to ensure economic growth.

However, because it involves competition, then the need for oil increases to support a growing global middle class. That means more households want appliances, houses, cars, etc. Thus, even more oil will be needed. According to the IEA, we will need the equivalent of one Saudi Arabia in new oil every seven years to ensure this. Likely, more will be needed.

Finally, what applies to oil also applies to copper, iron ore, cement, fresh water, phosphates, and many other material resources.

[tom_s2]

Hi sunweb,

Your glib throw away of the works I cited

Sunweb, I have already read all of the sources you brought up. We've been through this before. I've already read Hall and Preito's book, and provided a lengthy refutation on my blog, as you know. I have already pointed out the severe mathematical errors within that source. I have already provided you specifically with a wealth of other sources that reach a different conclusion. I'm certainly not "glibly throwing away" the works you cited.

If you seriously need a reminder of the sources I provided, here are two of them:

Behind the numbers on energy return on investment, Mason Imman, Scientific American (Vol 308, Issue 4)

EROI of crystalline solar photovoltaics, Johan Lundin, Uppsala University (PhD thesis), May 2013

You as usual discount the infrastructure and the various URLs I provided...

sunweb, as you know, I am already familiar with those sources. I have ALREADY seen and responded to those videos. Those videos provide no support for your claim. You are making a MASSIVE logical leap by posting a video of glass production then concluding that civilization will soon collapse.

Your glib throw away of the works I cited ...I will no longer respond to any post of yours

Sunweb, you are the one who glibly ignores sources and information. I have provided you with a step-by-step refutation and a wealth of sources, repeatedly. In all cases, you simply totally ignore it. When I post objections on your blog, you do not answer them. You simply refuse to answer any objections.

Your posts are of the "hit and run" variety, whereby you post the same single discredited source, over and over. When I point out the mistakes in it, or provide other sources, you suddenly say "I refuse to answer any objections" and then leave. THAT is glibly ignoring sources.

You've never once answered any objections. If you don't want to answer objections, that's up to you. But then your point is refuted.

-Tom S

[tom_s2]

Hi poordog,

Take NG, oil and coal out of the equation and all the fancy alternatives that you mentioned amount to basically 0.

NG, oil, and coal won't be taken out of the equation for at least a century. They may start depleting, but they won't be depleted for at least 100 years. That is enough time to transition the supporting infrastructure (including mining equipment) to alternatives.

Those alternative sources (sun,...etc)
1- will never pack the punch that we got from fossil fuels.
We will never again have such abundance of ready available energy to play with and such complex society.

Solar power is vastly more plentiful than fossil fuels ever were. It has an intermittency problem, but not an abundance problem.

Conclusion PO not necessarily the end of civilization but certainly a game changer.

It is certainly a game changer, but the change will be spread out over 100 years and will involve things like gradual migration from the suburbs back into cities, less trucks and more trains, gradual replacement of fossil fuel infrastructure with renewables, and so on.

-Tom S

[Keith_McClary]

It is certainly a game changer, but the change will be spread out over 100 years and will involve things like gradual migration from the suburbs back into cities, less trucks and more trains, gradual replacement of fossil fuel infrastructure with renewables, and so on.

-Tom S

No more happy motoring or suburban McMansions?

Will we still have our jet-set vacations and thousand mile salads?

[vtsnowedin]

With decline rates for existing oil fields at five percent and for fracked wells at thirty percent, and discoveries of new fields being totally inadequate to make up the difference , I see no reason to think the the decline in the world economy will be gradual. In fact the governments being in denial have leveraged and borrowed us into a position where any shortfall will collapse the economy and there will be insufficient energy available to grow our way out of it. Imagine if you will the USA going on a COD basis and raising tax rates sufficient to balance the federal budget and pay down the national debt because no one has the cash or is willing to re loan any money to the government.
All it would take to get us there is $150 oil that won't go away.

[ralfy]

Hi sunweb,

Your glib throw away of the works I cited

Sunweb, I have already read all of the sources you brought up. We've been through this before. I've already read Hall and Preito's book, and provided a lengthy refutation on my blog, as you know. I have already pointed out the severe mathematical errors within that source. I have already provided you specifically with a wealth of other sources that reach a different conclusion. I'm certainly not "glibly throwing away" the works you cited.

If you seriously need a reminder of the sources I provided, here are two of them:

Behind the numbers on energy return on investment, Mason Imman, Scientific American (Vol 308, Issue 4)

EROI of crystalline solar photovoltaics, Johan Lundin, Uppsala University (PhD thesis), May 2013

You as usual discount the infrastructure and the various URLs I provided...

sunweb, as you know, I am already familiar with those sources. I have ALREADY seen and responded to those videos. Those videos provide no support for your claim. You are making a MASSIVE logical leap by posting a video of glass production then concluding that civilization will soon collapse.

Your glib throw away of the works I cited ...I will no longer respond to any post of yours

Sunweb, you are the one who glibly ignores sources and information. I have provided you with a step-by-step refutation and a wealth of sources, repeatedly. In all cases, you simply totally ignore it. When I post objections on your blog, you do not answer them. You simply refuse to answer any objections.

Your posts are of the "hit and run" variety, whereby you post the same single discredited source, over and over. When I point out the mistakes in it, or provide other sources, you suddenly say "I refuse to answer any objections" and then leave. THAT is glibly ignoring sources.

You've never once answered any objections. If you don't want to answer objections, that's up to you. But then your point is refuted.

-Tom S

From what I gathered, the two sources do not counter what Hall and Prieto argued, as the former deal with technologies that improve EROI slightly or nameplate power. The latter looks at factors, such as the energy needed to maintain and replace panels, wires, and various components, the energy needed to construct and maintain infrastructure needed to use panels and distribute electricity, and more.

Going beyond what is ideal or laboratory conditions is more logical, as well as considering the fact that what affects oil will also affect other material resources needed to make not only panels but even infrastructure and consumer goods.

[sunweb]

For those of you still open to learning, here is another source for EROI. Energy intensities, EROIs, and energy payback times of electricity
generating power plants by
D. Weibacha,b, G. Ruprechta, A. Hukea,c, K. Czerskia,b, S. Gottlieba, A. Husseina,d
Energy April 6, 2013

[Pops]

but the change will be spread out over 100 years

Speaking of facts, Tom, this is not a fact but rather a single prediction of the future on which you choose to hang your opinion. Regardless of how many times you recite the liturgy, the reality is no one really has any idea of how long FFs will last. For the most part data sets are either trade secrets or political secrets—usually both—and even if transparency was complete, even those guesses couched in all the finest sheepskin and techno-speak are still only guesses, the processes involved are thousands of feet underground, the "undiscovered" fields are only real in someones statistical ouija spreadsheet and the real driver is the unaccountable troll hidden in the dark depths of billions of wallets, purses and bank accounts.

Of course predictions of imminent 4-6-8% decline are similar guesses.

Which is the problem with any of these sorts of debates, which version of the future one "believes" forms the basis of how they pick their cherries. There have been hundreds of these sorts of cherry fights here.


So here is my prediction; the second half of the FF era will last much longer, multiples perhaps, of your 100 years. Simply because the remaining reserves can not be extracted at the same rate as those of the first half — and in the end they may not be recovered at all because of the cost.

Yet I am a pretty staunch peaker. Why? Because what matters is not running out of oil, but the peaking LOL!

The price of a commodity is based (as we all know) on the marginal barrel. My expectation is not that the economy will be killed overnight the very night the decline begins, but will die incrementally, a mile traveled at a time, just as it has suffered the last 4 or 14 years. "Early" Peakers imagined oil prices skyrocketing overnight. I don't see that happening, prices will be stratospheric eventually but in the medium term they will only —can only— rise as high as it takes to shed that amount of demand needed to balance the market.

Sounds pretty innocuous, but that "shed demand" is the paper cut by which the economy will bleed out.

If you'll notice the increase in debt assumed by governments over the last few years in an attempt to "jump start" the economy you will see where your ideas for massive investment in change gets hung up. Big things happen when there is the possibility for profit or in the government's case, for increased economic activity to pay back borrowing; But zero happens when the probability is for loss—less than zero in fact as people pull money from risk and seek safety. Which of course is a big reason the US dollar is so high relative to other currency right now.

Any way that is my opinion and those are my cherries.
LOL
.

[Pops]

I hope all that stuff and more comes down the pike, Tom. We need to invest a lot of the FFs we have left to build a non-FF system we can live with while we can. Then if we can continue to bend the population curve and the worst climate models are wrong maybe we have a shot.

I don't believe in fate, in either direction.

Sounds a lot like Lovelock. You been reading him?

Not the latest ones.
One thing I think likely is that we don't know as much as we think. I'd like to think there is some system that can keep us in the sweet spot if we don't fiddle with the dials too much.
Hopefully we will lose the ability to reach them once the slaves are gone.