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PeakOil is You

PeakOil is You

THE Uppsala Protocol (merged)

For discussions of events and conditions not necessarily related to Peak Oil.

Unread postby Raxozanne » Wed 25 May 2005, 06:10:13

I agree with Montequest.

Our system is based upon growth and expansion fueled by oil and if there is no growth and expansion for over three years then the system will start collapsing.

Even more alarming is how we are supposed to feed eveyone without oil. What if rationing doesn't work? Will people just sit around starving? You talk about WWII but in WWII there wasn't half the population we have to feed now. Sure unemployment might seem 'inconvenient' but hey if you don't have a job how you going to pay for stuff you want? Crime will go through the roof!

That is why complex socities don't half collapse - they collapse spectacularaly. Because they are so complex and so interdependant that once a part collapses it brings the rest down too.
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Unread postby Licho » Wed 25 May 2005, 07:22:32

Raxozane, UK doesn't have double population now.
It had about 50 million in WW2, and 60 million now..
Mainland is similar, only very low pop. increase and currently population is decreasing in many countries..

Also, which "complex societies" did collapse before? What "spectacular" crashes are you talking about?
Most complex society that "crashed" was probably roman empire, and their fall took almost 500 years.. really "spectacular"..
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Unread postby Raxozanne » Wed 25 May 2005, 07:47:50

Licho wrote:Raxozane, UK doesn't have double population now.
It had about 50 million in WW2, and 60 million now..
Mainland is similar, only very low pop. increase and currently population is decreasing in many countries..

Also, which "complex societies" did collapse before? What "spectacular" crashes are you talking about?
Most complex society that "crashed" was probably roman empire, and their fall took almost 500 years.. really "spectacular"..


I was talking about the whole world not just the UK, also I doubt there are very many countries in the world where the population is decreasing thanks to immigration.

Also the fall of the Roman empire might not seem very spectacular to you but Im sure it did to the Romans at the end.

Licho wrote:Who said, that the current economic/financial system is the only one that can work? If you have factories, manpower and energy in place, you don't need money to keep economy running..


Yeah lots of types of government can work when there is factories, manpower and ENERGY in place, we are talking about what happens when limited to no energy is available.
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Unread postby Licho » Wed 25 May 2005, 09:35:44

Yes, but I think that most people realize what is even ASPO repeating:
Peak oil is not peak of energy, it's just peak of oil, peak of liquid fuels..

And oil is not major energy source (outside transportation). It powers over 90% of our transportation, but outside it, it's neglible..

In the 40's when UK (and most Europe) had similar population like now, oil consumption was below 10% of what it's today here.. And we still managed to keep industry running and population fed (even before the massive use of fertilizers!). We still have many decades, before oil production falls to those 10%..

Imo most dangerous is financial instability/recession or depression and its impacts. But physically (in terms of real energy constraints), we can handle it..
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Unread postby AdzP » Wed 25 May 2005, 12:28:08

I was also at Lisbon.

Here's a couple of bits I wrote (sorry for the self publicity at lest i didnt post them in the news bit!)

When The Wells Run Dry
http://society.guardian.co.uk/societygu ... 29,00.html

Michael Meacher says Iraq war was about oil;
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/ ... C46694.htm

Afaik Simmons is not a `neo-liberal` he does talk about opting out of the conventional notions of growth, he certainly did at Depletion Scotland. But he obviously does see the possibility for future profits for his bank.

And Robert Hirsch looks a bit like Steve Martin the comedian but with big glasses.
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Unread postby Whitecrab » Wed 25 May 2005, 18:07:03

Berkeley wrote:That's a smart observation - and I have wondered why it would not be in the better interests of the Heinberg and Kunstler types (which include me, in fact) just to keep quiet, since their relish in the destruction of the business as usual American way might be disappointed if their warnings got heeded in time. Maybe they need to be pessimistic in order to justify their own roles?


Heinberg and Kunstler are looking forward to a new type of localized society with low power, localized agriculture, and more sustainable human habitats. Heinberg would want as many people as possible to begin "building lifeboats," and Kunstler wants people to turn to New Urbanism and abandon the car as fast as possible. Both goals benefit from having as many people aware as possible.

venky wrote:On the other hand I would agree that Matt Simmons does perhaps see the monetary benefits that might come to him after peak oil. After all he calls for oil prices to almost quadruple from their current values. If that happens suddenly it might just kill our economy off, even if it means massive profits for the oil companies and their investment bankers.


As an investment banker, Simmons would look like a liar if he didn't put his own money into profiting from what he believes will happen.
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Unread postby Berkeley » Wed 25 May 2005, 19:45:23

I feel sure that if average Americans - that silent majority whose voting numbers surprise intellectuals at every national election - were suddenly enlightened about the facts of oil depletion (which would need a miracle, of course, since the average American reads zero books a year) they would simply authorize the building of as many nuclear power plants as necessary (followed by breeders, then fusion asap), switch grumblingly to tiny electric vehicles and convenient roadside non-stop recharging infrastructure (LAST CHARGING LANE FOR SIXTY MILES - WE ACCEPT VISA) and continue the closest approximation to the sprawling suburban life they now enjoy as long as possible. The majority will never choose voluntarily to reinhabit, powerdown, go back to the land - only a tiny minority has the wits, education, and temperament to enjoy living that way. In this sense, warning the voting majority in America successfully about a coming crash only gets us a President Schwarzenegger in short order. It does not turn us into a nation of Wendell Berrys.
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Unread postby RG73 » Thu 26 May 2005, 01:45:19

Licho wrote:Yes, but I think that most people realize what is even ASPO repeating:
Peak oil is not peak of energy, it's just peak of oil, peak of liquid fuels..


And peak fertilizer and pesticide, and hence, peak agriculture. Toss in water depletion, fishery destruction, soil loss/desertification, global warming/Gulf Stream collapse, many metals becoming scarcer, and the world's largest economy burried in debt.....I'm not a doomer, but the writing is on the wall. If it were just one issue we're facing we'd be fine. It's many issues, many of which are interelated, and we're not going to just invent our way out of the mess. Scientists and other's have been warning the world for about 30+ years now of all of these impending problems--and were called doomers. And yet it all comes to pass.

So it doesn't really matter what we do, with 6.5 billion people and growing, something will be the limiting reagent. We require a lot of non-renewable things (at least on a human time scale they're non-renewable). The notion that we can just keep up business as usual, or business with a little bump in the road, forever, is clearly at odds with the obvious facts of this being a very finite planet which we have very little chance of escaping in any meaningful way (so we can't hope to go prospecting elsewhere in the galaxy for resources). Even with fusion and and nanotech and genetic engineering and mastery of everything, we're going to have to scale it down a lot. No way around it.
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Unread postby JohnDenver » Thu 26 May 2005, 02:01:49

RG73 wrote:
Licho wrote:Yes, but I think that most people realize what is even ASPO repeating:
Peak oil is not peak of energy, it's just peak of oil, peak of liquid fuels..


And peak fertilizer


This canard has been debunked numerous times. Oil is not used in the production of fertilizer. The macronutrients required by plants are N, K and P. Oil is hydrocarbon, made from H and C. There are no plant nutrients in oil.

Nitrogen fertilizer (N) is made from ammonia, which in turn is manufactured from natural gas, not oil. Natural gas is not peaking, but when it does, there will still be plenty of ammonia available because vast quantities of it are produced daily in the form of human and animal urine.

Potassium (K) comes from potash, and phosphorus (P) comes from phosphate. Both are mined minerals in plentiful supply.

Please try to avoid parroting mis-information.
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Unread postby Raxozanne » Thu 26 May 2005, 02:33:03

I am quite interested in what Licho has said because I always thought that oil depletion would reduce agriculture to the extent that a lot of people would starve. But maybe we are on the same track but looking at it short and long term. In the short term we can muddle through, in the long term (say 100 years time) if there is no great alternative found then max. population sustainability will be somewhere between the pop. at WWII and before oil was discovered (5 million I believe?) probably a bit more than that as we will have wind power, ethanol etc.

Licho points out that the UK could survive on 10% of the oil it now uses (as it did so during WWII). I was thinking about this and I was thinking does 90% of our oil therefore go on frivilous use? Then I thought that the infratracture back then was probably different, did they live in small villages serviced by local farmers? It must have been so because they surely couldn't have afforded produce to have been shipped all over the country as it is now. I am therefore thinking that if the government got its act together and sorted the public into more sustainable living when things get tougher then it would be easier to weather peak oil. But if the government doesn't and things start to go wrong then the infrastracture is not set up very well (big out of town shopping centres/big towns and cities that are not sustainable) then there could be trouble. That is were my opinion that if people (and the government) keep on ignoring oil depletion and don't rearrange us into more sustainable and local communities where the people there work together then we are up for rough times.

Therefore my conclusion is to write to my MP about oil depletion and sustainability now.
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Unread postby Licho » Thu 26 May 2005, 05:33:58

Well it's simple.. in my country, pop. was in reality greater before WW2, than it's now..
Mechanization was minimal, synthetic fertilizer use also, oil and nat. gas imports practically non-existant.. All liquid fuels were made from "alternatives".
Despite this, country had electricity, "advanced" industry (for that period of time) and trains could bring you from one city to another in the same time as now. And nobody was starving..
To produce enough food, more people had to work in agriculture, it was up to 30% of population.

I think that in the future, we wont "drop" that back. Our technology and knmowledge is much more advanced, and nothing prevents us from using say hydrogen fuel cells in agriculture (even if it's only use we find for it, it will still be worth it..).
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Unread postby Raxozanne » Thu 26 May 2005, 06:15:09

May I ask which country you live in? It seems that if we can support the same or even more people with little oil then there will be no hard crash at all, people will just have to move out and work in agriculture (assuming they do so peacefully, I know some of my friends wouldn't want to work in the fields lol). Even so Im having a hard time getting my head round this as so many people are saying that our population has been able to expand to 6 billion only because of the abundance of cheap oil. Is your country kindof empty then? Is it exporting food to other countries?
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Unread postby Licho » Thu 26 May 2005, 06:55:12

I live in Czech republic..
Population density is higher than EU average here, higher than in France, but lower than UK or Germany..
Country is exporting food, and about 30% of fertile land is not used. (It has been in use prior prior to collapse of eastern bloc).

The fact with population rise is a bit misleading. European population was more or less stabilised through whole 20th century. Most of this growth is in developing countries like China, India and whole Africa and Asia in general.
Yet many of these countries still have populattion density lower than Europe had before oil age!
(China's pop. density is still lower than that in Czech republic)

I believe, that even with declining supplies, population can be fed. And if it really starts to fail, we can turn more vegetarian and save enormous ammount of food (each calorie of meat requires about 10 calories of grain food to feed animals).
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Unread postby Permanently_Baffled » Thu 26 May 2005, 11:40:43

Hi Raxo

Here is some UK food stats for you:

Total Cropland 6m hectares
Total in Use 4.5m hectares
Set Aside 1.5m Hectares
Total Land Under Agriculture 18m Hectares

Self sufficiency 63% 2003.(based on calorie availabilty of 3,500!) Has been 80%+ in the past but it is cheaper to import.
Domestic food produced but not consumed(waste): 38%

So despite 25% of our arable land not being used AND throwing away 38% of all the food we produce we are still 63% self sufficient!

Gas for fertilizers represnts 1.4% of domestic gas consumption , and oil used in agriculture is 1.4 million tonnes.

Of course this all assumes we prioritise hydrocarbons for food.

It also assumes that the US doesn't start an almighty nuclear F***fest with China and we all end up vaporised! 8O



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Unread postby Starvid » Thu 26 May 2005, 12:15:15

JohnDenver wrote:
RG73 wrote:
Licho wrote:Yes, but I think that most people realize what is even ASPO repeating:
Peak oil is not peak of energy, it's just peak of oil, peak of liquid fuels..


And peak fertilizer
Nitrogen fertilizer (N) is made from ammonia, which in turn is manufactured from natural gas, not oil. Natural gas is not peaking, but when it does, there will still be plenty of ammonia available because vast quantities of it are produced daily in the form of human and animal urine.

The reason natural gas is used is that it is rich in hydrogen which is used for the chemical process. Hydrogen also exist in abundance in the sea (H2O you know). This hydrogen can easily be accessed through electrolyis which needs only electricity. This is likely more expensive, but I also figure it will not matter very much for the price of a loaf of bread, since fertilizer likely is not the dominating cost in the production of the bread loaf.

Example: Let's say electrolysysis is twice as expensive as natural gas steam reforming. Let's also say fertilizer is 10 % of the cost of a loaf. That means an electrolysis bread will cost 5 % more than a steam reform bread.
Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
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Unread postby Raxozanne » Thu 26 May 2005, 12:50:49

Permanently_Baffled wrote:
AND throwing away 38% of all the food we produce we are still 63% self sufficient!



Throwing away that much!!! 8O 8O 8O That's criminal!

Anyway I looked up 'Green revolution' and found that it has mainly helped 3rd world countries to feed their ever growing pops. So really their agriculture will be hit hardest if oil becomes very expensive.

Do you have the time band for that 1.4million tons of oil used in agriculture in the UK, is it per year?

Anyway yeah I suppose the biggest threats are therefore:
- nucleur war (as you mention)
- rioting due to financial break down
- people rioting due to their rejection of a new (oil preserving) way of life, care to tell all those middle class moms they have to give up their suvs :lol:
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Unread postby Permanently_Baffled » Thu 26 May 2005, 16:32:26

Throwing away that much!!! 8O 8O 8O That's criminal!


Yep here is the link

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4444429.stm

Shocking isnt it? 8O

Do you have the time band for that 1.4million tons of oil used in agriculture in the UK, is it per year?


Yes that is per year, but that does not include transport to point of consumption , but this isn't a massive amount and could be done more by train (some is already transported by train)

Anyway yeah I suppose the biggest threats are therefore:
- nucleur war (as you mention)
- rioting due to financial break down
- people rioting due to their rejection of a new (oil preserving) way of life, care to tell all those middle class moms they have to give up their suvs :lol:


A succinct and accurate assessment, we are capable of getting through this thing but the "human factor" could easily screw it all up.

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Unread postby princegio » Thu 26 May 2005, 17:16:39

It was nice to hear oil does not influence fertilizer so much. All the doomer blogs always say a different thing.

Resuming what I read from this thread:

1) Electricity production will survive peak oil (it depends from natural gas which will peak much after).

2) Food production will survive as well (bread will cost just 5% more).

3) The only sector that will be deeply affected is transportation.

That sounds to me as there is more probability for a soft landing.

Do you agree?
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Unread postby Raxozanne » Thu 26 May 2005, 17:41:21

Maybe if the sheeple don't go bonkers over having to conserve oil and change their way of life.

As everyone seems to commute in the UK in the long term no one will be able to go to work and I guess we will have to go farm instead. We will probably be working for the big land owners for a 50p an hour plus accomodation.

But then again Laura (the tart) next door doesn't do 'manual work' .
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Unread postby clv101 » Thu 26 May 2005, 17:56:36

RG73 wrote:And peak fertilizer and pesticide, and hence, peak agriculture. Toss in water depletion, fishery destruction, soil loss/desertification, global warming/Gulf Stream collapse, many metals becoming scarcer, and the world's largest economy burried in debt.....I'm not a doomer, but the writing is on the wall. If it were just one issue we're facing we'd be fine. It's many issues, many of which are interelated, and we're not going to just invent our way out of the mess. Scientists and other's have been warning the world for about 30+ years now of all of these impending problems--and were called doomers. And yet it all comes to pass.

Quite agree, oil is just a small part of the problem. Have you read Limits to Growth, 30 year update? Very clear on the issue. Lester Brown also writes well on the wider subject.
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