[papa moose]

what the hell do we need a 70% line for?
last i heard the states has a largish unemployment issue. Do you think the PRC want 70% of their citizens to be replaced on the factory floor by robots?
And why on earth would you let a robot change your babies diaper?
I know they stink (youngest is teething at the moment) but would you take the 0.000000001% risk that the robot will stuff up and spray hydraulic fluid in your kids eye... or tear their leg off instead of the dirty nappy?!?!

[MD]

Peter makes one very significant mistake in his very well written paper:

He treats the coming decline as one seamless global crash where the lights go out and global anarchy reigns.

That particular outcome is highly unlikely. Instead we are much more likely to see regional disruption and anarchy, centered around the extremes: highly dense urban areas (downtown's burning) and remote rural areas (roving gangs) will likely be hit first. Areas with mid size towns and cities that are near centers of resource (food, water, and energy) will likely remain stable for much longer.

In other words: treating a futuristic look at the global economy with simple outcomes based on simple relationships will lead to extreme projections, that are very unlikely to be realized. The world is much more complicated than that.

Yes, you can look at overall trends and conclude that populations will decline dramatically; but the where's, when's, and by how much's remain very much cloudy and uncertain. If you pick the right communities, power and prosperity will likely continue for a very long time.

[Pops]

[quote="Pops"
Peak oil doesn't equal peak food - peak year-round variety maybe, peak cheap protein consumption probably but not lack of food. In the US, in 2002 for example ag only directly and indirectly used about 1.7% of all energy consumed and in fact the amount used has declined 25% since the '70s.(1)

Your really don't have a clue of how much modern agriculture relies on fossil fuel inputs do you?

Sorry it doesn't fit with your preconceived opinion. Kind of a silly comment though considering the link I provided, of course you did read it? Where do you think it's wrong?

In the overall scheme of things ag consumes a small portion of total energy, 2% verses non-ag industry's 35% for example. I'm sure you could add in the energy needed to make the machine to make the machine to make to make the machine to make hay bailing twine and double that 2%, or triple it or multiply it by 10 but ag inputs will still only be a portion of the total.

You need to add in transportation, but I think that is a pretty hard number to figure considering a lot of "food" transportation is airfare for tomatoes and watermelons up from Peru in January. "1,500 mile Salad" makes a cute bumper sticker but it adds more heat than light, like most slogans.

Did I mention that ag has become 25% more energy efficient in the last 30 years for direct use - and 30% more efficient in in-direct (fertilizer and chemicals) energy use?


Then consider that the world uses 40% of it's total grain harvest to feed livestock, (receiving a only a small number of calories in return) simply because we can and it isn't hard to see that we aren't all going to starve next Tuesday.

We're much more liable to be hungry due to politics but that's just my opinion.

[Oakley]

regarding food post peak

any govt worth it's salt will ration the available liquid fuel

the essential services and ag will have first priority

Now that is a solution. Tell people in New Orleans how effective government management of their Katrina crisis worked out. Government is the most inefficient, incompetent form of organization known to mankind. The only reason they can win a war is that they are fighting another government and the most incompetent loses; nobody really wins. And then there is the government management of Social Security as another example. Supposedly the Social Security Trust Fund has a few trillion set aside out what they have taken from workers to fund future payments, but did you notice in the recent debate that Obama said if the federal government could not continue to borrow 40% of what they spend that Social Security checks would not go out. How could that be if they have trillions set aside to pay future benefits? Well the answer, is that these geniuses took workers' money and spent it for things like war and all the benefits they pass out to their pals on Wall Street, and it is gone; the only thing the Social Security Fund holds is promises, in the form of US government debt, that can not possibly be paid.

Now tell me again that you want government to manage us out of the fuel shortage crisis instead of letting the price allocate what oil is left to sell.

I am reminded of an article I read a long time ago about one of the African nations that was taken over by thugs with a communist bend. They collectivized the farms with the result that food production collapsed; of course they blamed it on drought, but similar weather when farmers owned the farms did not produce the same disaster. They forced the former farmers, now slaves on the state run farms to turn over 100% of what they produced, not allowing them to save seeds for the next year. The few who hid seeds and were caught were executed. This may be an extreme example, but this is how government interference in the free decisions of farmers works out.

There will be carnage from the end of the oil age. If you want to amplify that carnage, then keep your mind set that big daddy in your government capitol will kiss it and make it go away. If you don't take responsibility for yourself, and look to politicians and bureaucrats to sooth your discomfort, then you deserve what you get. What they will do is take care of themselves first and foremost, followed by the special interests that pull their strings. You are just as expendable to them as the troops they now send to their deaths in these wars of empire to control what little oil remains under the soil of foreign nations.

[Oakley]

Technology --

the branch of knowledge that deals with the creation and use of technical means and their interrelation with life, society, and the environment, drawing upon such subjects as industrial arts, engineering, applied science, and pure science.
2.
the terminology of an art, science, etc.; technical nomenclature.
3.
a technological process, invention, method, or the like.
4.
the sum of the ways in which social groups provide themselves with the material objects of their civilization.

The essence of technology is that knowledge is applied to resources. Most of technology in history has sped up the use of resources. If you don't have knowledge, you don't have technology. If you don't have resources to use in application of knowledge, you don't have technology; you only have knowledge.

For most of human history knowledge was lacking, but there were plenty of resources right under our feet so we only had half of the technology equation, resources. Now we have considerably more knowledge, but if the resources are used up or become too expensive to extract, then we will no longer have both parts of the technology equation.

The point is that technology will not likely be the answer to the current population/resource imbalance. We would very soon need some sort of revolutionary new energy source, and even then, such a discovery would lead to more population growth with the eventual disaster just being pushed later into the future.

[Pops]

I liked the line about hoping for technology to make pigs fly assumes flying pigs are a good idea...

IOW, FFs are the best, simple, concentrated fuel we've found. Short of a really breakthrough NEW discovery, there isn't any replacement technology in the pipeline - no matter the incremental technology improvement.

Pg 8

Petroleum, unfortunately, is the perfect fuel, and nothing else even comes close. The
problem with flying pigs (as in “when pigs can fly”) is not that we have to wait for
scientists to perfect the technology; the problem is that the pig idea is not a good one in
the first place. To maintain an industrial civilization, it’s either oil or nothing.

[highlander]

We're much more liable to be hungry due to politics but that's just my opinion.

African history confirms your opinion

[Pops]

Government is the most inefficient, incompetent form of organization known to mankind.

You're letting your ideology get in the way of your objectivity. In 17 of the top 20 top exporting countries, oil is the hands of NOCs, 52% of world production and 88% of reserves are under state control. And China seems to be using the leverage of the state pretty effectively to secure oil supplies outside the normal market - in fact taking some supply off the market entirely, making it effectively Chinese oil even though it's still in the ground in another country.

When oil is abundant on the upswing there isn't much downside to allowing private companies to profit by extracting it, they are after all, good at doing things cheap and making profit so everyone is happy. But when oil becomes scarce I don't think either governments or citizens are going to sit by and watch "their" oil exported so some few people can profit.

That is the entire basis of the Export Land Model.

[evilgenius]

regarding food post peak

any govt worth it's salt will ration the available liquid fuel

the essential services and ag will have first priority

Now that is a solution. Tell people in New Orleans how effective government management of their Katrina crisis worked out. Government is the most inefficient, incompetent form of organization known to mankind. The only reason they can win a war is that they are fighting another government and the most incompetent loses; nobody really wins. And then there is the government management of Social Security as another example. Supposedly the Social Security Trust Fund has a few trillion set aside out what they have taken from workers to fund future payments, but did you notice in the recent debate that Obama said if the federal government could not continue to borrow 40% of what they spend that Social Security checks would not go out. How could that be if they have trillions set aside to pay future benefits? Well the answer, is that these geniuses took workers' money and spent it for things like war and all the benefits they pass out to their pals on Wall Street, and it is gone; the only thing the Social Security Fund holds is promises, in the form of US government debt, that can not possibly be paid.

Now tell me again that you want government to manage us out of the fuel shortage crisis instead of letting the price allocate what oil is left to sell.

I am reminded of an article I read a long time ago about one of the African nations that was taken over by thugs with a communist bend. They collectivized the farms with the result that food production collapsed; of course they blamed it on drought, but similar weather when farmers owned the farms did not produce the same disaster. They forced the former farmers, now slaves on the state run farms to turn over 100% of what they produced, not allowing them to save seeds for the next year. The few who hid seeds and were caught were executed. This may be an extreme example, but this is how government interference in the free decisions of farmers works out.

There will be carnage from the end of the oil age. If you want to amplify that carnage, then keep your mind set that big daddy in your government capitol will kiss it and make it go away. If you don't take responsibility for yourself, and look to politicians and bureaucrats to sooth your discomfort, then you deserve what you get. What they will do is take care of themselves first and foremost, followed by the special interests that pull their strings. You are just as expendable to them as the troops they now send to their deaths in these wars of empire to control what little oil remains under the soil of foreign nations.

I've worked for several big businesses and not a one of them was even close to the level of efficiency of the government. Perhaps you've never stopped to actually think about this. The government is very efficient. There is probably not a single business which if tasked to do everything that the government must do could possibly do it with near the positive outcome. Yes, they could decide not to do this and that and pretend it meant they were being more efficient, but then they would not be serving the people.