[johnmarkos]

I keep hearing this prediction of "permanent blackouts" by 2012 or 2008. In the latest Olduvai revision, Richard Duncan has said that permanent blackouts will occur in the industrialized world by 2008. Apparently this prediction is repeated in Michael Ruppert's latest article (I'm too cheap to subscribe to FTW). Can someone who understands electrical grids better than I explain this? Are they so fragile that they could just collapse, never to return again, four years from now? How and why would this happen? Does "permanent blackouts" mean that after 2008, if I plug in my vacuum cleaner and turn it on . . . nothing will happen? Ever again? Really? And after 2008, unless I have a windmill or a solar cell on my roof, I can say goodbye to vacuum cleaners, stereo equipment, a refrigerator, or an electric coffee maker?

Can someone please elaborate on how this scenario would play out? Why won't PG & E be able to get the lights back on *at all* after 2008? Even in Iraq, they can get the electricity going some of the time.

[pilferage]

No, you won't be able to get the lights back on.

However, 2008 seems a bit soon. Regardless, the point is that any huge increases (like those from peak oil) in transportation and basic infrastructure costs will drive up the price of electricity, since coal is mined cheaply using cheap oil, and NG will most likely peak about a decade after cheap oil does...
so, if you have the price of everything going up, eventually it won't be financially viable to operate the power grid considering it's aweful efficiency and huge size. But there have to be quite a few other factors for that to play out....

[marek]

I am not exactly sure I understand Duncan's logic, but as far as the United States goes, there might not be enough natural gas to produce electricity. There are some states where gas provides most thermal energy to produce electricity (the Northeast, California, etc). Given that there are only 4 LNG terminals in the U.S. and considering that 15% of U.S. imports from Canada mean around 50% of Canadian production, there will not be enough gas to go around. It seems the French with their 75% of nuclear electrical generating capacity will have the last laugh.

[marek]

I think we will see a revival of nuclear energy. The French scientific magazine Science&Vie reports that their government has numerous designs ready to be implemented, including:
1) EPR (European Pressurized Reactor) that is resistant to core meltdown
2) hybrid reactors (reactors with accelerators that break down radioactive waste to render it nearly environmentally harmless by drammatically reducing half-life)
3) thorium reactors (thorium is three times as abundant as uranium and is much less toxic)

Here is the link to the table of contents

http://www.science-et-vie.com/AnciensSVHS/225.asp

[johnmarkos]

No, you won't be able to get the lights back on.

However, 2008 seems a bit soon. Regardless, the point is that any huge increases (like those from peak oil) in transportation and basic infrastructure costs will drive up the price of electricity, since coal is mined cheaply using cheap oil, and NG will most likely peak about a decade after cheap oil does...
so, if you have the price of everything going up, eventually it won't be financially viable to operate the power grid considering it's aweful efficiency and huge size. But there have to be quite a few other factors for that to play out....

Here's where I got the 2008 date.

http://www.energybulletin.net/3294.html

And here's the original "Olduvai" paper

http://dieoff.org/page224.htm

It's a bit of a brain worm. I find the "permanent blackouts by 2008" claim unrealistic and yet I keep coming back to it. And then the sensible part of my brain imagines that day in 2008. I wake up late because my clock radio doesn't go off. Then I realize there's no power. I turn on my battery-powered radio and hear that power is off all over the San Francisco Bay Area. So I don't bother going to work. My wife and I just hang around and eat as much of the perishable stuff in the fridge as we can. Six million people in the Bay Area do the same thing. We catch up on our reading. The sun shines. Life is good.

What next? Well, in my little fantasy, the power comes on in a few days because the big blackout allows stocks of natural gas, coal, and oil to build up to the point where they could get things running again. It seems to me that before you get permanent blackouts, you get sporadic blackouts for several years.

[SilverHair]

Mareck,

How long do you think it will take to build one nuclear power plant? Remember this is 2004 so, hypothetically, if the grid fails in 2008 when will that nuclear power plant that is not even planned today at the end of 2004 take to come online?

I don't care if Richard Duncan is off by 10 years. There still will not be nuclear power plants on line in time.

So we are past the point of no return, which suits me just fine since this living being called earth is grossly infected with the fungus, mankind, and is in despatate need of a cure.

[johnmarkos]

So we are past the point of no return, which suits me just fine since this living being called earth is grossly infected with the fungus, mankind, and is in despatate need of a cure.

Does that mean we have tiny humans between our toes?

[TrueKaiser]

Here's where I got the 2008 date.

http://www.energybulletin.net/3294.html

if i read that artical right it says a world population of 3.3 billion at 2k8. i wonder what happened to the other 3.1billion in the world today?

[AlCzervik]

Good point on the nuclear issue, SilverHair. In all of the peak oil material I have read over the last year, I think the estimates are that nuclear plants take approximately 10 years to build at a cost of $1 billion, not to mention use absurd amounts of oil, fresh water and or NG in the production. Also, thousands would need to be built, causing a run on uranium.

[johnmarkos]

if i read that artical right it says a world population of 3.3 billion at 2k8. i wonder what happened to the other 3.1billion in the world today?

No, not world population, just the population of the industrial nations:

From the article (italics are mine):

"If that is true, then the population in the world's industrial nations, we argue, will go from about 3.3 billion in 2008 to about 0.9 billion in 2030, a net die-off of about 300,000 people per day in the 22 years from 2008 to 2030."

Not sure what he uses as the definition of an industrial nation.

[AlCzervik]

Here's where I got the 2008 date.

http://www.energybulletin.net/3294.html

if i read that artical right it says a world population of 3.3 billion at 2k8. i wonder what happened to the other 3.1billion in the world today?

Yeah, but he says "industrial nations." How many people right now make up industrial nations?

[TrueKaiser]

ah. but still wouldn't the third world nations suffer a little more too?

[JohnDenver]

I keep hearing this prediction of "permanent blackouts" by 2012 or 2008. In the latest Olduvai revision, Richard Duncan has said that permanent blackouts will occur in the industrialized world by 2008. Apparently this prediction is repeated in Michael Ruppert's latest article (I'm too cheap to subscribe to FTW). Can someone who understands electrical grids better than I explain this?

You don't need to understand electrical grids. All you need to understand is that Richard Duncan and Michael Ruppert are fucking idiots.

[pilferage]

Based on what JohnDenver?

[JohnDenver]

Based on the fact that the power is going to be on in 2008.
They're in for a "perfect storm" of razzing and ridicule when that year rolls around.

[savethehumans]

Guys, I'm just not convinced that you are reading people like Ruppert right. The power grids everywhere are starting to break down. Repairing or rebuilding them takes time...and oil & gas to make the components needed for the repair/rebuild. As O&G decline, there's gonna be less available energy for everyone's "needs." There will be countries that won't get nearly the O&G they need to run things (or else, they won't be able to afford it). Rolling blackouts and temporary blackouts will become more and more prevalent as there's either not enough O&G, or the system has breakdowns, or both. Thailand and China are two examples of nations that ALREADY have this problem....

Grid breakdowns. No oil and gas. Sabotage (terrorist or not) of systems. Not to mention how much energy is needed to run resource wars--to get enough energy to run MORE resource wars, among other things. When the systems go down anywhere, it will take time to fix--if the breakdown is in some part of the world where they'd bother to fix it--and, in time, there won't be enough time/components available to fix anything. THEN we can talk about permanent blackouts! Having read many of the Peak Oil proponents, I have surmised that they are saying that keeping the power on is going to get harder and harder...until the power goes out for good. This struggle is going to start (OK, get more noticeable) around 2008, because there are no more big oil/gas projects geared up to start producing after that year. The problems with using fossil fuels and/or nuclear power (uranium is limited, too) are only going to get worse from that time on. THAT is what's going to be permanent. The permanence of blackouts will come later...though not THAT much later....

[JohnDenver]

I have surmised that they are saying that keeping the power on is going to get harder and harder...until the power goes out for good. This struggle is going to start (OK, get more noticeable) around 2008, because there are no more big oil/gas projects geared up to start producing after that year. The problems with using fossil fuels and/or nuclear power (uranium is limited, too) are only going to get worse from that time on. THAT is what's going to be permanent. The permanence of blackouts will come later...though not THAT much later....

Good thinking. Best to start waffling and backpedaling early, because we all know for a fact that the power is going to be ON, as usual, in 2008.

[JohnDenver]

Yikes... Looks like the "Cliff Event" is coming even sooner... 2007!

A previous study put the 'cliff event' in year 2012 (Duncan, 2001). However, it no appears that 2012 was too optimistic. The following study indicates that the 'cliff event' will occur about 5 years earlier than 2012 due an epidemic of 'rolling blackouts' that have already begun in the US. This 'electrical epidemic' spreads nationwide, then worldwide, and by ca. 2007 most of the blackouts are permanent.

http://tinyurl.com/3vbxy


Yes, you read that right. The "rolling blackouts" are already happening (how could I have not noticed -- DOH!!), and will become a permanent worldwide blackout in 2007.

[0mar]

John, your entire position is based as following:

Since it hasn't happened in the past, it won't happen in the future.

I haven't gotten cancer yet, therefore I won't get cancer in the future.

I think we will be off the natural gas cliff within 10-15 years without massive investments in LNG infrastructure. And much of our electrical grid relies on natural gas.

Also, you have to remember that theories get modified all the time (Einstein himself published different solutions to his equations) depending on the data. That doesn't make the new theory any less good or bad. The new theory simply makes a new set of predictions to be tested.

[JohnDenver]

Omar, a worldwide permanent electrical blackout in 2007 is such a preposterous, idiotic prediction, that even you don't believe it. So why are you arguing with me?

For the record, I believe that peak oil will come sometime in the next decade or two, and it will be a difficult problem. That, however, does not mean I have to believe/defend Duncan and every other doom-and-gloom retard with a website who tries to jump on the P.O. bandwagon.