The Population Bomb.

[Monte_RCMS]

The problem with the scientific breakthrough has come is because there is no breakthrough to be had. “Breakthroughs” in energy generally involve using more energy from another source to achieve a goal. Example: People rave about fracking. What’s the EROEI on the energy obtained from fracking? Hint: it ain’t good, and that’s without giving a thread of consideration of the environmental damage it causes.

EROEI is essentially baloney.

… Because: it depends.

And, because it doesn’t use a uniform system of measurement … which would be the overall net economic value(s) of all the (name removed by moderator)uts and of all the outputs … so you have to use the dollar or the yen or the euro or some other currency.

I didn’t even have to look hard to find the ultimate criticism of EROEI.

And this dismembering of the whole notion of EROEI is even charitable, to say the least.

Measuring the EROEI of a single physical process is unambiguous, **but there is no agreed-upon standard on which activities should be included in measuring the EROEI of an economic process.
**
In addition, the form of energy of the (name removed by moderator)ut can be completely different from the output. For example, energy in the form of coal could be used in the production of ethanol. This might have an EROEI of less than one, but could still be desirable due to the benefits of liquid fuels.

How deep should the probing in the supply chain of the tools being used to generate energy go? For example, if steel is being used to drill for oil or construct a nuclear power plant, should the energy (name removed by moderator)ut of the steel be taken into account, should the energy (name removed by moderator)ut into building the factory being used to construct the steel be taken into account and amortized?

Should the energy (name removed by moderator)ut of the roads which are used to ferry the goods be taken into account? What about the energy used to cook the steelworker’s breakfasts? These are complex questions evading simple answers. A full accounting would require considerations of opportunity costs and comparing total energy expenditures in the presence and absence of this economic activity.

However, when comparing two energy sources a standard practice for the supply chain energy (name removed by moderator)ut can be adopted. For example, consider the steel, but don’t consider the energy invested in factories deeper than the first level in the supply chain.

Energy return on energy invested does not take into account the factor of time.

Energy invested in creating a solar panel may have consumed energy from a high power source like coal, but the return happens very slowly, i.e. over many years. If energy is increasing in relative value this should favour delayed returns. Some believe this means the EROEI measure should be refined further.

Conventional economic analysis has no formal accounting rules for the consideration of waste products that are created in the production of the ultimate output. For example, differing economic and energy values placed on the waste products generated in the production of ethanol makes the calculation of this fuel’s true EROEI extremely difficult.

EROEI is only one consideration and may not be the most important one in energy policy. Energy independence (reducing international competition for limited natural resources), freedom from pollution (including carbon dioxide and other green house gases), and affordability could be more important, particularly when considering secondary energy sources.

While a nation’s primary energy source is not sustainable unless it has a use rate less than or equal to its replacement rate, the same is not true for secondary energy supplies. Some of the energy surplus from the primary energy source can be used to create the fuel for secondary energy sources, such as for transportation.
[edit]

 

[Ridgerunner]

Simple…not creating a situation where we become utterly dependent on energy sources that we use up orders of magnitude faster than they are created. When we use up the nonrenewable sources, we will be back to relying on renewable resources…and renewable resources can’t support our current level of population. Investigate it yourself; current nonrenewable resources per person are simply obscene.

You are assuming there are no “nonrenewable” resources that can be utilized if some other “nonrenewable” resource becomes too rare to use in the same manner as before.

It can be said to work both ways. Whale oil was the mainstay of lighting for a long time in the U.S. and elsewhere. It was a “renewable resource” in a ways, so long as it was not overutilized…which it was. But then, petroleum entirely replaced it for lighting, notwithstanding that petroleum is essentially “nonrenewable”. Corn alcohol is considered a “renewable” resource, notwithstanding that it really isn’t; depending on non-renewable petroleum for its planting, harvesting, etc.

Now, if you assume “renewable” resources are only those that will renew themselves without intervention by some “nonrenewable” resource devised by man, then you are entirely right…the world is grossly overpopulated. Possibly the U.S. could not support more than a million people or so (the estimate by some of the Indian population of the U.S. pre-Columbian) if we depended on totally “renewable” resources without depleting them…wood for heat, animal fat for lighting, horses for transportation, the occasional deer for meat, hides or daub and wattle for housing, hides for clothing.

But that assumes mankind is incapable of turning to yet other means, both renewable and nonrenewable in the event the (apparently) vast petroleum, uranium and coal reserves are exhausted someday or other, or to using them in entirely different ways.

Personally, I have a lot more faith in mankind’s ability than that. And just viscerally, I would prefer to rely on it than to resign myself to living in a mud hut sucking the marrow out of possum bones without having much better reason to believe that to be my ultimate fate than someone else’s visceral pessimism about the future.

 

[TheWarriorMonk]

Here is what happens in real life:

As resources start to become scarcer, the price gets bid up. As the price starts to go up, the really smart people figure out how to find more OR they figure out how to make substitutes.

And then the price goes back down and everybody can afford bountiful quantities.

It’s only when people with no ability to produce anything or to invent anything gain control … and they begin to act like tyrants and dictators.

THAT is what happens.

In REAL life.

Works every time.

More real life:

Q: What happens when it costs $1 to get a resource that is worth 50 cents?

A: Resource extraction effectively ceases.

That’s the issue your dealing with, and that’s the issue people don’t understand.

 

[TheWarriorMonk]

Personally, I have a lot more faith in mankind’s ability than that. And just viscerally, I would prefer to rely on it than to resign myself to living in a mud hut sucking the marrow out of possum bones without having much better reason to believe that to be my ultimate fate than someone else’s visceral pessimism about the future.

Once again, I’m not a pessimist; I’m a realist. God wrote his laws, and I’m not foolish enough to dismiss them outright, as others do.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

More real life:

Q: What happens when it costs $1 to get a resource that is worth 50 cents?

A: Resource extraction effectively ceases.

That’s the issue your dealing with, and that’s the issue people don’t understand.

The problem is that you are using an arbitrary and unreasonable definition of the word: “worth”.

Your question is badly worded. And presents a false choice.

What does it mean: what something is “worth”?

If you, personally, have access to a resource that costs YOU one dollar and you choose to sell it for fifty cents, then you will go out of business.

If you, personally, have access to a resource that costs YOU $3 and you auction it off and people are clamoring to buy it for $12 … and SOME people are even coming in and offering to buy it for $16, … then THAT is a good deal for everyone.***

So, you have a set of free will transactions with free will buyers and free will sellers.

The idea that something is “worth” fifty cents … who decides what something is “worth”?

If you, personally, are not willing to pay more than fifty cents … then, to YOU, it is only worth fifty cents.

But, the guy behind you in line, or next to you in the commodity trading pit may be willing to pay more.

So, in that case, get out of the way and don’t waste everyone else’s time by demanding they sell it to you for fifty cents.

And the selling price will vary from day to day and even from minute to minute.

*** The example cited is for natural gas. In the United States, the price is around $3. In Europe it’s around $12 and in Japan around $16 … [it varies] … no one is getting ripped off. If you can get the natural gas to those other places for cheaper, they would love to talk to you.

And some folks in New England went and bought … contracted for … interruptible supplies for cheap … and then when they needed it in the middle of the night, they couldn’t get it … uninterruptible supplies cost more.

 

[TheWarriorMonk]

I’ll simplify it for you. Let’s say you need oil. Would you use two barrels of oil to get one barrel of oil in return? That’s what Peak Oil and EROEI is about. The market can price and distribute goods, but it can’t do the impossible.

The amount of the resource is not relevant. It’s the cost of obtaining the resource that is relevant.

 

[SamH]

I’ll simplify it for you. Let’s say you need oil. Would you use two barrels of oil to get one barrel of oil in return? That’s what Peak Oil and EROEI is about. The market can price and distribute goods, but it can’t do the impossible.

I thought people had given up on the embarrassing argument of “peak oil”. According to the experts we hit “peak oil” over 50 years ago.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

I’ll simplify it for you. Let’s say you need oil. Would you use two barrels of oil to get one barrel of oil in return? That’s what Peak Oil and EROEI is about. The market can price and distribute goods, but it can’t do the impossible.

The amount of the resource is not relevant. It’s the cost of obtaining the resource that is relevant.

It depends.

Peak oil has nothing to do with EROEI.

What you are doing is throwing around bumper stickers.

Two totally different things, unless you want to start redefining terms or just throwing terms around.

On top of which, both Peak Oil and EROEI are invalid concepts.

When an oil well stops yielding oil, then we can cap it and go somewhere else to look for commercial amounts of oil OR we can wait and see if the particular oil bearing rock formation refills. IT HAPPENS. Which is yet another proof of the abiogenic oil concept.
[Again depending on the age of the oil, versus refilling from another nearby formation.]

So far, we keep discovering more and more energy sources … things that YOU say are impossible.

Another thing is that if an oil well stops yielding, then we can study the geology … sometimes we can use water or steam or carbon dioxide to get more oil out of a well that has stopped yielding. If the water or steam or carbon dioxide cost less than the additional oil, then we are good. It has NOTHING to do with using two barrels of oil to get one barrel … it has to do with what does it cost to get more oil out of the well. NOT how much additional OIL, but how much additional money.

So, your question of “using” two barrels to “get” one barrel is again a false choice.

“It’s the cost of obtaining the resource that is relevant.”

So, you are directly contradicting yourself!!!

First, you say you are using two barrels to get one; then you say it’s the COST, which is measured in currency. If the oil stops flowing of its natural pressure, then we can slide an electric pump down there and pump out the oil or use one of those rocking arm pumps. And if that doesn’t work, we can stimulate the well.

If you’re in northern Canada and you have a huge amount of oil and natural gas, and if you can’t easily get the natural gas to market, but there is a huge demand for the oil, then you can use the natural gas to fuel the process for getting the oil out of the ground.

What YOU are trying to say is that we will eventually run out of easily obtained oil and natural gas … the problem is that it doesn’t look like the statement is actually true. Philosophically, it may be true, but in REAL LIFE, it looks like we have in indefinite amount.

**YOUR point is that since, philosophically, oil and gas is not infinite, then we should start killing off our people, starting immediately, because they eat too much and use too much energy.
**

Kind of like a statement by Keynes … “in the long run, we are all dead”.

[So, he would say: “why bother doing ANYTHING”.]

But, instead of that strange man, Keynes, we have Jesus the Christ … whose focus was the salvation of souls … something totally alien to the notion of “why bother doing ANYTHING”.

Of course, Jesus hung out with fishermen and doctors … hard working people … and not with people who sit around and moan that it is all pointless.

So, do you walk to school OR do you take your lunch?

Or, is there anything we can make from all that lint in my navel?

 

[jonathan_hili]

Perhaps we need, as the prophet Tom Jones said, a “sex bomb”!

 

[TheWarriorMonk]

It depends.

Peak oil has nothing to do with EROEI.

It’s difficult to discuss issues with people that simply have no idea what they are talking about.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

It’s difficult to discuss issues with people that simply have no idea what they are talking about.

Read more broadly.

Start here:

peakoildebunked.blogspot.com/

Get away from academia.

Hang with people who work for a living.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Once again, I’m not a pessimist; I’m a realist. God wrote his laws, and I’m not foolish enough to dismiss them outright, as others do.

What laws did God write saying people can’t develop new ways of doing things, including production and utilization of energy?

I look forward to your response.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

If anyone posting or lurking here is interested in what is going on in the real world, visit … www.pgjonline.com

That’s the Web site of the Pipeline & Gas Journal.

You can also get a free subscription to the mailed copy of the magazine if you are in the industry perhaps working as a consultant.

While academics are simply too busy to learn the facts, in real life, the real people are working as fast as they can to develop natural resources and bring them to the people / the masses.

You can also read up at www.lngworldnews.com

And there is also a similar off-shore drilling Web magazine.

www.offshoreenergytoday.com

Actually, there is so much energy development going on, even as we speak, that the number of printed and on-line magazines has expanded enormously.

Lots of good information; and if you are in the industry, as a consultant, for example, then the mailed, print subscription is free.

AND, there are a LOT of good jobs available in the industry, as well.

 

[TheWarriorMonk]

Read more broadly.

Start here:

peakoildebunked.blogspot.com/

Get away from academia.

Hang with people who work for a living.

I have science and engineering degrees and work for a living. One of my professional peers is a geologist that worked in the oil fields before the crash in the 1980s, and now deals with mineral/resources rights. I get my information regarding natural gas extraction, ethanol production, fracking, etc. from him.

 

[SamH]

It’s difficult to discuss issues with people that simply have no idea what they are talking about.

Apparently you’ve gone back and read your posts?

 

[SamH]

It’s difficult to discuss issues with people that simply have no idea what they are talking about.

Such an honest and public self examination is rare.

 

[GregBussey]

If we put everyone on Jupiter we’d have even a lower population density. But once again, that’s not relevant. It’s the resources in the environment per person that matters…

It is only irrelevant if you believe that a human can’t survive on 1,000 sq ft of living space and 49,000 sq ft of garden. But we are surviving on much less than that even with today’s technology.

Along with the decrease in malnutrition is the increase use of non-renewable fossil fuels. The only way population can continue to increase is to continue to use a greater and greater amount of these fuels, as EROEI has been decreasing over time, as predicted.

But you’re assuming fossil fuels cannot be used any more efficiently than they are today and that there are no other energy sources ever to be found and that food production will forever be tied to current technology. If you’re not pessimistic then you’re pretty unimaginative. That’s okay, though, because there are billions of other people out there and some of them will innovate. If the population doubles a couple more times, we will finally have enough innovators around to decrease malnutrition down into the single digits.

But this is a Catholic forum, so think about it this way for a minute: Suppose your doomsday scenario plays out. Earth suddenly has 28 billion people but no new energy was every discovered and the efficiency of food production inexplicably stopped increasing for the first time in history. Do you think that perhaps people would channel more energy to food production and less energy to, say, video games, sit coms and amusement parks? Well maybe the population doubles yet again and then it’s 56 billion people and suppose that all leisure activity did cease at this point and the human race did nothing but work to eat. But population doubled once again and now there is 112 billion people and still no energy or efficiency improvements. Suppose that finally there were just too many mouths to feed. Chaos would ensue. People would act like animals. We would eat each other! Malnutrition rates would skyrocket. Disease would decimate entire continents. That’s what you’re forecasting, right? Okay, well do you think such a future is why God sent his only begotten son? Jesus was crucified for civilization to reach such a tragic conclusion? Really? If God loves us and if he is all-powerful, do you think he would just sit there and watch the chaos from on high without lifting a finger to help? Well if God, who can’t be anything but good, would be content to sit back and watch humanity self-destruct, he would have to have some greater purpose for allowing that self-destruction. If he did have a greater purpose, then wouldn’t he be really ticked off if you came along and saved the world?

Do you believe that God would let us kill not just a city or a race but the entire planet yet he would still allow us to prevent that destruction on our own without his assistance? Well if you believe that then the question becomes: What are we humans supposed to do to save the world? Politicians say we need to raise taxes in order to funnel money to their cronies and the high costs of living will slow down consumption. That sounds to me like an infraction of the 8th commandment at the very least. Many people say we should kill babies, obviously running afoul of the 6th commandment. The current administration in the US says we should force religious innovators to pay for other people’s sterilization. That too runs afoul of God’s law. If we really must stop this speeding population freight train, what solution is there that is better than the alternative of doing what we’re doing now – which is to continue to improve the efficiency of food production, continue to find more energy, and continue to increase our number of innovative people?

 

[Monte_RCMS]

It’s difficult to discuss issues with people that simply have no idea what they are talking about.

Speaking simply, it is unlikely that tomorrow morning when we wake up that the population will have suddenly doubled overnight.

And speaking simply, it is highly likely that some people who survived being in the most dangerous place in the world … their mother’s womb … will wake up with some brilliant idea that will make the Earth a better place.

Three years ago, natural gas in the United States was up around $15. Now it is down around $3.60. How did that happen? One of two innovative thinkers simply figured out how to make it happen.

Those folks simply knew what they were doing. Not talking, by the way.

Doing.

 

[wynnejj]

You really have to watch your hyperbole when making your arguments…

Speaking simply, it is unlikely that tomorrow morning when we wake up that the population will have suddenly doubled overnight.

Tomorrow means tomorrow, not 70 years down the road, but let’s play out your tomorrow scenario…

And speaking simply, it is highly likely that some people who survived being in the most dangerous place in the world … their mother’s womb … will wake up with some brilliant idea that will make the Earth a better place.

Is it that likely that the babies will resolve the problem … tomorrow … on the same day that the population doubled?

As to the rest, I agree.

 

[wynnejj]

It is only irrelevant if you believe that a human can’t survive on 1,000 sq ft of living space and 49,000 sq ft of garden. But we are surviving on much less than that even with today’s technology.

But you’re assuming fossil fuels cannot be used any more efficiently than they are today and that there are no other energy sources ever to be found and that food production will forever be tied to current technology. If you’re not pessimistic then you’re pretty unimaginative. That’s okay, though, because there are billions of other people out there and some of them will innovate. If the population doubles a couple more times, we will finally have enough innovators around to decrease malnutrition down into the single digits.

But this is a Catholic forum, so think about it this way for a minute: Suppose your doomsday scenario plays out. Earth suddenly has 28 billion people but no new energy was every discovered and the efficiency of food production inexplicably stopped increasing for the first time in history. Do you think that perhaps people would channel more energy to food production and less energy to, say, video games, sit coms and amusement parks? Well maybe the population doubles yet again and then it’s 56 billion people and suppose that all leisure activity did cease at this point and the human race did nothing but work to eat. But population doubled once again and now there is 112 billion people and still no energy or efficiency improvements. Suppose that finally there were just too many mouths to feed. Chaos would ensue. People would act like animals. We would eat each other! Malnutrition rates would skyrocket. Disease would decimate entire continents. That’s what you’re forecasting, right? Okay, well do you think such a future is why God sent his only begotten son? Jesus was crucified for civilization to reach such a tragic conclusion? Really? If God loves us and if he is all-powerful, do you think he would just sit there and watch the chaos from on high without lifting a finger to help? Well if God, who can’t be anything but good, would be content to sit back and watch humanity self-destruct, he would have to have some greater purpose for allowing that self-destruction. If he did have a greater purpose, then wouldn’t he be really ticked off if you came along and saved the world?

Do you believe that God would let us kill not just a city or a race but the entire planet yet he would still allow us to prevent that destruction on our own without his assistance? Well if you believe that then the question becomes: What are we humans supposed to do to save the world? Politicians say we need to raise taxes in order to funnel money to their cronies and the high costs of living will slow down consumption. That sounds to me like an infraction of the 8th commandment at the very least. Many people say we should kill babies, obviously running afoul of the 6th commandment. The current administration in the US says we should force religious innovators to pay for other people’s sterilization. That too runs afoul of God’s law. If we really must stop this speeding population freight train, what solution is there that is better than the alternative of doing what we’re doing now – which is to continue to improve the efficiency of food production, continue to find more energy, and continue to increase our number of innovative people?

What you are saying here is really the bottom line. God will determine when is the appropriate time for the end game. In the meantime, he will provide the discovery, the science, the wherewithal to move the projected deadline back again to meet God’s deadline. To be a realist in the sense that the known science of today is all we can work on to meet the future’s needs is in fact unrealistic. What I find objectionable in these population control debates, though, is any argument that says the scientific methods used to calculate to the best of man’s ability the problems that we face are false because of error of those who make the calculations. What should be said is that science is good as far as it goes, but the reality is that there is a God and a God factor? Who would have ever thought that such a small amount of fissionable matter could ever produce such a big bang? Not all theoretical math is suitable for science, but math is sure a good tool for science. Not all science represents reality, but science is sure a good tool to aid in explaining & predicting reality as far as it goes. But science disallows in its discipline the reality of the God factor. That does not discredit science as a tool, but must be taken into account when interpreting its results. So when someone tries to back us off by saying you always throw in the God factor, there should be no argument from those who trust in God without discrediting the scientific endeavor.