U.S. to overtake Saudi as top oil producer - IEA

WIP · November 13, 2012

There has been a flurry of attention surrounding a new IEA Report claiming that the U.S. is going to become a major oil producer over the next 20 years, even overtaking Saudi Arabia as the major world oil producer. Here's the story off the Reuters newswire:

LONDON, Nov 12 (Reuters) - The United States will overtake

Saudi Arabia

and

Russia

as the world's top oil producer by 2017, the West's energy agency said on Monday, predicting Washington will come very close to achieving a previously unthinkable energy self-sufficiency.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) said it saw a continued fall in U.S. oil imports with North America becoming a net oil exporter by around 2030 and the United States becoming almost self-sufficient in energy by 2035.

"The United States, which currently imports around 20 percent of its total energy needs, becomes all but self-sufficient in net terms - a dramatic reversal of the trend seen in most other energy importing countries," it said.

Sounds like great news! Maybe not for the environment if it was possible. And the prospects of ramping up oil production for another 50 or more years has caused a meltdown over at the Thinkprogress Climate section if you want to check it out: http://thinkprogress...-in-the-making/

But those oil production forecasts are based on a very large assumption -- that includes whatever can be taken out of the ground from shale oil deposits. So far, the exploitation efforts are concentrating in an area called The Bakken Shale Formation in North Dakota, because this is where the deposits most closely resemble something we can call oil and it could be retrieved at the lowest cost. The rule of thumb with all mining and all resource extraction is that the process of discovery, development and production follows the principle of picking the low-hanging fruit first. And the Bakken is that low hanging fruit when it comes to oil shale plays. This is similar to what we went through in Alberta, where the first Shell Oil operations were digging up surface deposits before trying to deal with getting the deeper layers of bitumen out of the ground. And in the case of shale oil deposits, the largest is called the Green River Formation, which presents added problems for development because these are kerogen deposits, which would require a lot of upgrading before becoming anything close to petroleum:

The first problem is that shale oil is actually

kerogen. Kerogen

is a mixture of organic chemical compounds with the soluble portion is known as bitumen, the stuff of the Canadian Oil Sands. Not all of the organic chemicals come up as bitumen. The problem is what’s missing – hydrogen. Kerogen is carbon rich, but hydrogen poor.

Extraction then is quite costly and energy intensive. Heat is needed to raise the viscosity and the heat would be applied to the rock that contains the kerogen. Lots of heat is needed. Then the kerogen needs refined and cleaned. Adding solvents or adding back hydrogen can improve the oil product results.

And, when environmental, energy and dollar costs of developing are considered, a range of numbers are tossed in the air. The most dubious numbers, no surprise, coming from the developers themselves, who are busy counting the money coming in from venture capitalists looking for big profits. It's easy to see shale oil and shale gas plays turning out to be the current market bubble, rather than the energy of the future:

Numbers passed around have U.S. shale oil worthwhile at perhaps as low as $35 a barrel, a number that challenges the imagination. Canada’s Oil Sands gets into financial trouble as oil prices get close to $50 so its a sure bet that the kerogen to bitumen step is going push it higher. But the reserves in shale are getting closer to market. Big breaks in technology will only help.

And that could turn out to be an understatement! Before anyone goes running out to invest in shale based on this rosy IEA forecast, take a look at what people who work in the oil industry have to say on the subject of shale oil. Much of what you need to know is contained in the conclusion of this post on the Oil Drum:

Conclusion: Resources are not Reserves, and Tight Oil isn't Shale Oil

It is pretty clear that at current oil prices, developments in the tight oil formations will continue. It is not at all clear that even at $100 oil the shale in the Green River formation will be commercialized to produce oil, although a number of companies are working on it and will continue to do so. Oil shale is commercially produced in some countries like Estonia, but it is primarily just burned for power.

In order to commercially convert the oil shale into oil, a more energy efficient method of producing it must be found (or, one would have to have extremely cheap energy and abundant water supplies to drive the process). I have heard from multiple industry sources that the energy return for producing oil from oil shale is around 4 to 1 (lower than for oil sands production), and that is before refining the oil to finished products. At this sort of energy return, oil sands will continue to be a more economical heavy oil option.

Thus, my prediction is that despite having an oil shale resource that may indeed be far greater than the oil resources of Saudi Arabia (I don't think I have seen an estimate of Saudi's total oil resources), the reserve will continue to be close to zero for the foreseeable future because there are still many technical hurdles to overcome to realize a scalable, commercially viable process.

Finally, I would say that if a commercially viable process for shale oil production from the Green River formation is developed, the environmental blowback will be enormous. The production of shale oil is more energy intensive (i.e., has higher carbon emissions) than for the oil sands, it has a high water requirement in a dry climate, and it is potentially a huge new source of carbon dioxide emissions. The environmental protests that would arise in response to a growing commercial shale oil operation would make the Keystone XL pipeline protests pale in comparison.

See, the forecasts for U.S. future oil production will most likely drive down oil prices now, but that will only last until investors start realizing they are being had with both shale oil and shale gas! Like they say, don't count your chickens before they hatch. But that is exactly what is happening in this latest market bubble. Once the euphoria wears off, we will be back to the cold, hard reality that energy is going to be scarcer and more costly as time goes on, and magic cures like the promise of shale oil are just wishful thinking....for consumers that is....it would be a nightmare for anyone concerned about the environment if it was commercially feasible to develop the last scraps of carbon in the ground.

TimG · November 13, 2012

In the 80s shale gas was a pipe dream - too expensive to be practical.

Today new technology has lowered those costs to the point where we have a glut of natural gas.

This means new projects are put on hold until the glut clears - this is a healthy free market in action.

The same thing will happen with shale oil.

Prices today are set by supply and demand today. They are not affected by what might happen 10 years from now.

I am as surprised as anyone at the shift since the 'peak oil' mantra has been repeated as gospel my entire life.

This is yet one more example of why the environmental doom mongers are usually wrong and why their predictions of doom need to be taken with a huge grain of salt.

Edited November 13, 2012 by TimG

scribblet · November 13, 2012

I’ve read estimates that say about 24 billion barrels area recoverable with today's technology. Good news for the U.S. N.W. Alberta, and Saskatchewan. Saskatchewan is bigger in resources than Alberta when you figure in the Potash deposits.

No shortage of oil, just the technology to get at it. Wonder if the U.S. could lower the price of gasoline eventually.

http://www.bakkenresourcesinc.com/geology.php

bush_cheney2004 · November 14, 2012

The US has always been a major oil producer.

August1991 · November 14, 2012

In the 80s shale gas was a pipe dream - too expensive to be practical.
Today new technology has lowered those costs to the point where we have a glut of natural gas.

This means new projects are put on hold until the glut clears - this is a healthy free market in action.

The same thing will happen with shale oil.

Indeed, we already see large price differentials between natural gas and oil, and between West Texas and Brent.

OTOH, local environmental worries may eventually slow production. In Quebec, shale gas exploitation has largely been put on hold.

WIP · November 14, 2012

In the 80s shale gas was a pipe dream - too expensive to be practical.

Today new technology has lowered those costs to the point where we have a glut of natural gas.

This means new projects are put on hold until the glut clears - this is a healthy free market in action.

The same thing will happen with shale oil.

Okay, let's stop here and feel the cold dose of reality being dumped on all that optimistic euphoria....which so often motivates fools to part with their money to invest in the next "sure thing."

First off, anyone who has money in gas-fracking better take notice of what concerns the industry experts -- the gas fracking boom was not driven by the arrival of new technology, but instead was driven by a financial bubble of venture capital that arrived after existing conventional natural gas wells started drying up:

Here, one more time, is the contrarian story Berman and Hughes have been telling: The glut of recent gas production was initially driven not by new technologies or discoveries, but by high prices. In the years from 2005 through 2008, as conventional gas supplies dried up due to depletion, prices for natural gas soared to $13 per million BTU (prices had been in $2 range during the 1990s). It was these high prices that provided an incentive for using expensive technology to drill problematic reservoirs. Companies flocked to the Haynesville shale formation in Texas, bought up mineral rights, and drilled thousands of wells in short order. High per-well decline rates and high production costs were hidden behind a torrent of production—and hype. With new supplies coming on line quickly, gas prices fell below $3 MBTU, less than the actual cost of production in most cases. From this point on, gas producers had to attract ever more investment capital in order to maintain their cash flow. It was, in effect, a Ponzi scheme.

http://oilprice.com/Energy/Natural-Gas/US-Shale-Gas-Bubble-is-Set-to-Burst.html

and to keep the gas flowing, there will be a constant need to keep drilling more and more new wells, since the average fracked well will decline 70% after the first year:

Deliverability at scale

. Although the shale gas resource is extensive, even the relatively optimistic EIA projections indicate increases in shale gas will offset only about half of supply declines in other key sources (e.g., Canada). Decline rates in shale gas wells can approach 70 percent the first year, creating a constant treadmill to find additional resources and drill new wells.

http://www.declineoftheempire.com/2010/03/betting-the-house-on-shale-gas.html

And that rate of decline will get faster and faster, since the producers are starting with the best sites available.

Prices today are set by supply and demand today. They are not affected by what might happen 10 years from now.

Oh yes they are! And this shale oil "boom" is a prime example, since much of the drop in oil prices is due to speculators who believe the U.S. is about to become the next Saudi Arabia. The other part is due to the fact that when world oil prices go above $100 per barrel, world economies start stalling out. How else do you explain what happened to China? Since they are an oil importer now, the runup in oil prices raised their production costs while reducing demand for their products in America and around the world. The present recession started because of the spike in oil prices, and what they are calling a recovery right now is only due to the decline in demand for oil and the price drop in the last five years.

I am as surprised as anyone at the shift since the 'peak oil' mantra has been repeated as gospel my entire life.

And, exactly how long has your life been? In respect to the age of the planet that is! If you check some of the numbers on energy return on energy invested (EROEI), you'll find that in the beginning of the big oil boom...say in the 1930's, EROEI on those wells drilled in Texas and Oklahoma were in the 100:1 range. Ever since then, EROEI numbers have been in steady decline as oil companies keep going down the list from most profitable to least profitable. And that's what peak oil is all about. It's not a matter of extracting all the oil from the ground; it's reaching the point where oil extraction is so costly that life as we know it can no longer continue. Today's globalized world economy was built on the premise of cheap transportation. As oil prices continue to bump upwards, one product after another (including food) will be too expensive to ship across the Pacific.

This is yet one more example of why the environmental doom mongers are usually wrong and why their predictions of doom need to be taken with a huge grain of salt.

Peak oil and peak non-renewable resources (I'm going to have to get that thread started soon) are related to environmental chaos, but not one and the same thing. Shale oil and tar sands oil, is not going to create an overall increase in world oil supplies -- partly because, depending on the source, there are limited number of petroleum products that will be retrieved from them; but also because exploiting dirty oil will require more and more energy and water as developers move from the best reserves down the line to the worst. It's hard to say at what point the world economy will seize up, but eventually the costs of carbon fuels are going to greater than what they are worth.

And the environmental costs of exploiting dirty carbon fuels keeps growing over the years also....even after production totals start to decline.

TimG · November 14, 2012

the gas fracking boom was not driven by the arrival of new technology, but instead was driven by a financial bubble of venture capital that arrived after existing conventional natural gas wells started drying up:

IOW - the free market working EXACTLY as it should. i.e. supplies decline, prices rise, investors provide money to develop new sources, prices drop, investment in new sources drops and prices rise. Your attempt to spin the normal free market activity is as some sort of aberration is silly.

Oh yes they are! And this shale oil "boom" is a prime example, since much of the drop in oil prices is due to speculators who believe the U.S. is about to become the next Saudi Arabia. The other part is due to the fact that when world oil prices go above $100 per barrel, world economies start stalling out.

And sustained high prices will motivate people to reduce consumption - naturally high prices are a much better incentive than scam riddled carbon control programs. The world economy will adjust to 100 dollar or 150 dollar oil - especially as alternatives like natural gas come online.

The present recession started because of the spike in oil prices, and what they are calling a recovery right now is only due to the decline in demand for oil and the price drop in the last five years.

Gee - I thought the recession started because of near meltdown of the global baking sector trigger by the collapse of the real estate bubble in the US. Interesting that you think that oil was driver.

EROEI on those wells drilled in Texas and Oklahoma were in the 100:1 range. Ever since then, EROEI numbers have been in steady decline as oil companies keep going down the list from most profitable to least profitable.

So what? The price of oil is never going back to 20/barrel. Oil prices will go up. That is different than saying oil will run out. Edited November 14, 2012 by TimG

WIP · November 16, 2012

IOW - the free market working EXACTLY as it should. i.e. supplies decline, prices rise, investors provide money to develop new sources, prices drop, investment in new sources drops and prices rise. Your attempt to spin the normal free market activity is as some sort of aberration is silly.

Maybe this is a reading comprehension issue, because you keep totally missing the point! Every time there is a flurry of new money chasing the "next big thing," the money rushes in before there is any realistic assessment of the profit potential. And this happened with the real estate boom, the tech bubble, every single commodity boom etc. etc.; if enough people see a company stock go skyrocketing and they're told it's the Next Big Thing, they will keep putting money on it until reality sets in....but that's usually not until new money starts drying up and stockholders realize that the profit projections are just pie in the sky. And then of course, there is the rush to the door as everyone tries to unload the stock and get what little money they can out of it.

I should add that what you call "the normal free market," is a psychotic, irrational method of running economic activity, prone to booms and busts when left on its own. The myth of Pareto Efficiency that pro-capitalist economists hold on to as their primary religious tenet, is only a myth -- one that only works in theory, and in very small, limited examples which do not take into account that the players in the game are irrational and do not make rational choices, which would be necessary to make the market the ultimate arbitrator of what's good or bad. And it needs to be stressed that capitalism is an economic system that only works with expanding economies. In an overcrowded world that is fouling its environment and exhausting the resources in the ground that have been used to build the capitalist edifice, this economic system in all its forms - liberal or conservative - has no solutions.

Back to the irrational boom in gas development: the costs of new drilling is not going to pay for itself, unless gas prices stay high -- and even with that, the drillers have to keep constantly drilling new holes in areas that will show a declining return on investment -- like I said before, this is exactly the same progression as every other energy resource extraction and mining operation -- the developers pick the most profitable "low hanging fruit" first, and then move on as prices rise, to spending the money, resources and energy to try to extract the rest. And, at some point, as the returns on new wells decline...even in a scenario with rising gas prices, a point will be reached when investors will begin to realize that this new industry can't produce the future profits they are expecting, and there will be a rush to the door!

And the fact that this idiotic report projecting the U.S. as the new great energy producer only took a look at total reserves in the ground, without making any assessment of what the real costs of getting to that resource, and in the case of most of the shale oils - turning into useable products, is the main reason why this rosy scenario for the oil and gas industries will never happen.

And sustained high prices will motivate people to reduce consumption - naturally high prices are a much better incentive than scam riddled carbon control programs. The world economy will adjust to 100 dollar or 150 dollar oil - especially as alternatives like natural gas come online.

And you have identified the key reason why carbon fuels were allowed to flourish and dominate our way of life -- the total costs of using coal, oil and gas, have never been completely priced in for the consumer. If the externalized costs of all of the air pollution (I forget what the percentage is now of lung and heart disease directly attributed to coal-fired electrical stations now....but it's pretty damn big) and our growing realization of the greatest externalized cost of taking half of the total carbon fuels locked up in the ground and dumping it all in the atmosphere -- have never been priced in for the consumer. Imagine if, right from the beginning, the costs of burning coal to heat houses and then to fuel boilers at generating stations were added to the bill, or the carbon costs of gasoline had to be payed at the pump!

The cost to the consumer would have been so high that the massive electrification projects would have proceeded at a much slower and more limited pace, and of course The Highway Lobby - which tore up railway and streetcar tracks and fueled the building of suburbs many miles away from the workplace - creating the need for massive highway systems to be constructed....all this wouldn't have happened....or certainly wouldn't have happened at the breakneck speed that it did in the 20th century! And now, that some of us are starting to realize that the party is over and we've reached the limits to growth, we also realize that our world would not be facing the prospects of total catastrophe today if development occurred at a much slower pace and made some attempt to be sustainable in the future.

Gee - I thought the recession started because of near meltdown of the global baking sector trigger by the collapse of the real estate bubble in the US. Interesting that you think that oil was driver.

Too much...Way Too Much attention is payed to looking at what money is doing without trying to examine for real, physical factors that underlay politics and economic theory. The fundamental cause of the last recession was the runup in oil prices, driven as high as $150 per barrel by the panicked flurry of large scale users to secure future supplies. The price jump started because (without realizing it at the time) the world had reached the peak conventional oil production limit. New, unconventional oil would not be put on the market unless prices reached a certain threshold, and economies all around the world started contracting as they were forced to incorporate higher oil costs into their business plans. And this provided the catalyst for the boom in derivatives investing -- because the large financial players, who had been spending the last decade or so searching foreign markets for kinds of returns they had come to expect, weren't finding anything in any of the real markets. So, they created derivatives -- which are essentially bets on existing investments....no different than trying to win money at the casino! Except that these casino games were rigged by the house, and people buying and selling mortgages had no idea they even existed! So, in a nutshell, without going into further detail, from everything I have read over the last few years about the banking and market meltdown, I have come to the conclusion that it did not originate in the trading of paper -- but was caused by a small class of wealthy - at least borderline psychotic financial dealmakers trying to concoct new ways of making money, as higher energy prices reduced their previous profit returns. And if we look at previous economic booms and busts, we find that most...possibly all of them have their source in the price and availability of oil.

So what? The price of oil is never going back to 20/barrel. Oil prices will go up. That is different than saying oil will run out.

And as the price of oil rises, we keep moving on to more expensive and dirtier oil and related carbon fuels, which percentage wise dump more carbon into the atmosphere. So, it's a lot harder to say if the drop in oil consumption itself will be enough to reduce total carbon output. So far, the recession of the last few years hasn't stopped the rise in carbon emissions; it has only reduced the increase. But, at some point, the stuff in the ground becomes too expensive to run the kind of economic systems we have now. I came across an article recently in Scientific American...of all places, on the revival of the railway industry. Due to high gas and diesel prices, trains are starting to look good again for the first time in decades. And not just for shipping freight; there is also talk about revamping some of the passenger rail service that is becoming more popular as air travel increases in price; and even talk of building high tech sailing ships for moving freight across the oceans.

The best we could hope for would be an unwinding of the Industrial Era such as this; but for a rational acceptance of the constraints on consumerism, it would first require the realization that our world has less and less resources available to provide for our use, and that we live in an overly-militarized world with lots of lethal weapons, so sharing resources in common would make more sense than the ruthless grabs for power that are increasing right now....so, there are two stark choices:

1. bring our expectations in line with whatever is necessary for a sustainable future for the world's inhabitants or

2. engage in a bloody fight to the death and eventual extinction of the human species from the face of the Earth.

TimG · November 16, 2012

Every time there is a flurry of new money chasing the "next big thing," the money rushes in before there is any realistic assessment of the profit potential. And this happened with the real estate boom, the tech bubble, every single commodity boom etc. etc.; if enough people see a company stock go skyrocketing and they're told it's the Next Big Thing, they will keep putting money on it until reality sets in

This is the nature of the free market. But each of these booms and busts moves us forward. Where would be without Google today? Yet Google is a child of the internet boom and bust - it would not exist if that had not happened. Some of the wells dug in the last few years may be abandoned but many more will continue and help ensure that the predictions of energy self sufficiency do come to pass - most likely later than claimed today but it will happen.

I should add that what you call "the normal free market," is a psychotic, irrational method of running economic activity, prone to booms and busts when left on its own.

So what? What exactly is the problem other than you find it messy?

And you have identified the key reason why carbon fuels were allowed to flourish and dominate our way of life -- the total costs of using coal, oil and gas, have never been completely priced in for the consumer.

You claim that but I see no evidence. The taxes on carbon based fuels far exceed the estimated social costs. Once you factor in the economic development made possible by readily available fossil fuels you really have no argument to make on the question of pricing.

And as the price of oil rises, we keep moving on to more expensive and dirtier oil and related carbon fuels, which percentage wise dump more carbon into the atmosphere. So, it's a lot harder to say if the drop in oil consumption itself will be enough to reduce total carbon output.

Of course you assume that carbon is actually a problem. Here is a new study from Nature that claims that there is NO evidence of an increase in droughts as a result of warming: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v491/n7424/full/nature11575.html

WIP · November 17, 2012

This is the nature of the free market. But each of these booms and busts moves us forward. Where would be without Google today? Yet Google is a child of the internet boom and bust - it would not exist if that had not happened. Some of the wells dug in the last few years may be abandoned but many more will continue and help ensure that the predictions of energy self sufficiency do come to pass - most likely later than claimed today but it will happen.

And your adherence to freemarket mythology is the reason why you cannot consider issues like climate change. The concept that our economic system is faulty and unsustainable is just too horrible to consider. I expect most rightwingers will just keep on living in denial while everything collapses around them.

And I would include Google and all of the high tech electronics and computerized toys we have created in the last half century. The other part of the mythology you subscribe to is one that is almost universal: that the achievements and inventions starting in the Enlightenment Era have allowed the human race to break free from the normal cycles of history - wherein civilizations rose and fell, and people lived virtually similar lives to their parents, grandparents etc. etc. and time became a linear progression from primitiveness to true enlightenment, which will eventually create a heaven on Earth where all of our needs, wants and desires can be satisfied....just like in the Star Trek movies. But, I am with a small minority of critics of technology, like Michael Hussemann, Richard Hernberg and James Howard Kuntsler, and maybe a few others, who note that human inventiveness alone cannot promise a better and brighter future. The resources - both renewable and non-renewable, have to be present and economically feasible to make those new inventions a reality.....and that's why we don't have flying cars, moving sidewalks today. It's why 2001 didn't produce a Space Odyssey, and the world is sliding into a process of decay and destruction already. And a big part of that decay will be all of this internet (dependent on high power-consuming router systems), computers, and related electronic hardware. So, you may as well enjoy Google and the internet while you can, because it is not going to be with us forever. It's difficult to say when the lights start going out, but I am expecting that if I live close to halfway through this century, I will live long enough to see the slide backwards into a world devoid of electricity - except for the wealthy few.

So what? What exactly is the problem other than you find it messy?

"Messy" is exactly what causes civilizations to unwind. It's happened in the past, through disease epidemics and long periods of drought....it's become very conclusive in recent archaeological research that the Mayan and Anasazi Empires both collapsed due to drought destroying their ability to grow food. The same thing can and will happen today in our overcrowded world that has only barely managed to feed 7 billion people through unsustainable agriculture methods. No food...no civilization! Ancient Rome's population dropped to as low as 30,000 during the dark ages, when the grain shipments from North Africa stopped arriving. The same thing will happen to New York and every other major city when the time comes that agriculture and transportation systems start breaking down.

You claim that but I see no evidence. The taxes on carbon based fuels far exceed the estimated social costs. Once you factor in the economic development made possible by readily available fossil fuels you really have no argument to make on the question of pricing.

I consider overheating the planet to be a major cost; but since you don't even recognize its existence, you fail to add in the true costs of burning carbon fuels for cheap energy.

Of course you assume that carbon is actually a problem. Here is a new study from Nature that claims that there is NO evidence of an increase in droughts as a result of warming: http://www.nature.co...ature11575.html

I just took a quick glance at your link. The first thing that needs to be pointed out is that this is not a Nature peer-reviewed research paper; that's why it is included in the Letters section. Two of the authors are civil and environmental engineers from Princeton, the third is an Australian scientist; but more important - that brief abstract doesn't flesh out exactly what their conclusions are. But, I would still like to see what other researchers in these fields say about their study, since many others have pointed to increasingly severe droughts as a greater threat from climate change than flooding and hurricanes, and other storm damage. Try telling the people in areas of Sub-Sahel or East Africa that there is no increase in droughts, since their lands have become too dry to till the soil over the last 30 years.

The main cause of deserts around the world arises from the basic dynamics of how our atmosphere functions. From the Equator to about 30 degrees north and south of the Equator, there is the primary convection zone called the Hadley Cell. Warm air rises from the Equator, moves north and south as it cools, and drops its precipitation near the northern and southern boundaries of that cell. That's why we have these rainforests near the Equator with high levels of precipitation. The downside is that above the Hadley Cell, there is far less moisture, and what's available usually falls further north (or south), and the great deserts are the result. I should point out that, depending on which continent we're talking about, there are local geographic features which skew these results, but the primary systems govern the general flow of precipitation.

And the downside has been that every climate modelling system created so far tells us adding more heat energy to the system results in increased precipitation in the wet zones and drier conditions where it's already dry. So, a major reason why the deserts are expanding, and droughts such as those being experienced now in much of the U.S. are going to be more or less permanent conditions and not a temporary aberration, is one of the long-predicted results of climate change. A simple rule of physics in complex systems is that every action (such as adding more energy) will have definite, if difficult to predict results on the system. Global warming may not predict every storm or drought; but as a general rule, we can expect more storms in areas receiving precipitation, and drought-prone regions turning in to deserts. And it's because of growing deserts and increasingly volatile precipitation patterns in the wetter regions, is why agriculture yields are dropping, rather than increasing. For most of the last 12 years (except for 2009) there has been a major drought in at least one of the grain-producing regions in the world, so we can expect more of the same, and worse even, over the coming years. And that's why it's not a good idea to be "messy" on the grand scale of things.

TimG · November 17, 2012

The concept that our economic system is faulty and unsustainable is just too horrible to consider.

What you need is *evidence*. Not predictions of doom when the system seems to be working as intended.

It's difficult to say when the lights start going out, but I am expecting that if I live close to halfway through this century, I will live long enough to see the slide backwards into a world devoid of electricity - except for the wealthy few.

Nuclear power is more than able to meet our power needs for the foreseeable future. People don't like the risks today because there are alternatives. That will change if those alternatives get so pricey that going without is the only option other than nuclear.

"Messy" is exactly what causes civilizations to unwind.

"Messy" is how nature works.

The same thing can and will happen today in our overcrowded world that has only barely managed to feed 7 billion people through unsustainable agriculture methods.

Except our food production keeps going up because we are inventing better plants and better methods.

Ancient Rome's population dropped to as low as 30,000 during the dark ages, when the grain shipments from North Africa stopped arriving. The same thing will happen to New York and every other major city when the time comes that agriculture and transportation systems start breaking down.

If it happens.

I consider overheating the planet to be a major cost; but since you don't even recognize its existence, you fail to add in the true costs of burning carbon fuels for cheap energy.

You are wrong on that too. The cost of a warming planet is about $40-80 per tC or 3-6 cents a liter of gas - much less than the current taxes. Your claim that we don't pay the "true" cost is nonsense.

I just took a quick glance at your link.

You are so desperate to cling to your doomsday narrative that you reject anything that casts doubt on it. Here is another paper that makes the same point:

http://journals.amet...LI-D-12-00449.1

And Nature letters are peer reviewed. http://www.nature.com/authors/policies/peer_review.html

Edited November 17, 2012 by TimG

WIP · November 19, 2012

What you need is *evidence*. Not predictions of doom when the system seems to be working as intended.

The *evidence* is widely available in data examining resource extraction and use, when compared with the estimates of non-renewable resources still in the ground that can be feasibly extracted to meet future demand. We don't even have to combine the deleterious effects of climate change to forecast a future crisis for civilization....but as we can see with the effects that droughts and floods have on the major food-growing regions, the system is already straining without considering the overpumping of aquifers and topsoil loss that is necessary just to meet present grain production totals.

But, setting climate change and environmental issues like shortages of renewable resources (water and soil) aside for a moment, the constantly increasing demand for non-renewables is leading to shortages in most of the metals and minerals needed for industry. This is from the excerpt to Scarcity: Humanity's Final Chapter? by Christopher Clugston:

Industrialism and NNRs

It is understandable that we human beings would seek to improve our societal wellbeing—the material living standards enjoyed by our human populations—through industrialism. The material living standards associated with industrialized lifestyles such as those enjoyed by Americans and Western Europeans are far superior to the material living standards afforded by pre-industrial agrarian and hunter-gatherer lifestyles.

Seemingly unnoticed, however, is the fact that our industrial lifestyle paradigm is enabled almost exclusively by enormous and ever-increasing quantities of nonrenewable natural resources (NNRs)—fossil fuels, metals, and nonmetallic (industrial and construction) minerals—which serve as the raw material inputs to our industrialized economies, as the building blocks that comprise our industrialized infrastructure and support systems, and as the primary energy sources that power our industrialized societies.

As an example, NNRs comprise approximately 95% of the raw material inputs to the US economy each year. America currently (2008) uses nearly 6.5 billion tons of newly mined NNRs per annum—an almost inconceivable 162,000% increase since the year 1800—which equates to approximately 43,000 pounds yearly per US citizen..........................................................

Sixty eight (68) of the 89 NNRs that enable our modern industrial existence—including bauxite, copper, iron/steel, manganese, natural gas, oil, phosphate rock, potash, rare earth minerals, and zinc—were scarce domestically in 2008.

Sixty three (63) of the 89 NNRs that enable our modern industrial existence—including aluminum, coal, copper, iron/steel, manganese, natural gas, oil, phosphate rock, potash, rare earth minerals, uranium, and zinc—were scarce globally in 2008.

While there will always be “plenty of NNRs” in the ground, there are “not enough economically viable NNRs” in the ground to perpetuate our industrial lifestyle paradigm going forward.

And, if you get the book, you'll find that every one those 89 NNR's mentioned, have an index subheading giving present extraction rates and the estimates of future availability, along with data sources from USGS, oil and mining companies, and others. It's not like this is information that is hard to find; it's just that it's the kind of information that only those in the oil and mining industries talk about....with government leaders occasionally.

There is a reason why the oil companies started sinking billions of dollars into deep sea drilling and tar sands, shales etc. in the last ten years; and reasons why the U.S. Government started an aggressive campaign to secure the presently available "easy" oil around the same time. There are similar military and diplomatic moves being made regarding access to other minerals - especially rare earths, and the public presentations of the motives being regime change to promote democracy etc. are just pure bullshit!

The U.S. has not only kept its oversized and expensive military, it is increasing the budgets! And the reasons may have something to do with lobbying by military contractors, but has little if nothing to do with "national security". It's mostly about trying to grab what's left before the Russians, Chinese or Indians or any other competing interests get to it first. The competition to secure land, resources and trade routes were the underlying causes of two previous world wars, and it will likely be the cause of the next....and possibly final world war.

Nuclear power is more than able to meet our power needs for the foreseeable future. People don't like the risks today because there are alternatives. That will change if those alternatives get so pricey that going without is the only option other than nuclear.

Nuclear power is extremely risky when things happen like tsunamis, earthquakes, or floods....like what happened with Hurricane Sandy. If the storm surge was larger, and the flooding was greater, that would mean no available backup generators to keep the reactor cores and spent fuel ponds from overheating....which is exactly what happened at Fukushima. But, aside from all of that, nuclear power is also extremely expensive to start up - moneywise, as well as the environmental and resource costs of building new nuclear power stations, mining uranium and the temporary-turned-permanent situation with the lack of decision on how to safely dispose of nuclear wastes. And considering the resource issues that would come with building new nuclear stations and keeping them operating safely in the future, nuclear is not going to be the magic bullet to provide free energy to power future desires for increased electrical consumption.

"Messy" is how nature works.

But not how civilization works...especially as cities become larger and more specialized.

Except our food production keeps going up because we are inventing better plants and better methods.

And that is also wrong! Actually, modern monocropping is one of the big reasons for topsoil loss and without dumping fertilizers containing mined phosphates, potassium and oil-based nutrients in the fields, there would be nothing to grow in the following year. And those fields are being watered by overpumped aquifers (some of them actually being fossil aquifers), so the present system of big agrobusiness that has spread around the world is a ticking timebomb, waiting to collapse as soon as one or more of the key ingredients is gone. And the much heralded benefits of those Green Revolution hybrids have been way overblown also. These plants, which are now seedless - so farmers have to keep buying new seed every year - are specifically designed for a more limited range of environments. Extreme weather changes cause greater crop loss than with the traditional, more resilient plants.

If it happens.
You are wrong on that too. The cost of a warming planet is about $40-80 per tC or 3-6 cents a liter of gas - much less than the current taxes. Your claim that we don't pay the "true" cost is nonsense.

And exactly where are you pulling numbers from that price the costs of global warming into gas prices?

You are so desperate to cling to your doomsday narrative that you reject anything that casts doubt on it. Here is another paper that makes the same point:
http://journals.amet...LI-D-12-00449.1

And Nature letters are peer reviewed. http://www.nature.co...eer_review.html

If that's true, it is only the beginning of the peer review process - not the conclusion. Your previous link, and the new one, have pretty much the same thing to say about how the Palmer Drought Severity Index is calculated. There are other studies of drought severity in the U.S. and around the world which conclude that areas like the American Southwest are settling in to a permanent drier condition, similar to what existed prior to the 1800's, when the first Americans were arriving in the area. If areas like this turn back to desert, whether from cyclical weather conditions or global warming, it means the same thing for farmers - more water has to be pumped out of the ground to compensate for lack of rain. And rainfall levels have not been great enough to meet the demands of growers and migration of millions of people to cities like Phoenix - which have increased from 50000 to over three million since WWII. At present rates of groundwater use, the Ogallala Aquifer will be pumped dry by the year 2030. The growing deserts in Africa are the underlying, rarely mentioned cause of famines, religious and tribal wars, genocides and forced emigrations, and failed states.

And, one last thing: you keep concluding your pieces by suggesting that everyone who questions business-as-usual has hidden motives desiring the end of the world or some sort of disaster. It should be obvious to anyone who can think straight, that there are much greater emotional reasons to try to cling to the existing paradigms than there is to question the future we are heading towards. I have a pension that I still have to wait another five years to start collecting, and I suspect that the rest of my savings, along with those of millions of others, will start dwindling away before we get very far into a comfortable retirement. What's happened in Southern Europe will spread the rest of that continent and North America as well over the coming years and decades, as most approaching retirement have to keep working if they have the option, and those already retired, will have to go back to work as pensions are cut - if they are healthy enough to do so. Otherwise, they will have to depend on younger family members for their very survival in the near future. So, when I hear health care issues bandied about, I remind myself that the only surefire health care system for our future is to do what is necessary to remain as healthy as possible as we age.

An old Chinese curse says: may you live in interesting times, and I see everyone except for a scant few who have enough money and resources to be heading into a new era of declining expectations and greater dangers. It's not like I want this sort of future....I have children too....but I don't see a cornucopia of abundance by taking an honest look at where future projections will lead.

TimG · November 19, 2012

The *evidence* is widely available in data examining resource extraction and use, when compared with the estimates of non-renewable resources still in the ground that can be feasibly extracted to meet future demand.

The trouble is people have been doing these calculations for decades and they are always wrong because technological or social change or the discovery of new resources. Academically, there are limits because the planet is finite but trying to predict when we will meet those limits is impossible.

Frankly, I have more faith that the market will gradually find the solutions we need when we need than in the wisdom of any government planner.

The U.S. has not only kept its oversized and expensive military, it is increasing the budgets! And the reasons may have something to do with lobbying by military contractors, but has little if nothing to do with "national security". It's mostly about trying to grab what's left before the Russians, Chinese or Indians or any other competing interests get to it first.

The US wants access to resources to be based on free market principals (i.e. resources are sold on the open market as they are extracted). The Chinese want the Chinese government to control it. The US approach is better for the US and better for the rest of the world. The US military is necessary to ensure that goods can flow freely.

Nuclear power is extremely risky when things happen like tsunamis, earthquakes, or floods

It is also very safe. The fact is people will accept the risks if there is no alternative. This means nuclear will be used if fossil fuels run low. This is one of the reasons why the society is not going to collapse simply because fossil fuels gradually increase in price.

And exactly where are you pulling numbers from that price the costs of global warming into gas prices?

From the peer reviewed literature. I always get a chuckle at how you reject peer reviewed sources whenever they don't conform to your beliefs.

Yohe et al. (2007:813) summarized the literature on SCC estimates: peer-reviewed estimates of the SCC for 2005 had an average value of $43/tC with a standard deviation of $83/tC.[29] The wide range of estimates is explained mostly by underlying uncertainties in the science of climate change (e.g., the climate sensitivity, which is a measure of the amount of global warming expected for a doubling in the atmospheric concentration of CO2), different choices of discount rate,

If that's true, it is only the beginning of the peer review process - not the conclusion. Your previous link, and the new one, have pretty much the same thing to say about how the Palmer Drought Severity Index is calculated. There are other studies of drought severity in the U.S. and around the world which conclude that areas like the American Southwest are settling in to a permanent drier condition, similar to what existed prior to the 1800's, when the first Americans were arriving in the area.

I bolded the text to remind you that climate change occurs all of the time and there will be regions that experience climate change that makes conditions worse while others where conditions get better. The papers which you are desperate to dismiss simply point out that prior claims of an increase in droughts are spurious and that there is no evidence that warming has lead to more droughts on a global scale. This does not mean that some regions do not experience more drought than before - just that there is no correlation between the experience of some regions and the global temperature change. Edited November 19, 2012 by TimG

WIP · November 20, 2012

The trouble is people have been doing these calculations for decades and they are always wrong because technological or social change or the discovery of new resources. Academically, there are limits because the planet is finite but trying to predict when we will meet those limits is impossible.

Frankly, I have more faith that the market will gradually find the solutions we need when we need than in the wisdom of any government planner.

Those finite limits may be hard to predict, but we are running out of technological rabbits to pull out of the hat when it comes to: how deep drilling rigs can go, or how much oil can be retrieved by pumping steam into old wells to keep them producing a little longer, or determining how much "tight" oil can be extracted from oil shales etc. The EROEI for getting "unconventional" oil like tar sands and shales is already estimated to be 8:1 by those hyping these sources; some independent analysis with a more skeptical approach, believe that new operations are likely as low as 3:1. Aside from the obvious environmental costs, it's easy to see how they're getting close to the level where there is no gains to be made taking it out of the ground.

And it needs to be mentioned that it's the same problem with getting ores out of the ground too! Ore grades in a mine keep dropping, requiring more and more energy and effort to refine them; costs of extraction mean shutting down, at least temporarily until demand makes continued extraction worthwhile again. The big question now is when will costs of extraction reach the level where they start pricing modern industrial society out of existence? And that's why faith in the free market is an empty, vacuous religion that can't live up to its promises!

Basic free market principles work (at least in theory) if there is a readily available supply to meet demand. When supplies start running out, demand just leads to higher and higher prices, and products made from NNR's will, one by one, reach levels where they are no longer affordable for making the stuff that fills the average Walmart. And that's what The Limits To Growth is all about.

It is also very safe. The fact is people will accept the risks if there is no alternative. This means nuclear will be used if fossil fuels run low. This is one of the reasons why the society is not going to collapse simply because fossil fuels gradually increase in price.

And, when things go wrong - like Fukushima and Chernobyl (which also isn't over yet) it gets very expensive. The cleanup of Fukushima will take at least 40 years by the most optimistic estimates....providing there are no more major earthquakes, and new technology can be created to remove all of the melted fuel rods and damaged reactors. And, it doesn't deal with the question of what to do about transportation fuels. We are likely going to see planes disappear from the skies during our lifetimes, and, unless there are major capital investments made now while it's still possible, to rebuild mass transit, it's back to horse and buggy days in a few decades...and most people will have to live like the Amish!

From the peer reviewed literature. I always get a chuckle at how you reject peer reviewed sources whenever they don't conform to your beliefs.

Finding the truth is never without bias. Everyone, and I mean everyone, builds a worldview, a theory of the world and how things work. And we apply varying degrees of emotional attachment to our beliefs. So, when we are in a process of trying to find the answers, we will naturally give more weight to evidence that confirms existing beliefs, and look for ways to discount contrary evidence. And I'm not claiming to have no bias in that process. But there are basic differences between liberal thinkers and conservatives in the degree of adherence to beliefs, and the trust they put into authority figures. And when it comes to contrary evidence like your links - contending that there is no evidence of increasing droughts, I want to hear from the other side first before I accept it as fact. And it should be noted that, even if droughts aren't increasing, that's cold comfort considering all of the other devastating effects on weather that adding more energy to climatic systems have had, and will have in the future.

I bolded the text to remind you that climate change occurs all of the time and there will be regions that experience climate change that makes conditions worse while others where conditions get better. The papers which you are desperate to dismiss simply point out that prior claims of an increase in droughts are spurious and that there is no evidence that warming has lead to more droughts on a global scale. This does not mean that some regions do not experience more drought than before - just that there is no correlation between the experience of some regions and the global temperature change.

And, since you bolded that part of my quote, you are also aware that I am aware that the climate changes due to natural factors, the question is what will the effects be on our weather of adding more and more heat energy to the system in the future? We are tinkering with the climate in a manner that has only occurred in the past when there have been high levels of volcanic activity, and the kind of life we have known since agriculture started, has been during the Holocene - a period of unusual stability in weather...which seems now to be coming to an end.

TimG · November 20, 2012

Basic free market principles work (at least in theory) if there is a readily available supply to meet demand. When supplies start running out, demand just leads to higher and higher prices, and products made from NNR's will, one by one, reach levels where they are no longer affordable for making the stuff that fills the average Walmart.

But that is not inevitable because the market will find substitutes. We are making airplanes from carbon composites today - in the past aluminium was required. There is another technology that makes batteries from silicon instead of metals. The possibilities are endless - the more we make from carbon or silicon the less we depend on NNRs.

And, when things go wrong - like Fukushima and Chernobyl (which also isn't over yet) it gets very expensive.

One major disaster every twenty five years is not a big deal when amortized across every kilowatt of power generated by every nuclear plant in the world. Plus accidents are learning opportunities that make future accident much less likely. In any case - when fossil fuels run low people will accept the risks.

And, it doesn't deal with the question of what to do about transportation fuels. We are likely going to see planes disappear from the skies during our lifetimes.

Not likely. Prices for airfare will go up but as ground transportation shifts away from gasoline to natural gas we will see the price for oil stabilize as consumption drops.

we will naturally give more weight to evidence that confirms existing beliefs, and look for ways to discount contrary evidence. And I'm not claiming to have no bias in that process.

Glad to find someone who acknowledges this basic human reality. If you take it a bit further and acknowledge that people with a libertarian outlook are going to require more evidence than you to support claims made if the "solutions" require policies they oppose. When I look at the actual science I find little evidence and a lot of guesswork and assumptions that appear to be driven by the biases of the researchers. You simply assume that this guesswork is based on scientific knowledge. I don't.

But there are basic differences between liberal thinkers and conservatives in the degree of adherence to beliefs, and the trust they put into authority figures.

Not true at all. You reject everything the authorities say about nuclear power or GMOs.

And it should be noted that, even if droughts aren't increasing, that's cold comfort considering all of the other devastating effects on weather that adding more energy to climatic systems have had, and will have in the future.

But where is your evidence of this bleak future? How much of it is really nothing more than speculation driven by the biases of the researchers? Edited November 20, 2012 by TimG

WIP · November 20, 2012

But that is not inevitable because the market will find substitutes. We are making airplanes from carbon composites today - in the past aluminium was required. There is another technology that makes batteries from silicon instead of metals. The possibilities are endless - the more we make from carbon or silicon the less we depend on NNRs.

Some futurists, like Julian Simon for one, use the innovation and substitution excuse to try to slip out of the constraints our finite, physical world imposes on us. Sure, there are some materials that can be substituted...like the ones you mentioned; but you can't bring up the subject of new technological solutions without mentioning that many new high tech products require high amounts of rare earth metals and minerals like neodymium for one - required in the making of high efficiency magnets in these new windmills and many other products (this is one of the reasons why you don't see me making the typical "green technology solutions" arguments about merely substituting windmills and solar panels as our energy sources). Neodymium is an unusual metal with strange and now very useful properties, that had plentiful supply in the old days before it started being used more widely. Nowadays, there is a reasonable chance that the next world war will start from the present day behind-the-scenes competition between the U.S. and China over access to rare earths, every bit as much as it could start over oil or sources of fresh water.

Futurist visions are typically hopes and wishes based on new inventions and proposed new ideas, but they come crashing to the ground because there are natural limits which make them unfeasible ......which is what is happening now to the U.S. space program...and will soon happen to the Russians, as they have also not been willing to spend the billions to design and build a new generation of booster rockets to keep their space program functioning.

When I was young, we just assumed space travel was the way of the future....mostly based on what was technologically possible. And so did our governments apparently. They spent billions on spaceflight, but now that budgets are severely constrained, space stations and Mars and Lunar colonies are appearing more and more like unachievable luxuries, rather than future human outposts. We are becoming earthbound once again, as almost every space application except for a few satellites, doesn't get past the planning stage. I see the same process happening with commercial air travel...making it more and more a luxury for the rich, and then the private automobile will also price itself out of existence because of the fuel problem combined with the enormous demand on natural resources to keep building millions of new cars every year. This sounds like the decaying process James Howard Kuntsler described in a book 10 years ago called "The Long Emergency." The actual timeline of events will be difficult to try to predict, but the basic trend towards increased scarcities is already happening.

But the biggest challenge for future generations is that the economic system that has governed the way of life of most of the world, is a capitalist system that demands continuous economic growth -- or the system will collapse. Now that we are approaching some of the hard limits that are constraining real economic growth, we are seeing more and more currency collapses, increased levels of debt, and destruction of entire national economies for their assets, just to keep the global banking juggernaut teetering on the verge of total collapse. I suspect that nothing will be done to stop the collapse because everyone would be required to make major sacrifices to stave off disaster, and our increasingly self-centered, self-absorbed, libertarian culture is more focused on stopping any 'free riders' than on settling for a system that could at least meet the basic needs of everyone. We are less likely to work for the common good than people were 50 or 100 years ago before the age of TV and computer devices allowed everyone to live in their own little bubble.

So, I am expecting something like the collapse of the Soviet Union -- some survivors of that era I have talked with say that everything disintegrated all at once: one day they went to work to find the factory doors padlocked and all the lights out; the pension cheques stopped coming to all of the old people and disabled, and everyone was abandoned to fend for themselves. As we know now, behind the scenes, there were a tiny handful of high ranking Communist Party officials who bought up all of the devalued government assets and continued ruling as the new class of capitalist oligarchs. But, just like our system, the new capitalism in Russia is also due to hit the wall....likely some time in the next 10 to 15 years as their predicted oil reserves start declining. And, Russians will have to live through it all over again!

One major disaster every twenty five years is not a big deal when amortized across every kilowatt of power generated by every nuclear plant in the world. Plus accidents are learning opportunities that make future accident much less likely. In any case - when fossil fuels run low people will accept the risks.

I haven't been following Fukushima much recently; but the last I heard, the estimates for cleanup were between 40 and 100 years to complete. Even 40 years is an enormous cost! That huge, longterm cost of cleanup gets dumped on governments as the guarantor of last resort when a crisis like this happens. If every nuclear station in the world was chipping in to a fund to deal with these disasters, maybe that would cover the environmental cleanup. But, I doubt that will happen with Fukushima, the world will just expect a developed nation like Japan to pay for it all. Even Chernobyl was mostly dumped on the Ukraine....a country that was totally bankrupt after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The EU had to do some poking and prodding to get the one billion or so contributed so far; but that permanent solution - the concrete sarcophagus that will entomb the still melting reactor hasn't been started yet because of wrangling over money. The "temporary" containment structure, that was only intended for about 10 to 15 years, will have to be replaced, or Chernobyl will do it all over again! And...as previously mentioned, there are enormous quantities of concrete and metals needed to build a nuclear power plant....so it's not like an infinite number of nuclear plants can be built to supply an infinite amount of electrical power.

Glad to find someone who acknowledges this basic human reality. If you take it a bit further and acknowledge that people with a libertarian outlook are going to require more evidence than you to support claims made if the "solutions" require policies they oppose. When I look at the actual science I find little evidence and a lot of guesswork and assumptions that appear to be driven by the biases of the researchers. You simply assume that this guesswork is based on scientific knowledge. I don't.

There has been a number of books written recently by psychologists and neuroscientists, who are reaching definite conclusions that there are built in predispositions towards being liberal or conservative in our thinking. This looks like a good place to start:

Brains Of Liberals And Conservatives Have Differences, According To Thirteen Peer-reviewed Scientific Studies Compiled By ProCon.org

Political divides begin in the brain

Defaulting to Conservatism

And even without appealing to the findings in new brain research, psychologists have been aware that there are basic, fundamental differences in the way liberals and conservatives think for a long time. Robert Altemeyer studied and explained a lot of what is happening with these and other basic personality types in his book: The Authoritarians still available free online at the University of Manitoba. The book's main focus is on the followers in authoritarian extremist movements, but there is a lot of information that relates to modern politics.

The differences indicate that there is some room for change -- conservatives may trend towards more liberal thinking and accepting new ideas if they do not perceive threat or that their core beliefs are in danger; liberals will become more conservative if they perceive some significant existential threat (no doubt this explains why politicians play the fear card), but liberal thinkers drift back towards their natural orientation after the threat is believed to be over, while the conservatives do not make a similar adjustment afterward. They are more likely to argue that the threat still exists, or will focus on a new threat. Conservatives will demand definitive answers to questions and put more trust in authority figures they accept, while liberals have more difficulty accepting what their own leaders say. Classic libertarians fall somewhere in the middle...being non-authoritarian, but also less empathetic than typical liberal thinkers.

Not true at all. You reject everything the authorities say about nuclear power or GMOs.

Jumping to conclusions are we? Where did you get that I reject "everything" the authorities say about nuclear and gmo? I have already aired where I find nuclear suspect, so no need to repeat it over again; and what I said about GMO was that if it is really safe, why is it so important to Monsanto to keep GMO products off of food labels? I don't know enough about GMO research and testing to determine how safe these products are...they certainly seem to be a step into uncharted territory...similar to that zero calorie fat called Olestra (the fat/polyester molecule). I am suspicious of new types of food that our digestive systems have never experienced before during millions of years of evolution. How long did it take to discover the dangers of hydrogenated oils? Or the residues of some plastic polymers like BHP? And my default position would be to suspect everything new coming out of Monsanto!

But where is your evidence of this bleak future? How much of it is really nothing more than speculation driven by the biases of the researchers?

Maybe you have to be realist to see a bleak future approaching! I came across a science story recently that most people have a default position of optimism...even in situations where optimism is unwarranted. The optimists get disappointed and kicked down, but get up and find reasons to feel optimistic again. All I know is that when I view 99% of the political and economic debates, I am totally baffled about why it is so difficult to introduce the concept that political decisions and economic policies cannot find some magic door to bypass natural resource constraints.

The speculation on limits to growth really got started over 40 years ago when knowledge about what is in the ground was not as well known as today. The difference now is that existing low cost reserves are being increasingly tapped out, while new sources of cheap oil, metals etc. haven't appeared in decades. This is the major incentive behind the present Arctic gold rush. The sea bed under the disappearing ice is about the last, uncharted territory to be mined, and there seems to be more interest in taking the risks and developing any oil reserves up there, rather than stepping back and considering the reasons why it has suddenly become available for commercial development in the first place!

bleeding heart · November 20, 2012

liberals will become more conservative if they perceive some significant existential threat (no doubt this explains why politicians play the fear card), but liberal thinkers drift back towards their natural orientation after the threat is believed to be over,

An interesting idea.

I used to be a great admirer of Salman Rushdie (though I feel he's passed the point of diminishing returns, both as a novelist and as a political commentator).

And I well noted the difference between pre-9/11 Rushdie and post 9/11 Rushdie (after which he reconfigured himself, like his friend Hitchens, as a Hawk)...and now it appears he's moved back to his "old self" as it were.

Indeed, a lot of liberals committed to the same phenomenon that you desribe here...and predictably became very hostile to the leftists who stubbornly adhered to principle and facts. (Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Glenn Greenwald, etc).

It appears that lately a lot of liberals, no longer quite as concerned about the looming Cresent shadow of the impending Caliphate, have moved back towards their older selves once again (although a kind of sycophancy towards Obama complicates this matter somewhat).

TimG · November 20, 2012

Sure, there are some materials that can be substituted...like the ones you mentioned; but you can't bring up the subject of new technological solutions without mentioning that many new high tech products require high amounts of rare earth metals and minerals like neodymium for one - required in the making of high efficiency magnets in these new windmills and many other products.

Rare earths are not actually rare. They are simply expensive to mine. The price of rare earths has dropped dramatically in the last two years as new supplies came online and as the Japanese manufacturers found substitutes after China tried to use the supply as political tool.

But the biggest challenge for future generations is that the economic system that has governed the way of life of most of the world, is a capitalist system that demands continuous economic growth -- or the system will collapse.

Except the inputs required per unit of GDP are constantly decreasing. http://www.economist...1/01/energy_use

Population growth is the main reason inputs are increasing. There is no reason why growth cannot increase even if inputs decline.

I haven't been following Fukushima much recently; but the last I heard, the estimates for cleanup were between 40 and 100 years to complete. Even 40 years is an enormous cost!

A lot of this cost is based on an irrational and unscientific fear of small levels of radiation. But like I said, if there are no alternatives nuclear will be used.

Conservatives will demand definitive answers to questions and put more trust in authority figures they accept, while liberals have more difficulty accepting what their own leaders say. Classic libertarians fall somewhere in the middle...being non-authoritarian, but also less empathetic than typical liberal thinkers.

They are making a simple issue too complex. It comes down a question of risk assessment and tolerance. You have no tolerance for risk so you panic about these various hypotheticals and think that no expense should be spared tried to avoid the hypothetical problem. You also place more weight on people who share your risk adverse nature. I have a higher tolerance for risk and am willing to accept problems may occur and we just have to deal with them when they occur. I also have no interest in spending money on things unless I am sure it will address the stated problem at a reasonable cost. I also tend place more weight on people who share my risk tolerant nature.

Liberals and conservatives only differ when it comes to where they are willing to live with risk.

I said about GMO was that if it is really safe, why is it so important to Monsanto to keep GMO products off of food labels?

Because there is no way to determine if a product contains GMOs after the fact (unlike things like salt or fat content). Having such labels requires an expensive network to separate and track GMOs when there is *absolutely* no scientific evidence of harm.

This is an example of your risk adverse nature. You see a risk and think nothing of the cost of avoiding that risk. I look at the cost and say the cost is not worth trying to avoid the risk. We can argue until the cows come home about what the science says but nothing in the science will change our different tolerances for risk.

Edited November 20, 2012 by TimG

Bonam · November 21, 2012

Rare earths are not actually rare. They are simply expensive to mine. The price of rare earths has dropped dramatically in the last two years as new supplies came online and as the Japanese manufacturers found substitutes after China tried to use the supply as political tool.

Not only that, but there are successful operations to extract these metals in the West, including in the US. See companies such as molycorp.

Except the inputs required per unit of GDP are constantly decreasing. http://www.economist...1/01/energy_use

Population growth is the main reason inputs are increasing. There is no reason why growth cannot increase even if inputs decline.

Indeed, growth will continue following its exponential trend that it has been following for centuries. There is nothing in the current situation any more dire or unsolvable than what's been encountered in the past. And we have barely begun to tap the available resources here on Earth.

A lot of this cost is based on an irrational and unscientific fear of small levels of radiation. But like I said, if there are no alternatives nuclear will be used.

Maybe... I think the political reality is people will pay enormous costs in money, lives, cancer, and pollution to use sources of energy that don't include the word "nuclear".

They are making a simple issue too complex. It comes down a question of risk assessment and tolerance. You have no tolerance for risk so you panic about these various hypotheticals and think that no expense should be spared tried to avoid the hypothetical problem. You also place more weight on people who share your risk adverse nature. I have a higher tolerance for risk and am willing to accept problems may occur and we just have to deal with them when they occur. I also have no interest in spending money on things unless I am sure it will address the stated problem at a reasonable cost. I also tend place more weight on people who share my risk tolerant nature.
Liberals and conservatives only differ when it comes to where they are willing to live with risk.

I'm not sure that is a fair assessment of liberals vs conservatives at all actually. In fact, liberals are often willing to take much greater risks, especially when it comes to accepting rapid change in society and social structures, ethical norms, social engineering, demographics, power balance, etc. Conservatives, as is implied by the very name, tend to prefer to conserve the status quo.

When it comes to acceptance of various scientific advances and technologies, both sides exhibit totally irrational fears and ideas.

Because there is no way to determine if a product contains GMOs after the fact (unlike things like salt or fat content). Having such labels requires an expensive network to separate and track GMOs when there is *absolutely* no scientific evidence of harm.
This is an example of your risk adverse nature. You see a risk and think nothing of the cost of avoiding that risk. I look at the cost and say the cost is not worth trying to avoid the risk. We can argue until the cows come home about what the science says but nothing in the science will change our different tolerances for risk.

There is something to be said for the precautionary principle, however:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle

TimG · November 21, 2012

I'm not sure that is a fair assessment of liberals vs conservatives at all actually.

not sure why. the sentence I wrote was supposed to imply that liberals and conservatives pick different things to be risk adverse about. being risk adverse/risk tolerant is not a liberal conservative thing at all which is why I rejected the original premise.

There is something to be said for the precautionary principle.

There is something to be said for drinking a couple liters of water every day but drink 15 liters a day and it will kill you. The precautionary principle as practiced by environmentalists today is a farce. It is gotten to the point where we cannot do nothing new because all change is deemed a risk that should be avoided given the 'precautionary principle'.

The only way I can accept the 'precautionary principle' is if it is paired with an economic precautionary principal.

i.e. if a restriction or policy has suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the economy, in the absence of scientific consensus that the action or policy is harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those demanding the restriction or policy.

Edited November 21, 2012 by TimG

Bonam · November 21, 2012

There is something to be said for drinking a couple liters of water every day but drink 15 liters a day and it will kill you. The precautionary principle as practiced by environmentalists today is a farce. It is gotten to the point where we cannot do nothing new because all change is deemed a risk that should be avoided given the 'precautionary principle'.

The only way I can accept the 'precautionary principle' is if it is paired with an economic precautionary principal.

i.e. if a restriction or policy has suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the economy, in the absence of scientific consensus that the action or policy is harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those demanding the restriction or policy.

As I'm sure you know, I'm not one to reject new technologies. In fact, I tend to advocate the benefits of technological and scientific progress. However, part of our ability to apply new technologies relies on the public trust and acceptance of their introduction. To build and maintain this confidence, it is imperative that potential risks don't slip through, that mistakes are not made. For every technology that is introduced that actually ends up being dangerous, even if they are a tiny minority of new advances, the public confidence and acceptance of all even slightly related technology is shaken, and it makes it much more difficult to introduce related technologies in the future.

Thus as someone who wants to see technological progress continue apace, I think it is actually beneficial to hold companies that want to introduce new technological products to an extremely high standard of proof regarding product safety. Holding such a standard will reduce mistakes, increase public confidence, and increase our ability to continue to introduce new technologies as they are developed.

dre · November 21, 2012

You have no tolerance for risk so you panic about these various hypotheticals and think that no expense should be spared tried to avoid the hypothetical problem.

Sounds like GWOT supporters! "Lets spend 5 trillion dollars fighting something less likely to kill us than a lightening strike".

Edited November 21, 2012 by dre

dre · November 21, 2012

Indeed, growth will continue following its exponential trend that it has been following for centuries. There is nothing in the current situation any more dire or unsolvable than what's been encountered in the past. And we have barely begun to tap the available resources here on Earth.

I dont know if I would say we have had an exponential trend for centuries.... Its really more of flat line that hits a steeper line during the guilded age, and then an even steeper line once we ended the gold standard.... as opposed to an exponential curve.

As for exponential growth in the future thats also debatable. A lot of our economic growth as been the result of demand for goods and services by a rapidly growing population, and the technologies to sustain them. But a lot of people that study this stuff figure our population will peak within the next century at about 10-11 billion and then receed back to 5 or 6. These projections are based on the decrease in fertility rates around the world. This is going to slow down economic growth as well, because thats loosely tied to population growth.

I dont think it will necessarily be a shortage of resources that stop all this growth, it will be low fertility rates, as more countries become industrialized.

Edited November 21, 2012 by dre

TimG · November 21, 2012

Thus as someone who wants to see technological progress continue apace, I think it is actually beneficial to hold companies that want to introduce new technological products to an extremely high standard of proof regarding product safety. Holding such a standard will reduce mistakes, increase public confidence, and increase our ability to continue to introduce new technologies as they are developed.

The disagreement I have is not with the philosophy you advocate but with how this philosophy has been practically applied. For example, there have been so many studies on GMOs that the AAPS has issued a pretty definitive statement - but that is not enough to silence critics. The fact is there are many luddites in society that will oppose change for no reason other than it is change. You cannot have a rational discussion within a framework that tells luddites that it is OK to oppose new technology until there is unequivocable proof that it is safe. There needs to be a framework work that acknowledges that risk can never be entirely eliminated but there is a threshold where the risk is small enough that we do not need to worry. Edited November 21, 2012 by TimG

Bonam · November 21, 2012

I dont know if I would say we have had an exponential trend for centuries.... Its really more of flat line that hits a steeper line during the guilded age, and then an even steeper line once we ended the gold standard.... as opposed to an exponential curve.

This is an exponential:

For longer timescales (like your 1600-2000 graph), for one there is really very little solid data prior to the 1800s, and secondly you need to view the y-axis on a log scale to see the exponential trend.

In regards to population growth, no, it is not necessary for economic growth. Note the graphs are GDP per capita. Further it's almost meaningless to try to predict stuff more than a few decades out as technological change will have utterly reshaped the world by the middle of the century.

Edited November 21, 2012 by Bonam

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