We are overloading the planet: Now What?

[Merle]

The answer to maintain standard of living and population growth is technology?

Science and technology has taken us out of the natural checks and balances in the ecosystem, at least for a while.

We have no natural predators. Vaccinations and antibiotics extend natural life. People live to the point when they need daily care.

We are already having a social-civil-political meltdown in the industrialized west. Too many diverent people. Our border is being over run by people form the south of the border.

I think Elixer is right, we are headed for a bloody population decline.

It has happened periodically in history. Mayan and Incan civilizations peaked and then collapsed.


Today in the USA we have too many peoole crowded into too small areas.

The checks and balances have not failed, they just take time. Hopefully our declining birthrate will avoid the problem.

Is anybody predicting that our declining birthrate will result in a significant decrease in population this century? At best, they are merely claiming that it will level off at around 10 billion.

 

[Merle]

Why then is population growth sometimes considered essential for the world economy?

Because environmentalists like to conflate population growth and economic growth, as a way to justify their neo-luddism.

They want economic recession (or are, at least, aware that it's a consequence of their policies); So they say dumb things like "growth cannot continue indefinitely, because we would run out of room", (or resources, or whatever), while conveniently ignoring the fact that economic growth is measured in fiat dollars, which are limited only by the availability of higher numbers.

Economic growth can continue indefinitely, even in the face of both declining resource use, and declining population.

No, it simply is not true that I want economic recession. Anybody that reads my writing can see that. I want continuous prosperity. But we live in a finite world, and are badly overshooting the planet's capacity. This cannot continue. See Overshoot.

Economic growth has always been linked to high energy usage. Please show me a country that has had high economic growth without high energy usage.

 

[Merle]

And your "source" is not a source--he's simply stating numbers no doubt gathered from elsewhere but I do not see any references.

Can't see it? Did you look? Because Murphy has a footnote on the page I referenced that points to: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-measure-true-cost-fossil-fuels/

And that source lists it's source as:
DATA SOURCES: INTERNATIONAL ENERGY AGENCY; U.S. ENERGY INFORMATION ADMINISTRATION; U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE; STUDIES BY CHARLES A. S. HALL ET AL. AND BY OTHER RESEARCHES

So no, you cannot simply ignore Murphy's excellent college level textbook with well-documented sources by using scare quotes when you refer to it.

Even if the numbers were right (and I don't think they are) it's realistically the only game in town.

There are few games in town, including nuclear, solar and wind. None come anywhere close to fossil fuels. See Live Smarter?

I haven't read that whole book but the page you pointed me to seems to mean your same logic would apply to all sources of power. Fundamentally, all the "green" answers end up saying the same thing: die.

As I discuss in the opening post, there are options.

 

[Jokodo]

Economic growth rate, almost by definition, is given by labor productivity growth plus the growth in gross employment.

As we're already nitpicking, actually, the economic growth rate (or more precisely, the growth factor) if anything is given by the growth factor of labour productivity multiplied by the growth factor of gross employment. The two methods give very similar results with lowish values for both factors - a growth of 1% (factor 1.01) for one and 2% (factor 1.02) for the other gives a composite growth rate of 3% by adding and of 3.02% by multiplying - but when the values become larger, they start to differ massively: a 100% increase (factor 2) of productivity and a 50% increase in gross employment (factor 1.5) produce a tripled economic output, or a 200% growth, not a 150% growth.

 

[Merle]

I support government subsidies of nuclear plants. Even if they cost more than simply burning coal, they extend the life of our coal, and that is worth doing.

What a crock.

We need to stop "extending the life" of coal. Coal, as a fuel, needs to die, now, if not sooner.

We have already burned too much coal. Whatever remains in the ground needs to stay there forever; We need to behave as though there is no more of it, no matter how much more of it there actually is.

Same for oil.

Same for gas.

Uh, what I was saying in context was that, if you use coal to produce nuclear power plants, you are in effect extending the power you get from that coal. My sources say you get 5 units of energy out of nuclear plants for every unit of fossil fuels you put into them. And that could certainly be worth doing.

But I do find it ironic that, when I suggest that we should use fossil fuels to build nuclear plants, your rejoinder consists of "What a crock". Laugh out loud! Should we use fossil fuels to build new nuclear plants? Bilby replies, "What a crock". !!!

How in the heck do you want new nuclear plants to get built? Every nuclear plant we have was built by fossil fuels. It is the only way we know to do it. We don't even have the high-temperature furnaces and ovens to build the components without using fossil fuels. Sure, we can try to develop them, and hopefully succeed, but they don't even exist.

The simple fact is that it is hard to economically justify nuclear plants today when they are built the cheap way, using fossil fuels, even in France. And, for the reasons I have discussed, it will cost a lot more if we try to do it with electric furnaces instead of using fossil fuels.

You keep referring to nuclear plants in France. Uh, huh. How's that working out for them? S&P and Moodys have downgraded the credit rating of the company that runs nuclear plants in France specifically because of the technical issues they are having with their nuclear plants. "As of early September 2022, 32 of France's 56 nuclear reactors were shut down due to maintenance or technical problems". Two plants have been closed completely. Only four new ones have been built in the last 20 years. Those that are still running are having serious maintenance issues, even though most are only 30-40 years old. ( Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France )And all this is happening while we still have available fossil fuels. How will they ever be able to keep the plants running without fossil fuels?

 

[Swammerdami]

Economic growth has always been linked to high energy usage. Please show me a country that has had high economic growth without high energy usage.

May I play?

A confounding factor is that in cold climates a huge percentage of energy is spent on heating. Canada consumes more energy per capita than the U.S. not because it's growing faster, but simply because it's colder.

Given this, it's child's play to find counterexamples to the claim. India and Ivory Coast are examples of (tropical) countries with high GDP growth and low energy usage.

Would you like to revise your thesis?

 

[Swammerdami]

Economic growth rate, almost by definition, is given by labor productivity growth plus the growth in gross employment.

As we're already nitpicking, actually, the economic growth rate (or more precisely, the growth factor) of anything is given by the growth factor of labour productivity multiplied by the growth factor of gross employment.

Since we're nitpicking, let me point out that you need to add 1 to both numbers before multiplying, and subtract 1 afterwords. It was to avoid those extra words that I simplified for typical rates.

For example, two 2% growth rates will "add up" to 4.04%, not 4%.
But this is NOT the product of the rates (.02 x .02 = .0004), but rather (1+0.2) x (1+.02) - 1 = .0404.

I attempted to avoid these arithmetic details by inserting the word "almost." As it turns out, that was at best, only ALMOST a good idea!

 

[Merle]

Economic growth has always been linked to high energy usage. Please show me a country that has had high economic growth without high energy usage.

May I play?

A confounding factor is that in cold climates a huge percentage of energy is spent on heating. Canada consumes more energy per capita than the U.S. not because it's growing faster, but simply because it's colder.

Given this, it's child's play to find counterexamples to the claim. India and Ivory Coast are examples of (tropical) countries with high GDP growth and low energy usage.

Would you like to revise your thesis?

Turning once more to my favorite source on all things related to energy (Murphy, 2021) I find this chart on page 19.

See where India is? Same problem. It takes a lot of MJ per dollar of GDP.

 

[Jokodo]

Economic growth rate, almost by definition, is given by labor productivity growth plus the growth in gross employment.

As we're already nitpicking, actually, the economic growth rate (or more precisely, the growth factor) of anything is given by the growth factor of labour productivity multiplied by the growth factor of gross employment.

Since we're nitpicking, let me point out that you need to add 1 to both numbers before multiplying, and subtract 1 afterwords. It was to avoid those extra words that I simplified for typical rates.

For example, two 2% growth rates will "add up" to 4.04%, not 4%.
But this is NOT the product of the rates (.02 x .02 = .0004), but rather (1+0.2) x (1+.02) - 1 = .0404.

I attempted to avoid these arithmetic details by inserting the word "almost." As it turns out, that was at best, only ALMOST a good idea!

I'm well aware, that's why I distinguished between growth rates (eg 2%) and growth factors (eg 1.02). I believe I even explicitly contrasted the two in "

the economic growth rate (or more precisely, the growth factor)

 

[steve_bank]

The answer to maintain standard of living and population growth is technology?

Science and technology has taken us out of the natural checks and balances in the ecosystem, at least for a while.

We have no natural predators. Vaccinations and antibiotics extend natural life. People live to the point when they need daily care.

We are already having a social-civil-political meltdown in the industrialized west. Too many diverent people. Our border is being over run by people form the south of the border.

I think Elixer is right, we are headed for a bloody population decline.

It has happened periodically in history. Mayan and Incan civilizations peaked and then collapsed.


Today in the USA we have too many peoole crowded into too small areas.

The checks and balances have not failed, they just take time. Hopefully our declining birthrate will avoid the problem.

Is anybody predicting that our declining birthrate will result in a significant decrease in population this century? At best, they are merely claiming that it will level off at around 10 billion.

In the USA low birth rates has been an issue for some time. That is why immigration has always been a big part of economic growth.

Japan has a problem with a growing retired population and not enough young workers to support them. Part of their problem is their anti foreigner culture that makes immigration problematic. From reporting Japan is trying to become more welcoming to immigration.

 

[Elixir]

Japan is trying to become more welcoming to immigration.

Too bad there's not a bus route from Texas...

 

[Swammerdami]

Economic growth has always been linked to high energy usage. Please show me a country that has had high economic growth without high energy usage.

May I play?

A confounding factor is that in cold climates a huge percentage of energy is spent on heating. Canada consumes more energy per capita than the U.S. not because it's growing faster, but simply because it's colder.

Given this, it's child's play to find counterexamples to the claim. India and Ivory Coast are examples of (tropical) countries with high GDP growth and low energy usage.

Would you like to revise your thesis?

Turning once more to my favorite source on all things related to energy (Murphy, 2021) I find this chart on page 19.

See where India is? Same problem. It takes a lot of MJ per dollar of GDP.

View attachment 45097

So you ARE revising the claim. What's the new version? (Remember that poor countries can experience HIGH growth and still be relatively poor.)

 

[Swammerdami]

I'm well aware, that's why I distinguished between growth rates (eg 2%) and growth factors (eg 1.02). I believe I even explicitly contrasted the two in "

the economic growth rate (or more precisely, the growth factor)

You're right of course. Sometime I have a perverse and childish "need" to retort against anything perceived as criticism.

A friend who knows me well says I remind him of Donald Trump!

 

[TomC]

How in the heck do you want new nuclear plants to get built? Every nuclear plant we have was built by fossil fuels. It is the only way we know to do it. We don't even have the high-temperature furnaces and ovens to build the components without using fossil fuels. Sure, we can try to develop them, and hopefully succeed, but they don't even exist.

At the risk of discussing something I know virtually nothing about...

This reminds me of a science lesson from back in high school. The required reading for that day was a treatise written somewhere in the mid-to-late 19th century. It was written by a very educated gentleman from England. In it he explained why coal powered cargo vessels couldn't cross the Atlantic. Sailing vessels were here permanently. With lots of grammatically perfect verbiage, math, and graphs, the author explained that no vessel could carry enough coal to cross from New York to London and float, much less carry cargo.
The class was really a lesson in critical thinking and noticing tacit assumptions. Clearly the author didn't take into account the human ingenuity that resulted in vast increases in steam engine efficiency. How once shippers realized that fossil fuels powered ships were faster and more reliable than sailing ships they'd want more. Etc.
The teacher also mentioned that the author was the son of a very wealthy merchant ship owner and had recently inherited a fleet of profitable sailing vessels. That he was young enough at the time of writing to have faced the choice between upgrading his fleet to coal power or watch the value of his fleet plummet during his lifetime.
Tom

 

[bilby]

Uh, what I was saying in context was that, if you use coal to produce nuclear power plants, you are in effect extending the power you get from that coal.

Yes, and that claim is so unimaginably dumb as to be "not even wrong".



Uranium is a massively more energetic fuel than coal.

And nobody "uses coal to build" any kind of power plant.

I have no clue what would inspire anyone who has even a passing interest in the subject of electricity generation to say something so bizarre and stupid, to an audience that has shown the slightest propensity for rational thought.

Unless you enjoy looking foolish?

If nuclear power plants require coal power to build them, what power source do you imagine a coal power plant requires to build it?

Are you aware that a coal power plant is essentially identical to a nuclear power plant, except in the primary heat source?

Are you aware that making coal into heat is more technologically challenging than making uranium into heat is?

 

[Elixir]

We don't even have the high-temperature furnaces and ovens to build the components without using fossil fuels.

Not that I know anything about this either, but ...

An electric arc furnace (EAF) is a furnace that heats material by means of an electric arc.

Industrial arc furnaces range in size from small units of approximately one-tonne capacity (used in foundries for producing cast iron products) up to about 400-tonne units used for secondary steelmaking. Arc furnaces used in research laboratories and by dentists may have a capacity of only a few dozen grams. Industrial electric arc furnace temperatures can reach 1,800 °C (3,300 °F), while laboratory units can exceed 3,000 °C (5,400 °F).

In electric arc furnaces, the charged material (the material entered into the furnace for heating, not to be confused with electric charge) is directly exposed to an electric arc, and the current from the electrode terminals passes through the charged material.Arc furnaces differ from induction furnaces, in which the charge is heated instead by eddy currents.

Isn't that sufficient, or is there some necessary process that uses higher temperatures?
Per bilby's graphic above, all you'd need would be one nuclear power plant, and it could spawn hundreds of little baby power plants... or great big adult ones I suppose, though that imagery lacks emotional appeal.

 

[bilby]

Nuclear reactors are such simple technology that they can occur (and have occurred) naturally.

No coal or other fossil fuel was burned in the process.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor

The key differences between the Oklo reactor and a modern electricity generation facility are:

1) The Balance of Plant (those parts of the facility such as the turbines, generator sets, cabling, switchyards, transformers, etc., etc., that are identical at a nuclear plant to stuff also required at a coal power plant).

2) Refuelling gear (much simpler at a nuclear plant than a coal plant, because a nuke gets fuelled once or twice a year, while a coal plant needs a constant flow of fuel).

3) Control gear (again, simpler at a nuke plant, as there are fewer moving parts).

4) Shielding (it's just a big pile of rocks. We stick those rocks together, to stop them from moving; That's called "concrete". The Romans used it to build loads of stuff, including the Collosseum, and they didn't need a single piece of fossil fuel burning equipment to do so).

5) Orderliness (We stack the components up neatly, rather than just heap them up any old how and hope that some of them end up in the right configuration).

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

2) Refuelling gear (much simpler at a nuclear plant than a coal plant, because a nuke gets fuelled once or twice a year, while a coal plant needs a constant flow of fuel).

Just had the idea of a Homeopathic Coal power plant.

 

[steve_bank]

Japan is trying to become more welcoming to immigration.

Too bad there's not a bus route from Texas...

When I was kid in the 50s-60s in the NYC area a man could make a living wage without much English or a high school education.

Tat economy is gone. Somethng the progressives do not seem to understand.

Plustje last few yaears millions. There is no way to absorb all those people.

Anyone in my generation form the Northeast would know the story of Ellis Island in NYC. European immigrants went from ships to the island for processing. They were screened for communicable diseases. Some were denied entrance. They were then sent to NYC where there was minimal assistance to get started. It was an orderly process.

I grew up with the derogatory term WOP meaning without papers or passport, usually applied to Italians. Mexicans were wet backs.

There is a documentary on Ellis Island that should be online, probably PBS.

 

[Tigers!]

4) Shielding (it's just a big pile of rocks. We stick those rocks together, to stop them from moving; That's called "concrete". The Romans used it to build loads of stuff, including the Collosseum Colosseum, and they didn't need a single piece of fossil fuel burning equipment to do so).

<nitpick>
The Romans would have used some fossil fuels to build the Colosseum
1. Lime for mortar Roman lime burning
2. Cooking of some food for slaves, free workers, soldiers etc.
3. The metal used in the construction would have been forged using fossil fuel

Granted nowhere near the proportion of fossil fuel used by them compared to what we would use
</nitpick>