Running out of resources for our voracious industrial economy?

[repoman]

On this board and most everywhere else we discuss what is happening with social issues and how that effects how resources and finished goods and services are distributed amount people based upon their race, religion, gender identity etc... and level of connectedness to powerful people.

But we rarely talk about the big picture which is what is the fall back plan for resources and energy in the all too near future?

Even if we had greatly improved system of divvying up the productive capacity of our economy on worldwide level, we would have a more healthy society - that is until the hard limits of resources are reached. At that point it is not gonna matter that we are finally treating people well.

The raw numbers of the resources are truly chilling and there really may not be a techno fix for the problem at all.

The biggest slack in the system seems to be in the distance people travel, the distance food travels and the excessive production of meat which is very intensive. I wonder how this will shake up and what order it will be. I think there will be people thinking it is a political or economic problem, but it will be a problem of hard limits which can't be solved. Quantitative easing won't make more resources.

This is why topics like demographics of particular groups is more of a trolling academic exercise for me, because the population is going to have to localize and be forced to eat less intensive food or it will have a crash. So worrying about whether blacks, whites, latinos or muslims will get the upper hand is kind of ludicrous, if everyone was a similar religion with no ethnic tensions we will still be in massive trouble.



As a thought experiment, let's say we won the second energy lottery after fossil fuels and we cracked fusion to give us our current fossil fuel energy level for forever. How would we even get out of our other resource problems in a sensible way?

 

[bilby]

On this board and most everywhere else we discuss what is happening with social issues and how that effects how resources and finished goods and services are distributed amount people based upon their race, religion, gender identity etc... and level of connectedness to powerful people.

But we rarely talk about the big picture which is what is the fall back plan for resources and energy in the all too near future?

Even if we had greatly improved system of divvying up the productive capacity of our economy on worldwide level, we would have a more healthy society - that is until the hard limits of resources are reached. At that point it is not gonna matter that we are finally treating people well.

The raw numbers of the resources are truly chilling and there really may not be a techno fix for the problem at all.

The biggest slack in the system seems to be in the distance people travel, the distance food travels and the excessive production of meat which is very intensive. I wonder how this will shake up and what order it will be. I think there will be people thinking it is a political or economic problem, but it will be a problem of hard limits which can't be solved. Quantitative easing won't make more resources.

This is why topics like demographics of particular groups is more of a trolling academic exercise for me, because the population is going to have to localize and be forced to eat less intensive food or it will have a crash. So worrying about whether blacks, whites, latinos or muslims will get the upper hand is kind of ludicrous, if everyone was a similar religion with no ethnic tensions we will still be in massive trouble.



As a thought experiment, let's say we won the second energy lottery after fossil fuels and we cracked fusion to give us our current fossil fuel energy level for forever. How would we even get out of our other resource problems in a sensible way?

There are no other resource problems.

The only resources that have been placed permanently out of reach, given enough energy, are the tiny quantities of material in the handful of space-probes that have been launched beyond the asteroid belt, plus the Helium that has been stripped out of the atmosphere by the solar wind. Everything else is still here, and the only things stopping us from using it are either that it's cheaper to get the stuff from virgin ore than to recover it from wherever it has ended up (for example stuff that's now dissolved in the oceans); or that someone is still using it (a skyscraper contains lots of steel, but people get upset if you try to re-use it to build ships while they are still using it to hold up their building).

The Earth's crust (including the oceans and atmosphere) is an inexhaustible supply of everything we could possibly want (with the possible exception of Helium), and the only limit on how much of it we can exploit is the energy we are able to spend on recovering it from wherever it currently is. Fossil fuels can even be made artificially from CO₂, which we could in principle extract from the atmosphere for that purpose - as long as we don't mind using more energy to make the stuff than it generates when we burn it. If, for example, you use solar power to concentrate CO₂ and turn it into fuel (like plants already do), then you can burn that fuel effectively without limit. Biodiesel, ethanol and methanol powered vehicles already do this.

There's an old Greenpeace slogan, intended as a call for people not to pollute - "Throw nothing away; There is no away". It's true - but it's not the warning that the authors imagined it to be. Rather it is a symbol of optimism; Nothing will run out, because (deep space probes and Helium aside) we can't throw it away even if we try.

Materials that are dispersed require a lot of energy to re-concentrate; But as long as the sun keeps shining, there's plenty of energy arriving at the Earth's surface for us to do whatever we need to do. Indeed, the big problem is not that fossil fuel might run out; It is that we might keep finding more and burning it (which is exactly what has been happening so far). Our civilization probably can't survive the CO₂ emissions that would result from our successfully using up all of the fossil fuel that is recoverable. We need to stop burning it well before it runs out, and to switch to energy generation technologies that don't add to the greenhouse effect, such as nuclear, hydro, geothermal, wave, tidal, solar and wind power. Of these, the last two are unreliable, but are fine for intermittent use (eg for generating stockpiles of liquid fuels); the other four can be used for base-load electrical power, and nuclear power can be used for industrial heat as well.

We may one day crack fusion (but don't hold your breath). But right now we have enough uranium for centuries of power generation using existing technology; and enough Thorium for millennia of high energy use. The only thing we have to do is to charge fossil fuel users for the full cost of their actions, so that the current profligate use of coal, oil and gas becomes less economically viable than the alternative options. While we continue to allow these industries to externalize the cost of prevention and/or mitigation of climate change, we will continue to fuck ourselves over. The solution is technically very simple indeed - impose a large pigouvian tax on the extraction of fossil fuels (with rebates for uses that permanently sequester the material, such as plastics manufacture). This single, simple action would solve the entire problem at a stroke. But it would be political suicide for most governments, (and economic suicide for a nation that imposed such taxes unilaterally) so instead we are going to keep on racing towards disaster.

We need a worldwide uniform tax on fossil fuels. Technically that would be really easy to apply. Politically, it is impossible.

 

[Bronzeage]

Except for the varied and numerous extinct animals, all we ever had on this planet is still here. Even so, the dinosaurs are still here, but not in an edible form.

We have followed the sensible plan of using the cheapest stuff first, and when that portion was gone, either paid more for it, or found an alternative.

The real problem with resources is not the idea of running out of them, but how to bring them to market and sell at a profit. When someone talks about finite natural resources, they mean the resources they need to make money.

 

[repoman]

Seems like you two are indoctrinated into some kind of religion that is more dangerous than any Abrahamic one.

 

[repoman]

Except for the varied and numerous extinct animals, all we ever had on this planet is still here. Even so, the dinosaurs are still here, but not in an edible form.

We have followed the sensible plan of using the cheapest stuff first, and when that portion was gone, either paid more for it, or found an alternative.

The real problem with resources is not the idea of running out of them, but how to bring them to market and sell at a profit. When someone talks about finite natural resources, they mean the resources they need to make money.

This is a nitpick, but Uranium-235 with a half life of 700 million years is greatly depleted compared to the newly minted Earth. Also, all Uranium and Thorium is a one and done for power as are fossil carbon fuels on a human time scale.

 

[bilby]

Seems like you two are indoctrinated into some kind of religion that is more dangerous than any Abrahamic one.

It's called 'observation of reality'. You should join us - we don't expect people to drag themselves out of bed on Sundays, and we rarely ask for money.


ETA - I have to ask: Where do you imagine that the resources extracted so far have gone to?

 

[bilby]

Except for the varied and numerous extinct animals, all we ever had on this planet is still here. Even so, the dinosaurs are still here, but not in an edible form.

We have followed the sensible plan of using the cheapest stuff first, and when that portion was gone, either paid more for it, or found an alternative.

The real problem with resources is not the idea of running out of them, but how to bring them to market and sell at a profit. When someone talks about finite natural resources, they mean the resources they need to make money.

This is a nitpick, but Uranium-235 with a half life of 700 million years is greatly depleted compared to the newly minted Earth. Also, all Uranium and Thorium is a one and done for power as are fossil carbon fuels on a human time scale.

Yeah, but there's a SHITLOAD of Thorium; and Uranium-238 is abundant too, and is easily made into Plutonium.

With reprocessing and breeding, just the easily accessible nuclear fuel in the upper layers of the Earth's crust is enough to last for many thousands of years, even with exponential growth of energy usage.

And the sun will keep shining for several eons.

That should be more than enough time to develop fusion power (and in fact, we already know how to do that - drill a deep hole; drop in an H-bomb; run a geothermal plant off the hot rocks. Drop in a fresh bomb when it starts to cool down too much. Easy.*)






*Easy, as long as you don't mind breaking various treaties that prohibit underground detonation of nuclear bombs, that is. Politics again.

 

[Harry Bosch]

This is a nitpick, but Uranium-235 with a half life of 700 million years is greatly depleted compared to the newly minted Earth. Also, all Uranium and Thorium is a one and done for power as are fossil carbon fuels on a human time scale.

Yeah, but there's a SHITLOAD of Thorium; and Uranium-238 is abundant too, and is easily made into Plutonium.

With reprocessing and breeding, just the easily accessible nuclear fuel in the upper layers of the Earth's crust is enough to last for many thousands of years, even with exponential growth of energy usage.

And the sun will keep shining for several eons.

That should be more than enough time to develop fusion power (and in fact, we already know how to do that - drill a deep hole; drop in an H-bomb; run a geothermal plant off the hot rocks. Drop in a fresh bomb when it starts to cool down too much. Easy.*)






*Easy, as long as you don't mind breaking various treaties that prohibit underground detonation of nuclear bombs, that is. Politics again.

Well, we're within 10 years or less of mining the asteroid belt and various astroids.

 

[ZiprHead]

I've said it before. Today's land fills will be tomorrow's "gold" mines.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Well, we're within 10 years or less of mining the asteroid belt and various astroids.

10 years of getting to and analyzing and maybe finding asteroids we'd like to mine, but something that can actually mine and transport the material to earth?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The only truly critical resource is energy. With it all other resource problems can be solved--but sometimes the answers will be slow and expensive.

Whether we get our act together in time or not is nowhere near certain.

 

[Bronzeage]

Except for the varied and numerous extinct animals, all we ever had on this planet is still here. Even so, the dinosaurs are still here, but not in an edible form.

We have followed the sensible plan of using the cheapest stuff first, and when that portion was gone, either paid more for it, or found an alternative.

The real problem with resources is not the idea of running out of them, but how to bring them to market and sell at a profit. When someone talks about finite natural resources, they mean the resources they need to make money.

This is a nitpick, but Uranium-235 with a half life of 700 million years is greatly depleted compared to the newly minted Earth. Also, all Uranium and Thorium is a one and done for power as are fossil carbon fuels on a human time scale.

Economic reality is always about nit-picking. Imagine New York city or London, today, if all transportation needs were handled by horses. Fossil fuels replaced horsepower because it did more work for less money.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

This is a nitpick, but Uranium-235 with a half life of 700 million years is greatly depleted compared to the newly minted Earth. Also, all Uranium and Thorium is a one and done for power as are fossil carbon fuels on a human time scale.

Economic reality is always about nit-picking. Imagine New York city or London, today, if all transportation needs were handled by horses. Fossil fuels replaced horsepower because it did more work for less money.

I remember seeing one newspaper article from the late 19th century which predicted that that by the 21st century, population growth would mean that New York streets would be ankle deep in horse manure.

Then, at the turn of the 21st Century, Rudy Guiliani was the Mayor of New York, so that was a pretty accurate prediction.

 

[Bronzeage]

Economic reality is always about nit-picking. Imagine New York city or London, today, if all transportation needs were handled by horses. Fossil fuels replaced horsepower because it did more work for less money.

I remember seeing one newspaper article from the late 19th century which predicted that that by the 21st century, population growth would mean that New York streets would be ankle deep in horse manure.

Then, at the turn of the 21st Century, Rudy Guiliani was the Mayor of New York, so that was a pretty accurate prediction.

The Royal Academy did issue a paper about that time, which predicted given the present rate of growth, London would be buried under 7 feet of horse manure in a few decades. The problem was compounded because the horse carts which carried manure to the suburbs, contributed to the problem. Trains took over the job of heavy hauling before that happened, which resulted in London being one of the most polluted cities in the world.

 

[SimpleDon]

On this board and most everywhere else we discuss what is happening with social issues and how that effects how resources and finished goods and services are distributed amount people based upon their race, religion, gender identity etc... and level of connectedness to powerful people.

But we rarely talk about the big picture which is what is the fall back plan for resources and energy in the all too near future?

Even if we had greatly improved system of divvying up the productive capacity of our economy on worldwide level, we would have a more healthy society - that is until the hard limits of resources are reached. At that point it is not gonna matter that we are finally treating people well.

The raw numbers of the resources are truly chilling and there really may not be a techno fix for the problem at all.

The biggest slack in the system seems to be in the distance people travel, the distance food travels and the excessive production of meat which is very intensive. I wonder how this will shake up and what order it will be. I think there will be people thinking it is a political or economic problem, but it will be a problem of hard limits which can't be solved. Quantitative easing won't make more resources.

This is why topics like demographics of particular groups is more of a trolling academic exercise for me, because the population is going to have to localize and be forced to eat less intensive food or it will have a crash. So worrying about whether blacks, whites, latinos or muslims will get the upper hand is kind of ludicrous, if everyone was a similar religion with no ethnic tensions we will still be in massive trouble.



As a thought experiment, let's say we won the second energy lottery after fossil fuels and we cracked fusion to give us our current fossil fuel energy level for forever. How would we even get out of our other resource problems in a sensible way?

We don't need a thought experiment to crack fusion. Cracking atoms is fission. Fusion is the process of combining atoms or adding to the atomic weight of atoms.[/atomic physics humor isn't even funny to those who understand it]

The biggest threats to the future of mankind isn't our running out of resources, it is that fear and fantasies drive our politics. Most of our citizens exhibit some form of the problem, nearly one half of them are thoroughly invested in an alternate reality view of our economy and our government. This is bad (sad!). I just watched our new budget director explain they zeroed out climate change research because they don't want to waste our money on that.

Every leap forward that mankind has made followed the discovery of a bigger and better and cheaper source of energy. Fusion power is the future, fast or slow breeder reactors, as in they produce more fuel than they consume, when and if we can get over the fear factor. Until then there is the possibility of ramping up the construction of more efficient and inherently safer third and fourth generation fission only reactors.

We also have to get over another political problem to reach the utilization of fusion power, the political power of the uranium fuel processors and of the fossil fuel producers. This is almost as much of an impediment to funding the needed research into fusion power as the irrational fear of most of the population, who see only mushroom clouds above fission reactors and even bigger mushroom clouds above fusion reactors.

A dynamic capitalist economy is really at its best at balancing and utilizing resources and at finding substitutes when needed. Unfortunately we see that dynamic element being suppressed largely by the capitalists themselves who have discovered a less risky way to make money than through innovation and hard work, by capturing the government and using it to rewrite the rules in the corporation's favor.

Much of the fear and the fantasies driving our body politic right now is due to this desire to capture the functioning of the government by corporate interests, ironically really, they have spread the fantasy of the self-regulating free market and of the ineptitude and sinister nature of the government because they understand that control of the government can get them what they want, the capture and enslavement of the market providing them relief from competition and the ability to milk consumers at every turn, because the government isn't inept but can be made to be sinister.

Food production has also massively benefited from research and technology. It has also suffered from the fear and fantasies. ref. GMO's.

I remind everyone that I am a fossil fuel producer, a past corporate officer and an owner of three+ blocks of Monsanto stock. By my count I argued twice against my own financial interests and once in my own interests. Read whatever you will into this.

 

[LordKiran]

On this board and most everywhere else we discuss what is happening with social issues and how that effects how resources and finished goods and services are distributed amount people based upon their race, religion, gender identity etc... and level of connectedness to powerful people.

But we rarely talk about the big picture which is what is the fall back plan for resources and energy in the all too near future?

Even if we had greatly improved system of divvying up the productive capacity of our economy on worldwide level, we would have a more healthy society - that is until the hard limits of resources are reached. At that point it is not gonna matter that we are finally treating people well.

The raw numbers of the resources are truly chilling and there really may not be a techno fix for the problem at all.

The biggest slack in the system seems to be in the distance people travel, the distance food travels and the excessive production of meat which is very intensive. I wonder how this will shake up and what order it will be. I think there will be people thinking it is a political or economic problem, but it will be a problem of hard limits which can't be solved. Quantitative easing won't make more resources.

This is why topics like demographics of particular groups is more of a trolling academic exercise for me, because the population is going to have to localize and be forced to eat less intensive food or it will have a crash. So worrying about whether blacks, whites, latinos or muslims will get the upper hand is kind of ludicrous, if everyone was a similar religion with no ethnic tensions we will still be in massive trouble.



As a thought experiment, let's say we won the second energy lottery after fossil fuels and we cracked fusion to give us our current fossil fuel energy level for forever. How would we even get out of our other resource problems in a sensible way?

We don't need a thought experiment to crack fusion. Cracking atoms is fission. Fusion is the process of combining atoms or adding to the atomic weight of atoms.[/atomic physics humor isn't even funny to those who understand it]

The biggest threats to the future of mankind isn't our running out of resources, it is that fear and fantasies drive our politics. Most of our citizens exhibit some form of the problem, nearly one half of them are thoroughly invested in an alternate reality view of our economy and our government. This is bad (sad!). I just watched our new budget director explain they zeroed out climate change research because they don't want to waste our money on that.

Every leap forward that mankind has made followed the discovery of a bigger and better and cheaper source of energy. Fusion power is the future, fast or slow breeder reactors, as in they produce more fuel than they consume, when and if we can get over the fear factor. Until then there is the possibility of ramping up the construction of more efficient and inherently safer third and fourth generation fission only reactors.

We also have to get over another political problem to reach the utilization of fusion power, the political power of the uranium fuel processors and of the fossil fuel producers. This is almost as much of an impediment to funding the needed research into fusion power as the irrational fear of most of the population, who see only mushroom clouds above fission reactors and even bigger mushroom clouds above fusion reactors.

A dynamic capitalist economy is really at its best at balancing and utilizing resources and at finding substitutes when needed. Unfortunately we see that dynamic element being suppressed largely by the capitalists themselves who have discovered a less risky way to make money than through innovation and hard work, by capturing the government and using it to rewrite the rules in the corporation's favor.

Much of the fear and the fantasies driving our body politic right now is due to this desire to capture the functioning of the government by corporate interests, ironically really, they have spread the fantasy of the self-regulating free market and of the ineptitude and sinister nature of the government because they understand that control of the government can get them what they want, the capture and enslavement of the market providing them relief from competition and the ability to milk consumers at every turn, because the government isn't inept but can be made to be sinister.

Food production has also massively benefited from research and technology. It has also suffered from the fear and fantasies. ref. GMO's.

I remind everyone that I am a fossil fuel producer, a past corporate officer and an owner of three+ blocks of Monsanto stock. By my count I argued twice against my own financial interests and once in my own interests. Read whatever you will into this.

Question: What's a block of stock?

 

[bilby]

We don't need a thought experiment to crack fusion. Cracking atoms is fission. Fusion is the process of combining atoms or adding to the atomic weight of atoms.[/atomic physics humor isn't even funny to those who understand it]

The biggest threats to the future of mankind isn't our running out of resources, it is that fear and fantasies drive our politics. Most of our citizens exhibit some form of the problem, nearly one half of them are thoroughly invested in an alternate reality view of our economy and our government. This is bad (sad!). I just watched our new budget director explain they zeroed out climate change research because they don't want to waste our money on that.

Every leap forward that mankind has made followed the discovery of a bigger and better and cheaper source of energy. Fusion power is the future, fast or slow breeder reactors, as in they produce more fuel than they consume, when and if we can get over the fear factor. Until then there is the possibility of ramping up the construction of more efficient and inherently safer third and fourth generation fission only reactors.

We also have to get over another political problem to reach the utilization of fusion power, the political power of the uranium fuel processors and of the fossil fuel producers. This is almost as much of an impediment to funding the needed research into fusion power as the irrational fear of most of the population, who see only mushroom clouds above fission reactors and even bigger mushroom clouds above fusion reactors.

A dynamic capitalist economy is really at its best at balancing and utilizing resources and at finding substitutes when needed. Unfortunately we see that dynamic element being suppressed largely by the capitalists themselves who have discovered a less risky way to make money than through innovation and hard work, by capturing the government and using it to rewrite the rules in the corporation's favor.

Much of the fear and the fantasies driving our body politic right now is due to this desire to capture the functioning of the government by corporate interests, ironically really, they have spread the fantasy of the self-regulating free market and of the ineptitude and sinister nature of the government because they understand that control of the government can get them what they want, the capture and enslavement of the market providing them relief from competition and the ability to milk consumers at every turn, because the government isn't inept but can be made to be sinister.

Food production has also massively benefited from research and technology. It has also suffered from the fear and fantasies. ref. GMO's.

I remind everyone that I am a fossil fuel producer, a past corporate officer and an owner of three+ blocks of Monsanto stock. By my count I argued twice against my own financial interests and once in my own interests. Read whatever you will into this.

Question: What's a block of stock?

Usually it means 10,000 shares; trading in block multiples can attract brokerage discounts, much the same way that you can buy stuff cheaper wholesale in bulk than you can buy it retail in single item quantities.

 

[lpetrich]

Controlled nuclear fusion has been very difficult to do, and I don't feel very optimistic that it will produce usable amount of energy anytime soon. So far, attempts to do it have required massive and complicated systems.

Cleantech News — Solar, Wind, EV News (#1 Source) | CleanTechnica -- an enthusiast site, but good for for seeing where it's at in renewable-energy development. One has to look for what it doesn't discuss as much as for what it does discuss.

It has *lots* of stuff on wind energy and solar power, but the solar power is nearly all photovoltaic cells and not solar-thermal systems. I find it surprising that PV cells have done as well as they have. A few years ago, I expected solar-thermal to be the way to go.

It also has lots of stuff on electric cars and improved batteries and storage systems.

But it has relatively little stuff on geothermal energy and synthetic fuels (synfuels).

 

[bilby]

http://petrushelsinki.net/how-to-stop-climate-change-for-real/

A solution is only a solution if implementing it actually helps to solve the problem.

Results are all that matters. If total carbon emissions don't fall, then what you are doing to reduce carbon emissions is not effective - no matter how much you really, truly, deeply want to believe that it ought to be.