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How Much Longer Can The Oil Age Last?
Submitted by Gaurav Angihotri via OilPrice.com,
History has been so fascinated with oil and its price movements that it is indeed hard to imagine our future without oil. Over the last few months, we have witnessed how oil prices have fluctuated from a 6 year low level of $42.98 per barrel in March 2015 to the current levels of $60 per barrel. It is interesting to note that, in spite of the biggest oil cartel in the world deciding to stick to its high production levels, the oil prices have increased mainly due to falling US crude inventories and strong demand. However, the current upward rally might be short lived and there may yet be another drop in the international oil price when Iran eventually starts pumping its oil into the market at full capacity, potentially creating another supply glut. In these endless price rallies, it is important to take a holistic view of the global energy industry and question which way it is heading. Are the dynamics of global energy changing with current improvements in renewable energy sources and affordable new storage technologies? Can the oil age end in the near future? Will we ever stop feverishly analyzing the rise and fall of oil prices? Or, will oil remain irreplaceable in our life time?
Are Renewables ready to take over?
With little or no pollution, renewables like solar, wind and biofuels are viewed by many as a means to curtail the rising greenhouse emissions and replace oil as a sustainable alternative. There is little doubt as to why China, US, Japan, UK and Germany, some of the world’s biggest energy gluttons have invested heavily in renewables.
Image Source: EIA
However, according to a study conducted by Frankfurt School-UNEP Collaborating Centre for Climate & Sustainable Energy Finance, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and Bloomberg New Energy Finance, the total global investments in renewables fell by 14% to $214 billion in 2013. One of the major reasons of this fall was the backing out of some big oil firms such as BP, Chevron and Conoco Phillips. These companies significantly reduced their investments in renewables and decided to focus on their ‘core’ business; that is, oil and gas. As per Lysle Brinker, an oil and gas equity analyst at IHS "It's not their (Big oil majors) strong suit to be spending a lot of money and time on renewables when they are definitely challenged in their core industry."
However, if we take the example of the solar industry, where the cost of an average photo voltaic panel is declining at a rate of more than 10% per annum we see that, in spite of reduced global investments, renewables still hold a lot of promise. Some of the major integrated oil and gas companies such as Shell, Total and Statoil have actually been slowly and steadily increasing their renewable related investments. Shell is investing big time in biofuels, while Total, with its stake in Sunpower, is investing substantially in the solar sector while Statoil is placing its bets on wind energy. This shows that renewables are a phenomenon that many believe can give oil a run for its money.
Is Saudi Arabia sensing an end of oil age?
“No one can set the price of oil – It is up to Allah”, this is what Saudi Arabia’s oil minister Ali Al Naimi had to say while speaking to CNBC recently. OPEC, which holds around 40 % of the world’s crude output, is showing no signs of reducing its production levels, even if Iran starts pumping more oil after sanctions are lifted should the international nuclear deal with P 5+ 1 counties prove successful. Many see this move by OPEC as a means to protect its market share and drive US shale players out of business. But is the decision of OPEC (especially Saudi Arabia) part of a much bigger game? The Saudis, who lead OPEC, would obviously be very interested in delaying ‘Peak Oil Demand’ after which global demand for oil would start declining steadily, along with Saudi oil revenues.
According to Bank of America and Merrill Lynch commodity researchers, if crude prices stay in the range of $50 - $70, peak oil demand would be pushed beyond 2030. This delay in peak oil demand would definitely hurt renewables and anyone who is investing in them. As per Alex Thursby, Chief Executive at the National Bank of Abu Dhabi, “Renewable energy technologies are far further advanced than many may believe: solar photovoltaic (PV) and on-shore wind have a track record of successful deployment, and costs have fallen dramatically in the past few years. In many parts of the world, indeed, they are now competitive with hydrocarbon energy sources. Already, more than half of the investment in new electricity generation worldwide is in renewables. Potentially, the gains to be made from focusing on energy efficiency are as great as the benefits of increasing generation. Together, these help us to reframe how we think about the prospects for energy in the region.”
Yes, OPEC has sensed the end of its glory days. And it is obvious that Saudi Arabia, with 85% of its export revenues coming from petroleum exports does not want the oil age to end anytime soon.
What can we expect?
If we look at China, the second biggest global consumer of oil, we find that its oil consumption rate constitutes about one third the world’s total consumption rates and shows no signs of slowing. In fact, EIA even predicts steady growth of China’s oil production reaching 4.6 million barrels per day in 2020 and 5.6 million barrels per day in 2040.
China has also invested heavily in building its strategic petroleum reserves and plans to expand them to 500 million barrels by 2020.
Now take India, a country that is considered by many as the next solar investment hotspot. India has been investing heavily in building its own strategic petroleum reserves and its public sector undertaking, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC) is planning to invest about $62 billion on its discoveries in Krishna Godavari Basin block KG-D5.
These are two of the world’s fastest growing economies that are investing heavily in renewables but also safeguarding their oil and gas aspirations. Moreover, when we analyze past oil price trends, we find that volatility related to geopolitical equations, speculations, wars, economic sanctions and climate change have always kept the global energy markets guessing about the future. The world is still myopic when it comes to energy. Yes, it wants to embrace renewables but not at the cost of oil. Whatever happens to oil prices in the coming years, one thing is certain: that the age of oil isn’t ending anytime soon, at least not in the next 30 years.
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Forever, the oil is generated within the earth at all times.
We've been using abiotic oil all along.
Generated over a few million years.
We can always send up spaceships to Titan where there are surely dinosaurs buried under the surface.
... How Much Longer Can The Oil Age Last?
Until the Greeks announce an olive-oil-powered scooter? ;-)
Looney
"With little or no pollution, renewables like solar, wind and biofuels are viewed by many as a means to curtail the rising greenhouse emissions and replace oil as a sustainable alternative."
Bull fucking shit! It takes oil to mine the materials used to make "renewables" like solar and wind, and it takes oil to transport them and it takes coal/nat gas/nuclear to process those materials. Then they wear out. You aren't going to run a 30' tall dump truck in a mine on solar. And biofuels are limited by the (in)efficiency of photosynthesis. Renewables are only as renewable as the equipment used to harvest them.
93 million working age Amerikans not working may be a problem
Like I said before, this country needs to be industrialized fast, financial foolery isn't going to hold it up for much longer...
The only solution is free energy, period.
Utopians! why not
Zactly!
Just one wind farm kills more birds in a year than the Gulf Oil Spill did. Biofuels are a joke -- they burn up human food and just create CO2 before the plants have a chance to become fossils, and biofuels without massive subsidies (that could go to mass transit instead) could not exist. Solar panels require strip mining and huge upfront costs for a system is the same as 15 years of utility bills and you still can't really run your heater and range with them.
"You aren't going to run a 30' tall dump truck in a mine on solar. "
You could, if you ran all your equipment on overhead lines, like trolleys and trams. The bigger problem, as I see it, is the implementations. Switching from DC to AC has losses. Storing solar power in batteries brings them down to nearly a net loss.
The windmills, they use cheap cement and tempered steel rebars. The base weighs several thousand tons, the mast another couple thousand tons, and the whole assembly needs to be replaced in less than 50 years. So you need thousands of tons of new steel and cement, instead of using galvanized rebar and hydrophobic cement so only the moving parts need regular replacement.
In the end, we end up burning 10 years worth of coal and oil to try to get some energy for 20 years. If you double total energy, that's supposed to be pretty good. Madness.
First point: photosynthesis is one the most efficient energetic processes known to science. It puts anything manmade and petroleum-related to complete and total shame.
The issue is not that you would need to convert your entire economic infrastructure away from oil eventually (sooner or later). The issue is simply that you need a certain margin of net-energy in your civilization. The problem here is, no one has any really good data on the true energy efficiency of a modern society, so any comparison to a hypothetical renewables economy is mostly guesses which tend to be biased toward petroleum. The most one can say safely is that it's highly doubtful current renewables could be a drop-in replacement and the economics would work out. But that's not the real problem, which is that new energy sources are not the solution to staggeringly wasteful energy use (unless you're a neo-Keynesian).
You probably can't have happy motoring and sprawling suburbs with any kind of renewables technology that will be available in the next century. But that's just begging the question that happy motoring and sprawling suburbs are sacrosanct and must be preserved. Anyone who believes that isn't worth listening to. Humans actually can survive without one 5 ton vehicle, n-thousand square feet of retail floor space, and a quarter to a half of a 4,000 square foot McMansion per person - most of the world already (still) does.
This is why almost all mainstream environmentalism is facile garbage - its entire raison d'etre is "preserve American middle-class suburbia at all costs".
PS: Just in case I haven't pissed off enough readers, in the interest of completeness, nuclear fission CAN get the job done for a few thousand years, and most discussions about contamination/pollution conveniently ignore the enormous pollution of fossil fuels. The real issue here is that human voters cannot be trusted to demand and enforce safe nuclear energy as has been made absolutely and categorically clear over the past half-century.
Uh, no. Photosynthesis for terrestrial plants is typically going to be < 1% efficient. Sugar cane is one of the most, if not the most efficient of the terrestrial plants at 7%-8%, but that only grows in the tropics and sub tropics. Photo voltaic cells are already more efficient at converting sunlight to an energy form usable for an industrial society.
There would be a much higher EROEI if someone could just figure out how to bring Titan (or just a big chunk of it) to Earth. Look at how much oil the Chicxulub Asteroid brought to Earth- the dinosaurs must have been having round the (astronomical) clock orgies on that thing. A Rinse, Repeat of the K-T extinction would also help keep the Dino-juice® demand curve in check and help defend every 'Muricans God-given right to cheap oil.
Theyre still walking about under the surface.
Wake me when PV cells can operate on all of the spectrum other than visible.
(or does .Gov have that patent locked away?)
Wake me when corrupt politicians, banksters and greedy mega corps are not the ones driving energy policy......
No,I think .God has already secured that patent...
Exactly, oil is basically just a form of lava, after all that's really energy-rich, isn't it?
Theory is granite and marble contain lots of CaCO3 and the heat and pressure below 20,000 ft turns it into a mixture of hydrcarbon chains (oil) like has been done in the lab (at high cost).
Not only that, but hydrocarbons exist on the moons of Saturn and elsewhere, that never had dinosaurs and plant life.
http://www.principia-scientific.org/russians-nasa-discredit-fossil-fuel-...
Come on, there were dinos walking all over Saturn's moons. Those oceans of hydrocarbons didn't get there by themselves.
The aliens came and took all the dinosaurs off the Earth and relocated them to Titan. After they died they turned to oil.
My gradeschool textbook told me oil is dead dinosaurs. It must be true, like George Washington chopping down a cherry tree and Ben Franklin discovering electricity by flying a kite.
Thorium-salt nuclear reactors. The technology predates nuclear-fission reactors.
Energy is abundant.
That would explain why there is not a single commercial thorium cycle reactor in operation despite billions in R&D...
There you go again.
If we need a new energy source, they will stop murdering the scientists who continually rediscover free energy, they will create a monopoly around the harvesting of free energy and we will move on from there.
Paging Ms. Rand....Paging Ms. Rand....your fan wants an autograph.
We will embrace a new energy source when a true market presents us with a better alternative - same or higher energy density, same or fewer risks, and at a better price.
Not impossible, just hasn't been discovered yet.
(Ed: Sorry - many nuclear battery options out there...but, of course, the word "nuclear" will scare most people away before they'll listen.)
Right. It has nothing to do with overcoming one of the most powerful tools of social control: the "fossil fuel" cartel.
I'm puzzled by the comments - nobody on here knows any ounce of science?
Hard science; like comparing oil to lava.......?
You are ignorant of the latest science?
Then educate yourself:
http://www.principia-scientific.org/russians-nasa-discredit-fossil-fuel-...
Pass the Thorium already please.
It's call hypernatremia. It's a clear and present danger.
A couple of concerns in this article over an assumption stated as definitive fact and what appears to be an oxymoronic conclusion.
First, to state "...With little or no pollution, renewables like solar, wind and biofuels..." completely ignores the production and distribution costs of these alternatives. From the mineral extractions processes, to manufacturing, to the transportation of all the components and end-product, and the ongoing maintenance of these alternatives, there are some good arguments to be made that they are actually more carbon intensive than fossil fuels. For example, in another article published today, the following statement is made: "...A more critical analysis shows that the cumulative energy and CO2 balance of the industry is negative, meaning that solar PV has actually increased energy use and greenhouse gas emissions instead of lowering them...." (see: http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/04/how-sustainable-is-pv-solar-power...).
Second, to argue "...that the age of oil isn’t ending anytime soon, at least not in the next 30 years...." after just stating that "...when we analyze past oil price trends, we find that volatility related to geopolitical equations, speculations, wars, economic sanctions and climate change have always kept the global energy markets guessing about the future...." seems to be oxymoronic. Oil and gas are finite resources and their age must come to an end sometime; when that ending occurs is anybody's guess and it could be before three decades passes. In fact, there are a number of analysts who argue it will occur sooner rather than later. No one really knows and it will not likely be a 'smooth transition' to 'renewables' since there aren't enough resources to manufacture them to replace the edifice created by oil/gas anyways.
http://olduvai.ca
The quantity of Oil in the world is finite, in the same way that water in the ocean is finite. Unbelievably enormous, but limited. At some price, it makes sense to drill and produce oil. The world is not even close to running out.
Our situation is that the demand for oil is down, because the world economy is in the toilet. Supply is up because of fracking. Improvements in technology will make it possible to frack oil at today's price.
The current low price for oil will use up existing supplies above ground. Oil in the Mideast will dry up sooner, thus reducing their influence on the world. A glut in the US is likely to nudge congress into allowing export to Europe. This will cause Europe to stop being so obsequious to the Mideast.
Alternative energy is not viable yet. It is foolish to spend money on it until the technology improves. If the Environmentalist really opposed oil they wouldn't oppose Nuclear power plants.
Neptune (back) in Pisces (1st time since 1847, when Samuel Kier discovered "rock oil") = Oil & gas found EVERYWHERE!
We have only scratched the surface; Argentina's 'Vaca Meurta' formation = 1600+ trillion cuft natgas AND 670 BILLION barrels of oil...ask Repsol, ask Apache, ask Chevron. Just waiting for the right price and political accommodation (from those fucked-up Argentines).
When oil becomes outlawed, only .. oh never mind.
The inevitable solution to most (if not all) of humanities problems is death on a massive and likely permanent scale.....
When we're all dead there are no more problems. But then.....
“No one can set the price of oil – It is up to Allah”
Oh just go ahead and Shut The Fuck Up already with the supreme diety bullshit being the cause of everything. Your god is only what you perceive has value and covet; nothing more. If your god happens to be the same as my god at the same time, we are going to have a fight of some sort about it. Simple.
At least he's not blaming the supreme bullshit marketplace for being the cause of oil prices, that would be really kooky and primitive... like some religion that hadn't evolved since the technological Dark Ages.
You are reading my mind Urban. I was going to say about that thing called a market but that would lead to a huge philosophical discussion. The market is bullshit and we know that quite well. This GOd thing has to take a dirt knap. I don't care what religion. Some god controls the markets? Yeah, we know that already. We are still in the dark ages I guess. I take an oathe and I swear to tell the truth so help me god. In god we trust. A god given right. Which god is this again? Do not worship false gods. Well, how the fuck would any rational person know who is a false god if we have to take someone else's word for it?
What is all of this bullshit with all the gods that every religion has? Do they form a parliament or something and debate or what the fuck happens over mere mortals? You would think by now we would have see some empirical evidence of a god actually filing an affidavit with a signature saying that they running the show. There should a be charter or something. Bylaws? Has there ever been a meeting of the gods and are there minutes?
You would think a god would show up just to show off just once to show off a little bit. "Hey look you fuckers, I can do this and of course I am immortal." but that never happens. Gee whiz, I wonder why? Gods also have a bad not showing up when you need there help. "Oh, they are busy helping the greater good." Really, so they really don't give a fuck about me?
Some tenets of the religions are good practice in theory. I would posit that the "Thou shall not murder thy neighbor" tenet would be reasonable but that tenet seems to real pain in the ass for anyone to pay any attention to. How about "Thou shall not steal." The notion is outdated I guess. I think it has been updated to "Thou shall not steal unless the following conditions are met, in which case, then it is OK".
Need I continue?
I thought 5 years ago that we would have had irreversible price spikes by now. Shale oil bought us a few years. Happy to have oil at a cheap price for the 20 or 30 years I have left, but I don't expect it. Hope I'm wrong going forward. 10$ a gallon gas would suck.
Back when oil went to 140 in '08, gasoline was at about 4. Today, we have 60$ oil and we are at about 3 for gasoline. Odd market.
BTW - there are no such thing as renewables - they are all fossil fuel derivatives.
Sorry, kids. When the Arabs run out of oil you're going to have to start paying white people in Russia and North Dakota and Alberta what it costs to get the black stuff out of the ground. The pipe dreams of running a modern economy on renewable unicorn farts are never going to be more than that.
Forget fueling your car---where do you think the fertilizers that make modern agriculture possible come from? Unicorn shit?
Storing oil for future use becuase a country isn't stupid isn't the same as increased demand. China isn't using more oil, in fact demand for refined products is down due to the slowing global economy.
I remember having conversations with my chemistry major friend in college. He would talk about abiotic oil and how hydrocarbons are easy to make in the lab. This was in 1996 when oil was $20 a barrel. The Germans were making gasoline from coal during WWII. There are all sorts of corporations making synthetic gasoline at costs less than $2 a gallon if the process would be scaled for mass production. There are new machines turning water and CO2 into burnable hydrocarbons. Just like how people have been brainwashed into believing diamonds are rare, they have been brainwashed into believing oil is dead dinosaurs. Thank you Zionist fucks.
$100 oil makes no sense in an environment when synthetic hydrocarbons can be made profitable at a cost less than $2 a gallon. Audi is making E-fuel from bacteria that has an end cost of $1.28 per gallon before any subsidies.
Hey braindead, explain to us why The Germans aren't making gasoline from coal anymore nowadays - or any other country in the world.
Petroluem is an antiquated black goo that serves no actual purpose in the industrialized world. Aside from the fact that it's the granddaddy of all soft kill bioweapons.
1 ACRE (yes 1 single ACRE) of hemp can provide 1500+ gallons of ethanol or biodiesel 3 TIMES A YEAR.
Hemp can also be used a building material in every way imaginable. You can even build a car out of it and run it from hemp ethanol.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srgE6Tzi3Lg
How long before all the nutrients are stripped from the soil? The reason Hemp seed and Soybeans have so much nutrients, is they suck it all out of the ground.
You going to harvest and process that 1500 gallons by hand? If not, how much hemp fuel do you need to power the machines to grow, harvest and process that fuel?
You're wrong about the soybeans.
Soybeans are legumes.
All legumes fix nitrogen in the soil through symbiotic nematodes.
http://www.fao.org/wairdocs/ilri/x5546e/x5546e05.htm
Hemp- not so much.
You've obviously never grown a plant before. Wood ash, rock dust, and horse shit work wonders for dead soil.
Wrong Hemp car - this is the one you mean: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HY_a3IiaVwo
"Longer than you can remain solvent".
Fucking MORON!
Replacement of oil by alternative sources
While oil has many other important uses (lubrication, plastics, roadways, roofing) this section considers only its use as an energy source. The CMO is a powerful means of understanding the difficulty of replacing oil energy by other sources. SRI International chemist Ripudaman Malhotra, working with Crane and colleague Ed Kinderman, used it to describe the looming energy crisis in sobering terms.[13] Malhotra illustrates the problem of producing one CMO energy that we currently derive from oil each year from five different alternative sources. Installing capacity to produce 1 CMO per year requires long and significant development.
Allowing fifty years to develop the requisite capacity, 1 CMO of energy per year could be produced by any one of these developments:
4 Three Gorges Dams,[14] developed each year for 50 years, or
52 nuclear power plants,[15] developed each year for 50 years, or
104 coal-fired power plants,[16] developed each year for 50 years, or
32,850 wind turbines,[17][18] developed each year for 50 years, or
91,250,000 rooftop solar photovoltaic panels[19] developed each year for 50 years
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubic_mile_of_oil
FUCKING IDJUT!
Renewable energy 'simply won't work': Top Google engineers
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/21/renewable_energy_simply_wont_work_google_renewables_engineers/
http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/23/google-gives-up-on-green-tech-investment-initiative-rec/
Two highly qualified Google engineers who have spent years studying and trying to improve renewable energy technology have stated quite bluntly that whatever the future holds, it is not a renewables-powered civilisation: such a thing is impossible.
Both men are Stanford PhDs, Ross Koningstein having trained in aerospace engineering and David Fork in applied physics. These aren't guys who fiddle about with websites or data analytics or "technology" of that sort: they are real engineers who understand difficult maths and physics, and top-bracket even among that distinguished company.
Even if one were to electrify all of transport, industry, heating and so on, so much renewable generation and balancing/storage equipment would be needed to power it that astronomical new requirements for steel, concrete, copper, glass, carbon fibre, neodymium, shipping and haulage etc etc would appear.
All these things are made using mammoth amounts of energy: far from achieving massive energy savings, which most plans for a renewables future rely on implicitly, we would wind up needing far more energy, which would mean even more vast renewables farms – and even more materials and energy to make and maintain them and so on. The scale of the building would be like nothing ever attempted by the human race.
In reality, well before any such stage was reached, energy would become horrifyingly expensive – which means that everything would become horrifyingly expensive (even the present well-under-one-per-cent renewables level in the UK has pushed up utility bills very considerably).
Or in other words - solar panels and batteries and windmills don't grow on trees.
The end of the Oil Age = the end of human civilization
At least the end of modern civilization.
Millions of tons of life sustaining plastics and petrochemicals come from one place... oil.
You wanna know how much plastics and petrochemicals come from nuke plants, solar panels, and wind farms? None whatsoever.
They will be able to make Saran Wrap without oil, won't they?
Of course they will. This is the US of A
here's the last question
The end of the Oil Age = the end of human civilization
= the begining of military rule of the governments of the big players.
Will America retain the role of Rome, with China/Russia as Carthage....
OR VICE VERSA
Civilization developed from the biggest bullies' bullshit, to become more and more sophisticated systems based on being able to back up lies with violence. The current manifestations of that are the ways that "money" is made out of nothing as debts in order to "pay" for strip-mining the planet's natural resources, in ways which transform those into garbage and pollution as fast as possible, while the fundamentally fraudulent financial accounting systems that human beings use to calculate the consequences of doing that present those as being "good things" to do.
For those who were lucky enough to be born more towards the beginning of that exponential growth, then that seemed "good" to them. As long as there are still enough natural resources left to strip-mine, then those who can benefit from doing that will continue to indulge in the kinds of fundamentally fraudulent financial accounting systems that enable them to rationalize and justify turning the planet's natural resources into garbage and pollution as fast as possible.
However, for those who were more unlucky to be born nearer the times when the strip-mining of the planet is running into real limits of diminishing returns, their situation will become worse, faster. The BASICS are exponential growth based on strip-mining the planet, which will overshoot more spectacularly than we can comprehend, because almost nothing will actually be done to prevent the fundamentally fraudulent financial account systems from continuing to misrepresent the real situation as much as possible, for as long as possible.
For an older individual, they may well be able to live out the rest of their natural life span while the strip-mining of the planet continues to high-grade the human species to hell. However, the younger you are, then the more you are being lied to, cheated and robbed by the political system you were born into. There are going to be some future generations which are going to experience overshoot in a nutshell.
While it is theoretically possible that civilization could develop better integrated human, industrial and natural ecologies, the actually existing human and industrial systems are based on the maximum possible deceits and frauds, which therefore are destroying the natural ecologies in criminally insane ways. Just as there are no practical ways to stop the world from being controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals, which have made and maintained the established monetary systems, whereby governments enforce the frauds by private banks making the public "money" supply out of nothing as debts, there are no politically practical ways to change any of that, due to the vicious spirals of the funding of the political processes automatically driving all of the established systems to become more corrupted.
Several decades ago, I started worrying about the world I was born into being based upon exponential growth backed up by weapons of mass destruction. Everything since then has always resulted in driving me to conclude that the more I learned, the worse it got. There are currently no good reasons to believe that human beings will not continue to strip-mine the planet's natural resources as fast as possible ... until they have collectively OVERSHOT whatever might have been sustainable so fast, and so far, that the collapse into chaos that will finally cause goes beyond our ability to fully imagine ... However, since that is NOT necessarily immediate, but is being deferred onto some future generations, there are no good reasons to believe that will be stopped from happening. By the time that actually happens in ways that people can no longer as easily continue to deliberately ignore, in the manner that we have been used to doing previously, it will then be way too late to change the consequences of having ALREADY DONE THAT!
One way to express what is happening is that the debt controls are backed by the death controls, in the established combined money/murder systems. In the same ways as the debts are being deferred onto future generations, the deaths are also being deferred onto future generations. However, those who are doing that now may well have already died from other causes before the consequences of what they have really done fully manifest. Our civilization is ALREADY controlled by backing up lies with violence, which now takes the form of enforced frauds through our accounting systems. The political economy is almost totally based upon backing up legalized lies with legalized violence. That is due to the best organized gangs of criminals having been able to apply the methods of organized crime to the political processes, in order to capture control over governments. Therefore, the public powers of governments are used to enforce the frauds of private banks, and around and around we go, making "money" out of nothing as debts, to "pay" for strip-mining the planet.
Since the real world is actually controlled by organized crime, whose runaway successes have become criminally insane, that is the way that the human species is treating the planet. The human species are controlled by the most criminally insane members of that species, in order to behave in the most criminally insane ways, while those who are doing that are able to present that as being "good things" to do. Although it is theoretically possible that there could be better evolutionary ecologies, which integrated human, industrial and natural ecologies, in practice the real world is almost totally controlled by integrated systems of lies backed by violence, through accounting systems based upon enforced frauds.
My descriptions of our situation REPEAT: AROUND AND AROUND AND AROUND we go, stuck in the vicious spirals of the funding of the political processes making what governments do become crazier, and more corrupt, faster and worse than ever before. Thousands of years of human civilization based upon the social successfulness of being able to back up lies with violence has created a civilization which is criminally insane. However, there are no practical ways to either prevent that from automatically still getting worse faster, nor to effectively prepare for how bad that is going to become ... Since civilization is controlled by the people who are the best at being dishonest, and backing that up with violence, and there are no politically practical ways to stop that, thus the path of least resistance for civilization is the path of least morality. The richer, older people are setting up conditions which will result in the miserable mass murders of younger, poorer people in the future.
From the point of view of practical politics, it appears to be a waste of time to bother to discuss the ways that civilization has become runaway criminal insanities, due to civilization being controlled by systems of backing up lies with violence. Demonstrating that its monetary system is the manifestation of enforcing frauds does not change anything, since those who benefit from doing that continue to be able to dominate the funding of the political processes, in order to make sure that that fundamentally fraudulent accounting systems does not get reformed, but rather, actually becomes even more corrupted and crazier.
It is NOT possible to develop better debt controls unless there were developed better death controls to back those up. All of the discussions of alternative energy systems tend to take place within the totally bullshit world view that deliberately ignores that there are necessarily combined money/murder systems. Although the history of the development of petroleum resources can not be separated from the history of warfare, the public discussions of those basic facts are all drowning under as much bullshit from the biggest bullies as is humanly possible.
While there ARE enough natural resource left to continue to strip-mine for a while longer, eventually there are limits to a finite planet, and we are rushing towards encountering those limits as the manifestations of diminishing returns as fast as we possibly can. All of the alternative technologies can not be separated from alternative life styles which would accompany those. Furthermore, the necessarily keystone to any systems of alternatives would have to be alternative death controls.
It has always been the case that the death control systems were the lynch pin that held together the other components of the overall sociopolitical systems. However, throughout history, those death controls have always been most successfully done through the maximum possible deceits and treacheries, which was how and why we ended up having fundamentally fraudulent financial accounting systems, whose enforced frauds enabled the public "money" supply to be made out of nothing as debts, in order to "pay" for strip-mining the planet's natural resources, with almost total disregard for the longer term consequences of doing so.
The great paradoxes with respect to human systems of artificial selection are that they were driven by natural selection pressures to develop to become based on the maximum dishonesty, backed by the maximum violence, so that their successfulness became the path of least morality, enabling runaway criminal insanities to become presented as being "good things" to have done. Human beings and civilizations operate as general energy systems, but those were paradoxically driven to develop in ways which became the biggest lies, backed by the most violence. There is almost nothing but organized crime, surrounded by controlled opposition, within that overall context. Therefore, what human beings are really doing is deliberately misunderstood as much as possible, in proportion to the degree that the biggest bullies' bullshit social stories are able to dominate civilization.
It is theoretically possible that human beings could develop better integrated systems of human, industrial and natural ecologies, which developed alternative energies, and other alternatives, into better overall systems. However, none of that is actually possible without better death controls, to back up better debt controls. HOWEVER, BIG PROBLEMS with respect to that ARE that the currently established systems are based upon their death controls being done through the maximum possible deceits about themselves, which in turn enables the financial systems to continue to be based upon the maximum possible frauds.
Overall, the "ironies" with respect to the development of better human understanding of general energy systems, and possible alternative energy technologies, as the foundation stones for any other systems of alternatives, are that NONE of those kinds of insights are remotely possible to be publicly recognized and applied to understanding the human energy systems themselves. The essential paradoxes that civilization have with respect to developing alternative energy technologies into integrated alternative systems, are those with respect to the realities that civilizations operate according to the principles and methods of organized crime, because the production of destruction necessarily controls production.
To rationally discuss alternative energy technologies would require to rationally discuss how the alternative death control systems would work through those contexts. Of course, given that we actually now have fundamentally fraudulent financial accounting systems, that deliberately deny that money is necessarily measurement backed by murder, there is practically zero chance of that happening in the public spaces, which are dominated by the biggest bullies, and their controlled opposition groups, which spout the same bullshit social stories. Therefore, what one is forced to conclude is what this article correctly stated was most probably going to be the case. The world's natural resources will continue to be strip-mined as fast as possible, for as long as possible, despite the ways that will be high-grading future generations to hell. No better systems of creative alternatives can actually be developed and implemented without the crucial core component of alternative death controls, to back up alternative debt controls, but that is practically, politically impossible to actually do!
While there appears to be an abundance of theoretically possible lower level creative alternatives, and those also appear to be developing at exponential rates, so far there is practically nothing whatsoever taking place in the form of political progress towards better death control systems, to back up better debt control systems. Rather, the established systems based upon triumphantly runaway organized crime, heading towards causing runaway criminal insanities, in the form of exponential growth, going into severe overshooting, which results in catastrophic collapses into chaos, along with mass murders of the majority of the human population, appears to be the most probable futures.
Of course, that is especially the case due to the ways that the older, richer, people, that benefited from being able to strip-mine the planet as fast as possible in the past, are set up within the established systems of organized lies operating robberies to be able to continue to do that. In particular, the vicious feedback loops of the funding of the political processes, enabling the overall financial accounting systems to become even worse enforcements of frauds, is what is actually happening now, and also is what appears as the most probable to continue to happen in the foreseeable future.
When we run into the more of the real limits of diminishing returns from being able to continue to strip-mine the planet's natural resources in utterly unsustainable ways, that will show up first and foremost by its effects upon the fundamentally fraudulent financial accounting systems that were developed to make "money" out of nothing as debts, to "pay" for that strip-mining. Those things will manifest as wilder and wilder oscillations, as the ability to back up lies with violence, or enforce financial frauds, goes through series of psychotic breakdowns, many of which will appear as counter-intuitive to people who presumed that endless exponential growth could be taken for granted.
Since the financial systems are based upon enforcing frauds, they will drive wilder and wilder oscillations, which swing back and forth to make the overall circumstances get worse, faster. There will NOT be any better, coherent approach towards developing alternatives, because there will NOT be better death controls developed, in sufficiently self-conscious and integrated ways. Since the established systems are based upon successfully enforced frauds, because the production of destruction had to necessarily control production, and did do so, but did so through the most deceitful and treacherous ways possible, every kind of creative alternative, across the range of notions such as recycling, and so on, and so forth, will be driven into self-destructive oscillations by the fundamentally fraudulent accounting systems that are still dominating all of those kinds of alternatives.
The development of any possible alternatives will suffer from the almost total failure to develop better alternative death control systems, in order to back up better debt control systems. Despite those theoretically being the most imperative components of any possible system of alternatives, those will almost certainly not be allowed into significant public debates, since doing so would require addressing the issues regarding how the existing death controls and debt controls are actually working, which would require addressing the ways that what exists now are fundamental fraudulent financial accounting systems, based upon successfully enforcing frauds.
Metaphorically speaking, almost everyone who promotes the various technological ways that human beings could more favourably adapt tend to be promoting their versions of some kind of beautiful "VENUS PROJECTS," which deliberately do not include any matching, and more necessary, "MARS PROJECTS" to go along with that. Although the euphemistically perceived "birth controls" have significantly changed things, those have been done in ways that were dishonest about what they were really doing, and so, have ended up being scattered, and have produced a lot of crazy and contradictory consequences. For sure there already ARE "MARS PROJECTS," but those continue to be operating through the maximum possible dishonesty about themselves, including the extreme degrees to which people are also lying to themselves about what they are really doing.
For the older, richer, people, they may well be able to continue to enjoy strip-mining the planet during the rest of their lives. There may well be enough decades of petroleum resources left for them to continue to turn into garbage and pollution as fast as possible, so that they can continue to indulge in the life styles that they have become accustomed to ... However, at the present time all of that is being done by deferring the repayment of debts onto future generations, and even more being done by deferring deaths onto future generations of human beings. At the present time, the AVERAGE demographic numbers are MISLEADING. It continues to be that the rich people are engaged in "birth control" to the degree that they are collectively committing suicide, while the poorer people continue to reproduce at excessive rates that amount to declaring war on their neighbors, and particularly war against the rich. Overall, we continue to rush as fast as we can towards all of the longer term catastrophic consequences of the "Oil Age," due to the ways that petroleum resources have been channeled through social pyramid systems based upon being able to back up lies with violence.
To be fair Rad, Fresco did muse about the likelihood of there being very little meaningful change and continuing wars by larger powerful countries. But you're right that he does dodge the death controls lynch pin issue.
I have come to putting it this way: IF we were to adopt a global zero-child policy tomorrow, we would still have enormous problems vis-a-vis overshoot. We would only be beginning to decrease strip-mining and waste dumping. Given the near impossibility politically of that becoming policy, the only compromise would be a one-child policy which would go over like a lead balloon too, so I certainly agree that the prospects are grim. We would have to be militant about enforcing the policy but there are certainly ways to give people incentive to cooperate. Of course there will be 'elites' who would attempt to ignore the policy but that could correct itself in a positive way as the policy changed over time.
Seems to me though we will have a zero-child policy forced on us by natural selection sooner rather than later. By the time all the wars have played through, we will have GHGs at catastrophic levels and Canfeild Oceans forming. Perhaps we have already past the point of no return. We will drag most other species into oblivion with us. Given the risk, a zero-child policy today is not as insane as it sounds. It's a policy we could make work and modify as things improve, but as I said, it's politically impossible. Our political science stalled at Roe v Wade. Are we sure we would prefer Natural policy over our artificial policy?
Would a global one-child policy be the end of the world??? I would endorse a more radical zero-child policy which employed a global lottery and restructured social security mechanisms (ie: Venus Project-esque, with an attendant Mars Project where individuals operate their own murder systems unless they 'win' the lottery instead of hypocritically having their military operate it on their behalf while we/they LIE to themselves about what we're actually doing)
What you're talking about is what nobody in Paris wants to talk about. If China doesn't put it on the table I doubt anyone will. Hence Michelle Jarraud will be proven correct; thirty years from now governments and decision makers at all levels (which I interpret to include individuals deciding to procreate) can be held accountable...
p.s. I like that term "totalitarian agriculture"!
"Seems to me though we will have a zero-child policy forced on us by natural selection sooner rather than later."
Tragically, that also appears to be the most probable future to me too ...
Even on a relatively enlightened Web site like Zero Hedge, there is overwhelmingly still adamant deliberate ignorance to any of the most important problems, beyond the more obvious issues of social polarization. We are almost totally dominated by the "totalitarian agriculture" views, which are human egotism powered to astronomically amplified sizes by the industrial revolutions, which were based upon enforced frauds, that are based on deliberately ignoring the basic laws of nature, the manifested as evolutionary ecologies.
Pretty well EVERYONE is addicted, both in the senses of OVERALL drowning in debt, and believing in bullshit about that debt, (that creating "money" out of nothing to "pay" for strip-mining the planet is a "good idea"), which started with "totalitarian agriculture," and got way WORSE, due to the industrial revolution becoming electronic monkey money frauds, backed by the threat of force from apes with atomic bombs, which, SO FAR, does not have to care about anything else than being able to continue to control civilization through some people backing up lies with violence against other people, regardless of how insane that drives civilization to behave!It is relatively clear, from the generally pathetic levels of attempting to have any "rational" debates on Zero Hedge, that nothing about the egotistical delusions of monkey money, backed apes with atomic bombs, is amenable to improvements, since everything is dominated by being able to back up lies with violence, which has driven civilization to specialize in becoming runaway criminal insanities.
Post for post, this might just be the most ignorant place on the web....
Well, here or WUWT...
There's an epic something-or-other still going on (or was an hour ago) in the Biblical thread on page 3. Haven't seen one of those in a while.
Humanity will need to find sustainable ways, as some day any finite resource that is being depleted will become depleted. For some commodities this will come sooner than for others.
Sustainability and recycling, bitchez.
The longer that is postponed, the more impossible actually doing that becomes. Everyday, the options for the future are decreasing.
The most severe forms of exponential growth overshooting what might have otherwise been sustainable result it total extinction, rather than belated adaptations.
Building of all types consume over 40% of all energy used in the USA
I'm an architect. and a Chicago Registered Energy Consulant circa 2002, and just recently completed training/ testing to become a Certified Passive House Consultant CPHC in March 2015.
Passive House is relatively new the US market and NOT to be confused with passive solar. Originating in Germand as Passivehaus, this is a building engineering system with a benchmark performance criteria of maxiumum energy draw for heating and cooling of one watt per square foot.
Lets put that in perspective.
Thats a pair of 75 watt bulbs to heat your master bedroom on the coldest winter night.
or in other term I had a 1600 SF home in Chicago-land and a 56,000 BTU furnace was just barely able to keep me warm in the worst cold spells.
In a passive house I would need less than 6,000 BTUs.
The system to achieve this is superinsulation, air tight construction, energy recovery ventilation ERV, heat pump and/or solar thermal water heating, some passive solar principals, etc. amounting to a 15-20% increase in construction cost. But this cost increase yields a 90% reduction in heating and cooling cost, and a 70-80% redcutuon in total energy cost/use.
in any area where there is no natural gas service, such a rural communities with all eletric homes, the payback is immediate in sacving vs. the monthly cost increase on a 4% 30 year mortgage
We are all electric in our home and before I even took the Passive House training we made some low tech energy saving improements and took our December 2013 heating bill from $483 to December 2014 to $140 on a 1,200 SF 1950s ranch home that was in need up updates.
Taking this home to full Passive House levels would NOT be cost effective, as we are now heating with wood.
However, we have learned that of our current eletric bill of about $87, fully $50 is just for our eletric water heater, or $600 per year.
Simply changing this unit to a Stiebel Heat Pump water heater or adding a solar Thermal (direct solar) water heating system would cut this by 75% and cost about $2500 or a 6 year payback.
Of course we have already upgraded to all LED lighting, convenction ovens, high insunlation, some air sealing and higher spec windows.
However convincing clients to spend money on energy savings, or to consider reducing size of projects is not well received. it is a rare client who would want to give up granite counterops to save a couple hundred per month on high energy efficency.
and therein lies the problem.
We will not come down from buildings consuming 40% of US energy until there is a change in values of people, or a heavy handed mandate from .gov which I have no desire for.
However, The book "Collapse How Socieites Choose to Fail or Suceed" by Jared Diamond (not to be confused with the Michaal Ruppert Collapse Peak Oil book - also a good read) contrasts Easter island with Tokugawa era Fuedal Japan. Both were facing rapid deforestation. Easter Island completely killed the forest and the entire civilization along with it. Japan institutued forestry managment in a very heavy handed rationing system based on status in the Feudal caste, and to this day Japan has protected its forests, and its civilization move forward.
It is also not lost on me that Pairs is beautiful, not by random chanchance, but because Hausmann, under Napolean III razed the ghettos and built the street network with roundabouts and dictated many architectural treasures be built circa 1850-1870
How we balance pro liberty govereance and free markets with the very real prospect of human greed is not fully resolved in my mind.
We hate the TBTF bankers bacause they are corrupt. well guess what, most men are. I've often seen how sucess brings out the worst in people.
But also bringing out the worst in people is years under aa police force that shoots folks who already have no economic hope of sucess, (and who have been raised to believe they are entitiled to other folks stuff.)
Ran Paul is Right, but so are Hausmann and Tokugawa.
I have not struggled enough mentally to resolve this dichotomy.