For long-time readers of mine, you will know that I have emphasised repeatedly the importance of energy to human existence and its complex societies. It is the net surplus energy that we have been able to leverage that allows us to continue growing our material throughputs and keep alive our perception of ‘progress’–particularly via our various technological ‘innovations’–and continue to expand (seemingly without limits) our modern complex societies, especially their economies1.
Over the past two centuries in particular, it is the extraction and refinement of relatively easy-to-access and cheap-to-extract, energy-dense petroleum–what some refer to as our ‘master resource’–that has well and truly led to an explosion of trends that began when we first started gathering in large, complex settlements about 10,000-12,000 years ago.
Further, there’s a very good argument to be made that this extraction and use of hydrocarbons is one of the prime causes of a huge leap in our ecological overshoot predicament with its influence upon our various technologies–especially with regard to food production (that has helped to support exponential population growth), resource extraction, and industrialisation.
On the flipside, however, our use of petroleum-derived energy also drives a variety of negative impacts upon the planet and its ecosystems–something ‘growth’ advocates often ignore and/or rationalise away. (Here I would argue that this ‘purposeful’ overlooking of detrimental consequences is primarily to avoid the anxiety-provoking thoughts that arise when one sees these repercussions and recognises their potential for significant and possibly irreversible harm–better to deny these and go along with the majority that wish for a happy ending to this latest experiment in large, complex societies.)
The realisation that hydrocarbons are a finite resource and have seen the easiest-to-access and least-costly-to-procure reserves already extracted has led a number of people to contemplate a future without this fundamental energy resource2. And as with most things, the prognostications about an unknowable future span a wide spectrum of ideas from a return to a stone-age way of life that is ‘short and brutish’3 to a technological-based utopia in sync with the planet’s ecosystems and the limits that exist on a finite planet.
The issues that get ‘debated’ within the ‘Peak Oil-aware community’ are varied and not unlike those that emerge in any complex subject area. The following are only a handful of the subtopics that arise when discussions occur regarding this significantly important resource and our future, and are by no means complete and somewhat overlapping: net surplus energy; energy-return-on-energy-invested (EROEI); diminishing returns; peak timing; conventional vs. unconventional–i.e., types of oil; socioeconomics; sociopolitics; supply vs. demand; ecological impacts; scale required of resources/new technologies to ‘replace’ hydrocarbons’; and biogeophysical limits to continued growth.
I pivoted towards doing archaeological research commentary/summaries in the past year or so to explore what the numerous pre/historical experiments in complex societies tell us about societal ‘collapse’, but came across the article summarised below just as a somewhat contentious debate began to arise within the Peak Oil community regarding the timing of Peak Oil, and the potential reserves that exist and can be extracted by us in our quest to continue growing and supporting our complex, global-industrial societies.
So, I thought it would be interesting to also include summaries of some published articles on the topic of Peak Oil. Below is my first by Dr. Peter Newman that appeared in the Journal of Urban Technology (2007).
The focus of this paper is basically that ‘the right technology can solve the consequences of Peak Oil’. This conclusion is not surprising given the academic focus of the author and the audience that the journal publishes for–its focus is primarily upon sustaining economic growth via ‘smart’ planning and technology.
While there are suggestions made by the author that I fully agree with (such as advocating for localism), there are others that I do not (such as pushing for mass-produced, industrial technologies to counter oil vulnerability). I do not believe we should be pursuing these industrial-based products because there has been increasing evidence that the production of these devices are helping to push greater hydrocarbon demand/use and contributing to the increased broaching of important planetary boundaries as material throughputs grow accordingly. The believers in such technologies to ‘solve’ our various predicaments, however, refuse to acknowledge or rationalise away such evidence; arguing for the most part that there is no other option–mostly ignoring the perspective of those who advocate for a low-/no-tech future.
The question posed in the article title, as to whether cities will ‘collapse’ post-Peak Oil, is in my mind quite clear: they will. All of humanity’s previous experiments in complex societies have ended more or less the same way: a significant simplification (i.e., ‘collapse’). I see little reason or evidence that our globalised, industrialised complex societies will be any different and capable of staving off a return to a far less complex way of living. In fact, I would argue (and have done so repeatedly) that our ‘decline’ may be far more precipitous than in the past given the degree to which we have expanded and become, for the most part, very dependent upon a finite resource that has ‘allowed’ most of our species to lose the skills and knowledge to survive without it.
In fact, it may be that our complex societies are already in the process of ‘collapsing’ but this has been well hidden via narrative management and massive credit-/debt-expansion. Regardless, it is the realisation of this ‘dependency’ that has prompted a concern for some regarding our societal vulnerability to a waning of our master resource and a call for planning in response. The plans to confront oil vulnerability that are highlighted in the summarised article appear to be focussed upon sustaining what is increasingly looking to be unsustainable, being quite blind to a number of issues.
I sense a significant blindness in this article to some specific impacts of declining hydrocarbon availability that cannot be met–or, at least, not well met due to issues of scale–via ‘renewables’ or other innovative technology, but also to the ecological systems destruction wrought by our materials-intensive industries. Instead, we are exposed to an argument that more mass-produced, industrial products are the ‘solution’ to resource decline rather than a reconsideration of the ‘industrial technology as solution’ mythology.
Despite the rising evidence that these technological ‘solutions’ are anything but a panacea and actually exacerbating our predicaments, it is my feeling that they will continue to be pursued for a variety of reasons–not least of which are the profiteering motives that are associated with them and the general acceptance by the masses of the marketing narrative (i.e., greenwashing) that surrounds them.
My shorter summary notes of the article can be found below the following post and follow-up comment from a fellow ‘Peak Oiler’ as it is apropos to the above Contemplation. It is from Schuyler Hupp whose insightful commentary within the Peak Oil Facebook group we are both members of I have shared previously. I thank him for giving me permission to do so once again (with some very minor edits):
Energy analysts say that the life cycle of aggregate domestic tight oil production will likely be much shorter than that of conventional oil, which peaked in 1970… So if the peak in aggregate domestic production occurs within the next few decades as some predict, then it would raise a bunch of pretty obvious questions:
1) When will tight oil actually peak?
2) As tight oil goes into terminal decline, what alternative energy resources and technology paradigms will replace oil?
3) What will be the net energy return of those alternatives to oil?
4) Does anyone actually know how to manufacture and maintain those replacements without cheap and abundant fossil hydrocarbons?
5) How long might it take to rebuild the infrastructure of western civilization to accommodate whatever new energy paradigm happens to emerge?
6) If net energy and surplus energy are lower under the new paradigm, with lower economic output and less to go around as a result, how well will societies manage the paradigm shift?
7) If indeed a broader decline scenario ensues, how long might it take before a new social and economic equilibrium is to be reached?
8) How much of a risk is it to assume that technological developments will necessarily materialize, so as to make up for the loss of our most essential resource, the one on which our current civilization is largely based?
Of course oil isn’t the whole energy picture, and although energy has primacy when it comes to economic prosperity, there are other factors to consider such as the broader natural resource base and the health of ecological systems… There’s much food for thought.
PS
I forgot to mention… that chart is for domestic, U.S. production, though it’s implied by “Lower 48 States. There are a number of prominent voices predicting a peak in our tight oil production within the decade. The exact date for global aggregate oil production won’t be known until it’s further behind us, but current data suggests that we may have passed that point as far back as 10 years ago. When tight oil goes into decline it will be a real life lesson in biophysical economics that nobody signed up for; people will have no choice but to adapt.
So far as climate…the range of possibilities is broad, at least from what I’ve seen. When it comes to climate models, when you get to 100 years out, at least the dozen or so I’ve seen… the average surface temperature predictions vary by as much as 400%. It certainly could be that it’s game over for humans and a lot of other species… or it could be that it becomes an evolutionary bottleneck, subsistence to follow… or it could be that things suck, and maybe civilization crumbles, but things somehow continue at a much smaller scale and under a very different paradigm.
Even in the best scenario, I don’t think it would involve 8 billion people living sustainably, or anything close to it. The main takeaway from that oil production data is that economic decline in “developed” nations is at the doorstep. So for a generation or so, it will be a question of how people will adapt physically, psychologically, and socially… Mainly, how people resolve claims on limited resources.
Whatever happens over the longer term, climate wise, is something that will just happen when it happens and to the degree that it happens, regardless of the reality of peaking fossil hydrocarbons, though that certainly won’t hurt when it comes to the climate system. Given the shortcomings of human nature, cognitive and otherwise, there’s no reason to expect preemptive actions toward preventing climate change, certainly not at a broad scale… but people are still going to have to deal with the shorter term challenges with regard to resource limits and economic effects.
Summary Notes
Beyond Peak Oil: Will Our Cities Collapse? Peter Newman
Journal of Urban Technology 14:2 (2007), pp. 15-30
Acknowledging the inevitable decline in the production of oil fields (and providing a brief introduction regarding the history of this realisation) and arguing that the exact date of Peak Oil is not as relevant as the recognition of it, human societies need to plan for this eventuality as time is running out to prepare adequately. There are four possible scenarios that need to be considered for this planning, especially for urban centres in advanced economies.
Collapse–given pre/historical examples, this is a distinct possibility–especially for those cities that require massive amounts of oil to support their complexities (i.e., those in advanced economies);
Ruralised Cities–a dispersal of urbanites out of the city into the countryside to establish permaculture villages and suburban agriculture is what some envision but is unlikely without a significant population decline as well as the adoption of far more sustainable lifestyles;
Divided Cities–the creation of ‘electrified cores’ for the wealthy few while the remainder of the urban population is on the periphery fighting for survival;
Resilient, Sustainable, Solar City–this is what we should be striving for, an electrified city for all residents.
Arguing that the threat of Peak Oil needs to be taken seriously, the author suggests that the United Nations must take the lead in setting goals for weaning economies off of oil with cities/states creating strategies to accomplish this. Some have begun to explore options, such as the prospects of a Hydrogen Economy.
Cities must plan for significantly reduced car use since they are the factor that most impacts urban vulnerability to oil decline. Public transport must be prioritised (e.g., electric rail lines and buses) as well as mixed land use and denser populations within urban cores and rural lands left for food production.
The impacts from declining oil supplies on agriculture will be significant and we need to halt the expansion of suburban residences onto arable lands. Establishing ‘Horticultural Precincts’ beside urban centres is recommended. Food production needs to become localised and surpluses pursued for trade purposes with nearby communities.
Localism needs to be pushed and innovation in it funded, especially of urban technologies.
A variety of regulations subsidise oil consumption and it is likely that regulations need to be developed to help reduce the use of internal combustion engine vehicles and increase that of hybrid transport. Massive investment in wind farms should occur. As there seems to be no alternatives to hydrocarbons for aviation, unnecessary travel should be reduced via increased pricing.
Advanced economies have virtually no plans for handling oil vulnerability. We need to adapt by using less and shifting our technology.
The more detailed summary notes can be found here.
What is going to be my standard WARNING/ADVICE going forward and that I have reiterated in various ways before this:
“Only time will tell how this all unfolds but there’s nothing wrong with preparing for the worst by ‘collapsing now to avoid the rush’ and pursuing self-sufficiency. By this I mean removing as many dependencies on the Matrix as is possible and making do, locally. And if one can do this without negative impacts upon our fragile ecosystems or do so while creating more resilient ecosystems, all the better.
Building community (maybe even just household) resilience to as high a level as possible seems prudent given the uncertainties of an unpredictable future. There’s no guarantee it will ensure ‘recovery’ after a significant societal stressor/shock but it should increase the probability of it and that, perhaps, is all we can ‘hope’ for from its pursuit.
If you have arrived here and get something out of my writing, please consider ordering the trilogy of my ‘fictional’ novel series, Olduvai (PDF files; only $9.99 Canadian), via my website or the link below — the ‘profits’ of which help me to keep my internet presence alive and first book available in print (and is available via various online retailers).
Attempting a new payment system as I am contemplating shutting down my site in the future (given the ever-increasing costs to keep it running).
If you are interested in purchasing any of the 3 books individually or the trilogy, please try the link below indicating which book(s) you are purchasing.
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You can also find a variety of resources, particularly my summary notes for a handful of texts, especially William Catton’s Overshoot and Joseph Tainter’s Collapse of Complex Societies: see here.
AND
Released September 30, 2024
It Bears Repeating: Best Of…Volume 2
A compilation of writers focused on the nexus of limits to growth, energy, and ecological overshoot.
With a Foreword by Erik Michaels and Afterword by Dr. Guy McPherson, authors include: Dr. Peter A Victor, George Tsakraklides, Charles Hugh Smith, Dr. Tony Povilitis, Jordan Perry, Matt Orsagh, Justin McAffee, Jack Lowe, The Honest Sorcerer, Fast Eddy, Will Falk, Dr. Ugo Bardi, and Steve Bull.
The document is not a guided narrative towards a singular or overarching message; except, perhaps, that we are in a predicament of our own making with a far more chaotic future ahead of us than most imagine–and most certainly than what mainstream media/politics would have us believe.
Click here to access the document as a PDF file, free to download.
Although much of the expansion of the past handful of decades can be greatly attributed to a gargantuan increase in debt-/credit-based currencies; including the growth of energy resources.
Note, however, that some still refuse to accept such finiteness and/or rationalise it away with assertions that a ‘free’ market will adjust to such biogeophysical realities introducing alternatives or humanity will simply colonise other planets and mine passing asteroids for our resource needs once we’ve exhausted our planet’s supplies.
I would remind readers here that this phrase is often used to describe life before ‘modernity’ and its various technologies but this is not what Thomas Hobbes was referring to when he used it. Hobbes was advocating for strong, central authority as a result of people living in a constant state of fear, lacking the necessities of life, and having to struggle to survive prior to its existence.
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXCVII–‘Renewable’ Energy: See, Hear, and Speak No Evil, Part 3
In attempting to bolster the mass rollout of supposed ‘clean/green/sustainable’ ‘renewable’ energy technologies (and the necessary ‘investments’, particularly in terms of finite resources–especially energy), the marketers of these industrial products and their enthusiastic supporters have created and pushed a narrative/mythos surrounding them whereby the technologies are perceived as primarily environmentally-friendly but also capable of replacing our master resource: hydrocarbons. An increasing number of people have referred to this approach as ‘greenwashing’, a deceptive marketing strategy to persuade everyone that the technologies are legitimate and their production/use is environmentally-responsible.
As the chorus of critics of these industrial-based technologies has grown and increasingly exposed the erroneousness of their supporter’s assertions regarding the environmental ‘friendliness’ of their production, the cheerleaders have expanded the story surrounding these technologies to include their ability to address in a beneficial manner a variety of other issues humanity confronts: war, security, and prosperity.
My 3-part Contemplation attempts to demonstrate the falseness of these claims; or, at least, that the perspective that renewables are only of benefit is quite narrow and ignores/rationalises away some inconvenient realities. In Part 1 (see Website, Medium, Substack) I address two of the assertions made by those seeking to convince us to support mass production and distribution of these technologies: wars are not created as a result of them, and they do not pollute. In Part 2 (see Website, Medium, Substack) I look at the claim that their use results in greater ‘security’.
As I read the evidence, these assertions not only ‘overlook’ some uncomfortable negative consequences of our pursuit of ‘renewables’ but state the exact opposite of reality. The increasing and monumental ‘investments’ called for by ‘renewables’ supporters actually result in greater geopolitical competition (including war) over finite resources (including hydrocarbons) and significantly increases pollution of our planet–particularly due to the extractive and industrial processes required for their production.
In this post I will consider the claim that the use of ‘renewables’ is quite beneficial due to the jobs and wealth that are generated.
Jobs and Wealth are generated As with any expansion of industrial production, jobs are created and wealth can indeed be generated. There is little to no debate regarding this observation. And there has been exponential growth in the production of ‘renewables’ experienced over the past several decades. So, yes, wealth is generated and jobs are created via the production of ‘renewables.’
There are several aspects of this growth that must be kept in mind while considering whether this and a massive scaling up of these products is actually ‘beneficial’ to humanity and our planet or not.
From a relatively narrow ‘economic/financial’ point of view, especially as it pertains to individuals and families that depend upon employment income to ‘survive’, growing employment opportunities are fantastic. And for the local to national (even global) economists and politicians that signal their ‘success’ via indicators such as gross domestic product (GDP) and employment statistics, any economic growth is a benefit and must be pursued!
Such wealth ‘creation’ is particularly a motivating factor for the industrialists and ruling elite, who not only push persistently the pursuit of the infinite growth chalice but who have experienced a significant burgeoning of their personal/family wealth over the past few decades. So much so that they are leaving the masses well in the dust in terms of ‘income’, especially in the United States and China where close to half of the world’s wealth is concentrated (see graphic above). Coincidence? I think not.
Leaving aside the significant growth in inequality between the uber-wealthy and the hoi polloi that has accompanied global wealth production, the mythology that has been created surrounding the economic growth imperative is powerful. In fact, it may be one of, if not the most powerful to hold sway in our modern world zeitgeist. Within that worldview such growth is primarily perceived as only of benefit with economic contraction being seen as the most significant thing we must avoid at all costs.
Those ‘costs’, however, tend to be at the expense of the health of our planet’s ecosystems–among other negative aspects (especially socioeconomic disparity) that get left unsaid or rationalised away by our world ‘leaders’ when discussing the growth imperative and/or marketing their latest ‘solely beneficial’ policies. The graphic above shows the almost perfect correlation between the global material footprint (i.e., raw material extraction) and GDP. If one defines wealth generation via GDP, then it would appear that any increase in this metric coincides almost precisely with resource extraction–one of perhaps the most ecologically-destructive activities our species carries out.
Here I must ask critically: Is this really what we want for a species seemingly already well into ecological overshoot (due primarily to our expansion and its material-based requirements) and a planet experiencing the negative consequences of this overshoot, especially a loss of biosphere integrity, changes in freshwater, novel entity dispersal, etc.? When money/wealth–which are potential claims on future resources and their extraction, especially energy–is ‘created’, there is also created more resource extraction, refinement, and industrial production of some nature. More wealth = more ecosystem destruction. (see graphic above showing the material footprint relationship with GDP)
Azote for Stockholm Resilience Centre, based on analysis in Richardson et al 2023.
While wealth generation (especially through job creation) appeals greatly to the masses who hold out hope of achieving financial ‘prosperity’ through gainful employment, the illusory narrative about ever-greater prosperity for all seems to me to be mostly about sustaining the unsustainable and ensuring continued exploitation of our planet and continuing ecosystem destruction–and mostly for the benefit of those at the top of our power and wealth structures given that wealth tends to accrue extremely unevenly towards that class of our rather hierarchical complex societies.
So, the creation of evermore ‘wealth’ (via additional units of currency) added to our economies becomes ever-increasing potential claims on future energy and other finite resources (with their extraction and refinement requiring significantly ecologically-destructive processes). How is this in any way, shape, or form ‘beneficial’ except, and particularly for, the ruling elite who own and control the industries and resource lands that are supposedly generating ‘wealth’?
This is a troubling narrative for ‘renewables’ cheerleaders in the sense that the primary motivation given for transitioning to ‘renewables’ has been and continues to be one of reducing the negative consequences on the planet’s ecosystems of hydrocarbon use–especially the greenhouse gas emissions, particularly carbon.
But as I have argued and is perhaps the most obvious misinformed assertion, the continued and/or expanded pursuit of ‘renewables’ actually exacerbates the negative impacts on ecosystems due primarily to the extractive and industrial industries required for their production. How is this not recognised by those arguing in favour of the mass production of these industrial technologies?
In addition, I and others have tried to point out that the production of ‘renewables’ has been additive to our energy mix and serves to exacerbate our overshoot predicament. While the ‘renewables’ advocates often highlight the growing share of electrical-energy production these mass-produced industrial products provide, they leave out of any calculation the growth in electrical generation via hydrocarbons (especially coal)–particularly in those nations where much of the globe’s industrial production is carried out.
For example, in a recent post in the Facebook Group Peak Oil–Twilight of the Oil Age, a member highlighted a CarbonBrief article that focuses upon the plateauing of CO2 emissions in China and suggests that this ‘pause’ is directly due to the mass roll-out of ‘renewables’. Several members of the group challenged this interpretation, suggesting instead that it indicates an economic slowdown and has not been the result of ‘renewables’ being mass produced and adopted. What I pointed out was the additive nature of these technologies to China’s electrical energy production and that while China has been increasing their ‘renewables’, they have also been increasing their hydrocarbon-based electricity generation–reaching record levels (see graphic below).
And while China may indeed be experiencing an exponential increase in ‘renewables’ compared to hydrocarbon use, this is not unusual when a technology is in its infancy. The rate of growth is almost always larger when the base numbers are small. The point, however, remains: ‘renewables’ are adding to China’s energy mix and replacing little if any of that provided by hydrocarbons. This is true also for the world as a whole: ‘renewables’ are adding to the energy production and use by our species.
As for expanding or maintaining our financial and economic systems as constructed, these are among the most-impactful human systems that contribute to our continuing degradation of our planet and its ecosystems.
While the economic argument appeals to many (most?) and is often used by those pushing any number of agendas (especially the pursuit of the infinite growth chalice via economic expansion), it is probably the exact opposite of the trajectory our species needs to follow if we wish to focus upon long-term sustainability (or, at least attempt to mitigate somewhat the fallout of ecological overshoot). Degrowing these systems and the extractive and industrial processes they rest upon should be our primary ideology, not expanding them.
With ‘wealth’ (in the form of currency/money) being a potential claim on future resources (especially energy), the expansion of ‘renewables’ being called for necessitates destructive extraction processes to continue and grow substantially. Is this not paradoxical to the supposed reason for pursuing ‘renewables’? Are we having to destroy the planet to save it?
In the mind of many ‘renewables’ supporters it seems this paradox is ignored or rationalised away. They maintain such destruction is a ‘one-off’ or not anywhere near the negative impacts that hydrocarbons bring to the table (again, ignoring the hydrocarbon inputs into ‘renewables’).
Where is the alternative of halting our pursuit of the perpetual growth chalice or even reversing it via degrowth? It would seem to me that even the discussion of halting growth is mostly verboten in the public sphere except amongst a somewhat marginalised minority–who are often vilified by the perpetual-growth believers. The myth of infinite growth on a finite planet is not only alive and well but vociferously protected by its gatekeepers and adherents. The force shall not be disturbed.
These are not the droids you’re looking for… As I stated to one of the ‘renewables’ advocates–whom I’ve had ongoing disagreement with over this issue–when I shared the arguments made by those who disagree with their positive assessment of ‘renewables’ (and who countered that all of the critics are obsolete thinkers, haven’t updated their knowledge, have not taken account of new data, and are simply old dogs who can’t learn new tricks): it could be that “the evidence points to a very different conclusion for those scientists/researchers. One of the perhaps most important learnings of my extended post-secondary education was that even the exact same observable ‘facts’ can be interpreted in very different ways; sometimes ways that are diametrically opposed.”1
We all believe what we want to believe, regardless of ‘facts’. For die-hard ‘renewables’ cheerleaders, the negative aspects will mostly be denied/ignored/rationalised away–a response entirely encouraged by the marketers of these technologies. They cannot see (for reasons perhaps of cognitive-dissonance reduction) that these industrial products carry with them exceedingly non-beneficial consequences. They accept, usually without question, the ‘solely beneficial’ assertions made by the products’ manufacturers and the echo chamber of supporters.
One of the aspects that gets lost in this mythos, unfortunately, is the larger issue of societal sustainability–or should I say unsustainability and the evidence suggesting that by pursuing these industrial technologies we are adding fuel to the fire and exacerbating the fundamental predicament of ecological overshoot, making any possible and marginal mitigations all the less likely to be helpful for our species (or any and all non-human ones and the ecosystems humans depend upon for their very existence).
And this is especially true for analyses that focus on singular and/or narrow aspects such as carbon emissions or energy-return-on-energy-invested (EROEI); the latter of which can be useful (if agreement can be had over how to calculate/measure it) in evaluating energy ‘costs’ but tend to ignore completely the environmental/ecological and/or societal ‘costs’. Just because something may appear to be capable of supporting the energy ‘needs’ of industrial society (at least for a relatively short-term duration), does not mean its use is ecologically justifiable. A societal-supporting energy source can (and probably does) carry great ecologically-destructive ‘costs’ with it but is left out of an EROEI calculation.
When I raise such issues as the environmental costs of ‘renewables’, the tendency of advocates has been to either ignore my concern completely or simply rebut that the costs of hydrocarbons are much worse, and we need to reduce carbon emissions regardless of all other ‘costs’.
Without getting deeply into the carbon tunnel vision such rebuttals raise, ignoring all the other negative aspects of ‘renewables’ is highly dangerous in my opinion.
Such responses, however, are not surprising given another argument that is often made by those supporting the widespread use and distribution of ‘renewables’: we need to do something! And that ‘something’ is almost invariably more technology. But maybe we shouldn’t be attempting to sustain the unsustainable via industrial products. Maybe the only thing we need to be doing is deconstructing complex societies, not chasing the (impossible) dream of techno-utopia.
I find the entire narrative surrounding the ‘electrify everything’ mantra faulty–from top to bottom. From the energy-harvesting technologies to the products that would be powered by the stored power. None of it is ‘green/clean’ nor ‘sustainable’. Such claims are little more than marketing propaganda that has been turned into a mythology that cannot be questioned nor criticised.
Mythologies arise to try and help humans explain observed phenomena, and other complex societal issues in a relatively simplistic fashion. Those that meet this need (and especially if they appeal to broader wants/wishes/desires) tend to propagate through a society and become somewhat entrenched, oftentimes providing moral guidance.
It is difficult if not impossible to dethrone mythologies that have become rooted in a society, especially if they tend to alleviate powerful, anxiety-provoking thoughts–such as our complex societies are not sustainable and are actually destroying the ecosystems that we ultimately depend upon for our existence.
Creating a mythology about a product is one of many marketing strategies that seek to resonate with consumers and produce ‘brand’ loyalty. That ‘renewables’ are ‘clean’, ‘green’, and/or ‘sustainable’ are amongst the myths marketers have focused upon to sell their product. It resonates with consumers who recognise/acknowledge the impacts human society has upon our environment and allows them to reduce any cognitive dissonance that may arise. And for the majority that accept the narrative, it creates a sense of shared belief and identity: we, the ‘renewables’ advocates, care deeply about our world and support this industrial product as a ‘solution’ to human destructiveness–and those who challenge our mythos are part of an uncaring ‘other’ who must be silenced.
The myths that have arisen with regard to an energy ‘transition’ are another in a long line of stories told to soothe the savage beast that is Homo sapiens. In this vein, it is successful for the most part: there are a large number of people that believe the claims made about ‘renewables’ without question. But as with the many mythologies that exist and have preceded this one, when one digs below the surface claims the narrative is simple, inaccurate, and misleads.
Want to purchase an electric vehicle or put solar panels up on your property? By all means, do so but please don’t tell me, others, or yourself that you are doing it for any of the so-called ‘benefits’ that cheerleaders of these industrial products go on about–especially their marketers. That’s simply disingenuous.
‘Renewables’ are no ‘solution’ to our various predicaments. The idea that they are is part of a grand lie. A lie that ignores/denies/rationalises away all the glaring negative aspects that accompany them. The lie is readily accepted since it aids the story-telling apes who strive to avoid/reduce significant anxiety-provoking thoughts but it also adds to the height of the cliff directly ahead that our species is running full-steam towards, with the ‘leaders’ (who are actually at the back of the pack but projecting an air of ‘stewardship’ and ‘guidance’) urging on the masses…
As I did with Part 1, I will close with a passage from Charles Hugh Smith in a recent post on the various mythologies our societies hold with respect to technology, political institutions, and financial markets and their ‘ability’ to ‘solve’ all ‘problems’:
“We know we’ve entered the realm of mythologies when expressing doubts about the efficacy of tech, the market or the state unleashes an infuriated indignation that the gods of tech, the market and the state are being questioned, even as the proof of their powers are everywhere.
But once we’re embedded in a mythological structure, then we see play-acting as a legitimate solution.
Here is the real-world situation, stripped of mythology and play-acting: the majority of the core problems are either made worse by tech, the market and the state–Anit-Progress writ large–or they’re beyond the reach of these conventional tools.
This Venn diagram causes howls of protest and shrieks of agony: how dare you! Of course there are tech solutions, market solutions and government solutions to every problem under the sun. What else is there?
To state this out loud is deeply offensive, for we’ve been trained to worship at the altars of technology, the market and the state. It’s considered good sport to deride the limits of state solutions, but it’s anathema to question the limits of technology or the market.”
What is going to be my standard WARNING/ADVICE going forward and that I have reiterated in various ways before this:
“Only time will tell how this all unfolds but there’s nothing wrong with preparing for the worst by ‘collapsing now to avoid the rush’ and pursuing self-sufficiency. By this I mean removing as many dependencies on the Matrix as is possible and making do, locally. And if one can do this without negative impacts upon our fragile ecosystems or do so while creating more resilient ecosystems, all the better.
Building community (maybe even just household) resilience to as high a level as possible seems prudent given the uncertainties of an unpredictable future. There’s no guarantee it will ensure ‘recovery’ after a significant societal stressor/shock but it should increase the probability of it and that, perhaps, is all we can ‘hope’ for from its pursuit.
If you have arrived here and get something out of my writing, please consider ordering the trilogy of my ‘fictional’ novel series, Olduvai (PDF files; only $9.99 Canadian), via my website or the link below — the ‘profits’ of which help me to keep my internet presence alive and first book available in print (and is available via various online retailers).
Attempting a new payment system as I am contemplating shutting down my site in the future (given the ever-increasing costs to keep it running).
If you are interested in purchasing any of the 3 books individually or the trilogy, please try the link below indicating which book(s) you are purchasing.
Costs (Canadian dollars):
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Book 3: $3.89
Trilogy: $9.99
Feel free to throw in a ‘tip’ on top of the base cost if you wish; perhaps by paying in U.S. dollars instead of Canadian. Every few cents/dollars helps…
If you do not hear from me within 48 hours or you are having trouble with the system, please email me: olduvaitrilogy@gmail.com.
You can also find a variety of resources, particularly my summary notes for a handful of texts, especially William Catton’s Overshoot and Joseph Tainter’s Collapse of Complex Societies: see here.
AND
Released September 30, 2024
It Bears Repeating: Best Of…Volume 2
A compilation of writers focused on the nexus of limits to growth, energy, and ecological overshoot.
With a Foreword by Erik Michaels and Afterword by Dr. Guy McPherson, authors include: Dr. Peter A Victor, George Tsakraklides, Charles Hugh Smith, Dr. Tony Povilitis, Jordan Perry, Matt Orsagh, Justin McAffee, Jack Lowe, The Honest Sorcerer, Fast Eddy, Will Falk, Dr. Ugo Bardi, and Steve Bull.
The document is not a guided narrative towards a singular or overarching message; except, perhaps, that we are in a predicament of our own making with a far more chaotic future ahead of us than most imagine–and most certainly than what mainstream media/politics would have us believe.
Click here to access the document as a PDF file, free to download.
I came to this observation after several years of interest in and extensive reading about hominid evolution, especially the physical markers that appear in skeletal remains. The exact same physical attribute was often perceived by different researchers in very different ways that resulted in very different interpretations as to the importance and meaning of the identified characteristic. And then there was the presentation by the university’s psychology department on human intelligence I sat in on where the guest professor began the gathering by asking the participants to consider that if one asks 100 psychologists the meaning of intelligence, you will likely get more than 100 different responses with each highlighting different aspects and resulting in different conclusions even using the same data. The point being that we see and interpret the world in a variety of ways that can sometimes be quite different from each other.
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXCVI–‘Renewable’ Energy: See, Hear, and Speak No Evil, Part 2
In Part 1 of this now three-part Contemplation (see Website, Medium, Substack) I introduced some of the claims made by ‘renewables’ cheerleaders. These include the two I attempted to unmask as false in the initial post: wars are not created as a result of them, and they do not pollute.
As I read the evidence, these assertions not only hide/ignore/rationalise away some uncomfortable negative consequences of our pursuit of ‘renewables’ but state the exact opposite of reality. The increasing and monumental ‘investments’ called for by ‘renewables’ supporters actually result in greater geopolitical competition (including war) over finite resources (including hydrocarbons) and significantly increases pollution of our planet–particularly due to the extractive and industrial processes required for their production.
Two additional assertions made by ‘renewables’ advocates need to be addressed: through their use security is improved; and, jobs are created through their production and thereby greater wealth is generated.
In this post I will deconstruct the claim that security is improved through the use of ‘renewables’.
Security is improved The claim that security is improved with the use of ‘renewables’ hinges on several arguments. Among them is that energy sources are diversified (thereby making the power grid more resilient) and dependence upon imports is reduced.
I will first focus upon the claim that “import dependence is reduced” and thus improves national ‘security’ through increased independence.
Again, as with all the other claims, this one depends mostly upon one’s perspective and could be argued to be accurate (if you can ignore some inconvenient facts) but only after the first generation of ‘renewables’ have been produced and distributed–leaving unsaid, of course, what occurs after the limited lifespan of this first generation of ‘renewables’ reaches its end.
Our globalised markets are greatly intertwined and co-dependent. While there has been a great clamour by some politicians to bring all industry back to their own nations–and some limited amount of this has occurred–this not only can take years/decades to accomplish but the more daunting reality is that many nations do not have the local/domestic materials/minerals to be able to carry this relocalisation dream out completely independent of others. A reindustrialisation of nations would still depend very significantly upon the importation of materials/minerals not present or economically-feasible to extract and/or refine within a country’s own borders.
There are few widely-scaled and industrial-based products that draw their materials and/or component parts from solely national, let alone local, sources. They depend upon sourcing such materials and parts from across the globe, some within their own national borders but very many not and must be imported (see graphic below that shows the growth rate in exports/imports–all have grown and are expected to continue to grow).
One cannot wave a magic wand and make rare minerals or other required resources appear in one’s backyard, or make the refining of such minerals/material economically-viable within their nation. For example, almost all US oil refining is geared towards heavy, sour crude oil that it mostly imports from Canada, Mexico, and the Persian Gulf region; and the light, sweet oil that is increasingly dominating US extraction must be shipped elsewhere to be refined–primarily to Canada, Mexico, and Europe.
Focussing for the moment just upon solar photovoltaic energy, close to 95% of the world’s panels are manufactured by China (78%) and a number of nearby Asia-Pacific nations (15.3%). There are a number of reasons for this but it primarily rests upon the economic aspects that make it far more profitable to produce panels in China and nearby regions. For example, China has far more lax environmental protection laws so that the ecologically-destructive industrial processes necessary to produce panels are less expensive, and remuneration for workers is far less than that in so-called ‘advanced’ economies.
Looking at the materials/minerals required for solar panels, China also significantly dominates the source locations for the extraction and the refining of these, including: silicon, indium, tellurium, gallium, copper, and zinc. This is not to suggest other nations do not extract and refine these, but not to the extent China currently does. And without decimating environmental regulations, greatly reducing remuneration, and/or investing significantly in necessary infrastructure in those other nations that may hold some significant quantities of reserves, the far less expensive Chinese sources will continue to dominate the global market–at least for the foreseeable future; this may change down the road but it is not what currently takes place.
And then there are the hydrocarbon inputs that are required to extract, refine, and distribute the necessary minerals and materials–to say little about such inputs into the manufacturing of the panels (see Part 1). Hydrocarbon imports are important for almost all nations, either because they have no domestic resources and/or no refining capacity. Even some of the largest oil ‘producers’ still require imports if their resources (e.g., light shale oil) do not match their needs (e.g., fuel oil, diesel) as highlighted above.
To claim that the use of ‘renewables’ decreases dependency upon imports is completely inconsistent with reality. (NOTE: the off-shoring of the ecologically-destructive and polluting processes to produce panels also contributes to the mythos in most (all?) so-called ‘advanced’ economies that ‘renewables’ are ‘clean/green’.)
Now, one could argue that once the initial importing of panels via the global market is accomplished the goal of independence is achieved. Perhaps. What happens, however, when the first generation of these products reaches the end of their lifespan?
Recycling the products in some form of a ‘regenerative/circular’ cycle is put forward as the ‘solution’ to this. What is left out of this suggestion are two major roadblocks. First, some components are extremely difficult if not impossible to recycle due to their manufacturing processes–for example, in solar panels: silicon wafers, polymer layers, thin-film materials; in wind turbines: the massive blades composed of fiberglass or carbon fiber reinforced with resin. Second, recycling is extremely energy-intensive, results in significant pollutants/toxins, and the thermodynamic law of entropy assures loss of material/minerals with each and every generation of recycling. Recycling is no ‘solution’.
So, there is not only a need to scale-up significantly the production of ‘renewables’ to achieve the ‘clean’ energy utopia, but to scale-up massively the recycling and, in fact, to figure out how to recycle all the components–as most components have yet to be recyclable (or economically so). Unfortunately, the majority of ‘renewables’ end up in landfills. This is the reality of ‘clean/green renewables’.
It is nonsensical to argue at this time that the adoption of ‘renewables’ decreases greatly/eliminates dependence upon imports. In fact, the opposite is quite true given the scaling up being discussed by ‘renewables’ advocates. Massive hydrocarbon and mineral inputs are required and mostly come from other nations via imports.
That energy sources are diversified by their use seems undebatable. The greater the number of energy sources employed, the greater the diversification. Yes, adding ‘renewables’ to the world’s other energy sources has created an increasing variety of sources, but not in the replacement fashion many hope for–’renewables’ have been additive to the globe’s energy consumption.
But does having diversified energy sources feeding into a society’s power grid improve security of the system in terms of resilience?
As with most things there are pros and cons to such diversification. Let me focus on the cons as they tend to be left unsaid by ‘renewables’ cheerleaders.
First, adding these additional technologies increases the system’s complexity along with its fragility. Systems that become more complex also become more fragile due to introduced vulnerabilities that include the need for increased maintenance and management, increased reliance upon computer systems, increased ‘costs’, and increased integration of various subsystems that can lead to cascading failures when a problem occurs–the blackout of 2003 that impacted more than 55 million users in northeast North America is a prime example, where it was determined a software ‘bug’ failed to alert operators of a need to redistribute power load when lines in Ohio came into contact with nearby foliage; the resulting power surge spread and caused the shutdown of 508 generating units at 265 power plants, and a subsequent loss of power load of about 80% that took several days to rectify1.
Second, the issue of intermittency is significant to any discussion of grid resilience since it is vital that the power load on any electrical network must be balanced immediately with the supply being generated–damage to systems can occur (and lead to cascading failure) if load and supply are not matched precisely.
Wind and solar photovoltaic in particular are intermittent in their harvesting of energy. This intermittency requires a back-up system to provide a constant flow of energy as demanded by our various electrical energy-dependent complexities. The alternative, on-demand systems are mostly hydrocarbon-based, with a handful of massive energy-storage systems (usually battery), that can be called upon at a moment’s notice.
It should be noted that these back-up systems also carry with them further ecological destruction due to the extractive nature of their production. But such systems are integral to ‘renewables’; you cannot have one without the other. And the integration of these subsystems increase the complexity and fragility of the larger electrical power system as discussed above.
Adding complexity to a system, particularly one that is electronic in nature, introduces more and more vulnerabilities and a risk of cascading failures. So, rather than increasing security it would seem that security is decreased with the introduction of diversified energy sources that require complex interconnectivity and management.
And then there’s the level of national/state security and the whole conundrum of resource scarcity, competition over these, and the wars that can and often do result (see Part 1). Such competition over finite resources does the opposite of ensuring security and exposes entire nations to increased insecurity–with the political responses to such issues being to ramp up ‘investments’ in national militaries and associated armament stockpiles furthering resource scarcity due to their monumental ‘costs’ in terms of mineral/material needs (including many that are also necessary for ‘renewables’).
Once again, the reality seems to be the opposite of the supposed beneficial claim: security is not increased due to the pursuit of ‘renewables’ but is actually decreased.
In Part 3 I will discuss the final claim made by ‘renewables’ advocates: jobs are created through their production and thereby greater wealth is generated.
What is going to be my standard WARNING/ADVICE going forward and that I have reiterated in various ways before this:
“Only time will tell how this all unfolds but there’s nothing wrong with preparing for the worst by ‘collapsing now to avoid the rush’ and pursuing self-sufficiency. By this I mean removing as many dependencies on the Matrix as is possible and making do, locally. And if one can do this without negative impacts upon our fragile ecosystems or do so while creating more resilient ecosystems, all the better.
Building community (maybe even just household) resilience to as high a level as possible seems prudent given the uncertainties of an unpredictable future. There’s no guarantee it will ensure ‘recovery’ after a significant societal stressor/shock but it should increase the probability of it and that, perhaps, is all we can ‘hope’ for from its pursuit.
If you have arrived here and get something out of my writing, please consider ordering the trilogy of my ‘fictional’ novel series, Olduvai (PDF files; only $9.99 Canadian), via my website or the link below — the ‘profits’ of which help me to keep my internet presence alive and first book available in print (and is available via various online retailers).
Attempting a new payment system as I am contemplating shutting down my site in the future (given the ever-increasing costs to keep it running).
If you are interested in purchasing any of the 3 books individually or the trilogy, please try the link below indicating which book(s) you are purchasing.
Costs (Canadian dollars):
Book 1: $2.99
Book 2: $3.89
Book 3: $3.89
Trilogy: $9.99
Feel free to throw in a ‘tip’ on top of the base cost if you wish; perhaps by paying in U.S. dollars instead of Canadian. Every few cents/dollars helps…
If you do not hear from me within 48 hours or you are having trouble with the system, please email me: olduvaitrilogy@gmail.com.
You can also find a variety of resources, particularly my summary notes for a handful of texts, especially William Catton’s Overshoot and Joseph Tainter’s Collapse of Complex Societies: see here.
AND
Released September 30, 2024
It Bears Repeating: Best Of…Volume 2
A compilation of writers focused on the nexus of limits to growth, energy, and ecological overshoot.
With a Foreword by Erik Michaels and Afterword by Dr. Guy McPherson, authors include: Dr. Peter A Victor, George Tsakraklides, Charles Hugh Smith, Dr. Tony Povilitis, Jordan Perry, Matt Orsagh, Justin McAffee, Jack Lowe, The Honest Sorcerer, Fast Eddy, Will Falk, Dr. Ugo Bardi, and Steve Bull.
The document is not a guided narrative towards a singular or overarching message; except, perhaps, that we are in a predicament of our own making with a far more chaotic future ahead of us than most imagine–and most certainly than what mainstream media/politics would have us believe.
Click here to access the document as a PDF file, free to download.
I recall with precision the moment the power grid went down at our home. I was working on a table saw in our garage when it suddenly stopped. Having borrowed my brother-in-law’s saw (as mine had ‘died’ the day before while I was working on a home project), I feared I had just done something to cause the borrowed saw to cease operation. I checked the cord of the saw and then our house fuse box. For a few moments I believed that I had caused the outage for our home. It wasn’t for some time that it became apparent that there was something broader afoot…I still tell people the blackout was all my fault.
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXCV–‘Renewable’ Energy: See, Hear, and Speak No Evil, Part 1
A recent post on environmentalism as a meme states that ‘renewable’ energy supporters hold that these technologies solve some significant problems that humanity faces.
‘Renewable’ energy enthusiasts claim the following: wars are not created as a result of them; they fight pollution; and through their use security is improved, jobs are created, and wealth is generated.
Each of these beliefs about ‘renewables’ could be argued to hold some ‘truth’ and be construed as positive, depending entirely upon one’s perspective. I would argue, however, that this perspective is relatively narrow and ignores much of the complexity surrounding our energy production, use, and especially the negative consequences that arise from such production and use.
I believe that these perceptions about renewables and the amplification of them by their cheerleaders feed into the monster that is the mythos (and false hope) around modern complex society ‘sustainability’ and a pending energy ‘transition’.
Let me deconstruct each of these ideas on our ‘renewable energy transition’ and its associated industrial technologies over this and my next Contemplation.
Claim #1: Wars are not created as a result of them Implicit in this first view is that wars have and are arising from societal competition over the energy source that ‘renewables’ are seeking to ‘replace’: hydrocarbons. I cannot disagree whatsoever with this implication: wars have and are occuring as a result of attempts to gain control over hydrocarbon resources.
Although not typically admitted by governments and/or a region’s ruling elite, there is plenty of evidence to support the argument that resources in general are a significant contributing factor to kinetic wars; they rarely, if ever, arise due to the reasons typically promoted by nations as they seek to garner the support of their citizens for military engagements. Our elite wish the masses to buy into the belief that wars are fought almost exclusively over moral issues–to simplify: good versus evil. It is just coincidental that those evil ‘others’ tend to be in possession of lands that hold lots of natural resources, such as: water, timber, fishing grounds, arable farmland, precious metals and gemstones, rare-earth minerals, hydrocarbons, and/or uranium.
Brave AI-generated summary
It can be stated with fair certainty that for the past 50+ years many wars have been fought over our industrial societies’ master resource: hydrocarbons. This appears particularly obvious when one considers the geopolitical gamesmanship surrounding the Middle East over this time, including a number of hot wars and the petrodollar deal between the United States and Saudi Arabia struck in 1974. And it is probably not coincidental that the increase in such wars and machinations occurred not long after the U.S. Empire passed its peak in cheap, conventional crude oil in 1970 (just as predicted by petroleum geologist Marion King Hubbert in 1956).
For a current example, one need look no further than the decade-old U.S. invasion and occupation of hydrocarbon-rich regions of Syria. (Interesting, isn’t it, how the sovereignty and border integrity of some nation states is unimportant or simply ignored, while for others it’s worth ‘investing’–with probably a lot of money laundering–billions/trillions of dollars and risking many lives. Can you say double standard? Perhaps it’s because that ‘evil’ Syrian government happened to be controlling an area with ‘our’ oil.)
Regardless, it seems obvious that competition over hydrocarbon reserves results in war.
But the production and use of ‘renewables’ won’t result in wars? Let’s glance behind the curtain for a moment to unpack this initial claim.
First of all–and although die-hard techno-optimists/ecomodernists may deny/ignore/dispute the following–’renewables’ depend upon significant inputs of hydrocarbons for their production, distribution, maintenance, and reclamation/disposal. Despite extremely small-scale examples of power derived via ‘renewables’ to carry out these processes (but greatly amplified by ‘renewables’ cheerleaders), huge amounts of hydrocarbons are indispensable to the supposed energy ‘transition’. Almost all the important industrial processes required to produce ‘renewables’ need hydrocarbons to power them.
And if we are to attempt what some are calling for–a ‘war-footing’ investment in a massive rollout of ‘renewables’–then one hell of a lot of hydrocarbons are required; probably more than can be garnered from existing global reserves for the scale of such a feat. And remember scale is significantly important to any energy ‘transition’ that depends upon ‘renewables’ since the electricity generated by these technologies accounts for only a smallish amount of the current power needs of modern, industrial societies–to say little about growing energy demands due to the ongoing pursuit of the perpetual growth chalice and the globe’s increasing population.
A very significant portion of humanity’s primary energy needs is still met by way of hydrocarbons–more than 80%. To replace our current demands (ignore for the moment that these demands keep growing–just think about the energy needs being bandied about for Artificial Intelligence and data centres) would require gargantuan numbers of solar panels, and/or wind turbines, and/or nuclear power plants.
For example, to replace the electricity portion of our energy demands (remember that hydrocarbons are used for much more than just electricity production) via ‘renewables’ would require tens of millions of solar panels, and/or many millions of wind turbines to be produced, and/or thousands of nuclear power plants to be constructed.
So the initial glitch in the ‘wars are not created as a result of them’ claim is that if wars are created as a result of competition over hydrocarbon resources and hydrocarbon resources are necessary for the creation (and re-creation) of ‘renewables’, then wars are indeed created as a result of them–their production necessitates that the competition/wars over hydrocarbons continue. And such competition would need to ramp up very significantly given the scale of ‘renewables’ being clamoured for and the hydrocarbons that would be needed.
The second major glitch for this ‘no war’ claim is stumbled upon once one is aware that ‘renewables’ also require a number of other finite and rare-earth mineral resources for their production. And the concentrated deposits of these minerals do not occur in equitable distributions across the planet. Some of those evil ‘others’ happen to be sitting on the lands that hold the minerals we need for our ‘renewables’. Oops…talk about bad planning.
And then there’s the ‘warfare’ being waged upon the peoples of some of the mineral-rich regions (particularly nations with emerging or developing economies) who are stripped of rights, forcibly removed/relocated, required to work under less-than-ideal circumstances, increasingly exposed to pollutants/toxins, etc.. To say little about the ‘war’ waged against our ecosystems by the pursuit of ‘renewables’ (see below for more on this aspect).
Our species has been carrying out the brutal phenomenon of war for millennia prior to the use of hydrocarbons and I have little doubt that this is not going to halt, dissipate, or even be reduced through the adoption of ‘renewables’ as the notion implies. In fact, quite the opposite may be true if ruling elites across the globe believe that their wealth, control, and prestige are in jeopardy because somewhere and someone else has the resources required to ‘power’ via ‘renewables’ their lifestyles and fiefdoms (or at least line their pockets with the wealth being funnelled into the ‘electrify everything’ racket).
In fact, societal competition over regions of the planet that hold some of the mineral resources listed above as needed for ‘renewables’ started decades ago and can only get worse as we have already draw down a lot of the lowest-hanging fruit (i.e., best deposits) of these finite materials.
So, sorry, not sorry; if wars are fought over resources that are perceived as being necessary for a society’s energy needs, then the claim that wars are not fought as a result of ‘renewables’ is completely and utterly erroneous. To argue that wars are not created as a result of ‘renewables’ being produced and used completely ignores reality through some significantly darkly-shaded blinders.
Claim #2: They fight pollution This is perhaps the most obviously misinformed assertion made by ‘renewables’ promoters. While within a narrow, keyhole perspective–focussed upon the lack of carbon emissions produced once the technologies have been manufactured and distributed–this may be accurate, such a statement completely ignores the massive ecologically-destructive mining required for the extraction and refinement of the minerals that help to create these technologies. It also overlooks the significant hydrocarbon inputs and their contribution to pollution of our ecosystems.
Mining is amongst the most polluting and destructive endeavours that humans engage in. To ignore this required activity in the production of ‘renewables’ technologies and then maintain that ‘renewables’ do not pollute is completely outlandish (bullshit, actually). But this fantastical belief is held tightly by many (most?) who assert that ‘renewables’ are and the energy ‘transition’ will be ‘clean/green’. This doesn’t just ignore reality, it distorts it beyond belief.
Some attempt to rationalise such destructive activities suggesting they are a one-off and everything is ‘clean/green’ once the products are manufactured. But this too ignores a lot. It ignores two very important facts: ‘renewables’ have a limited lifespan and/or can malfunction needing replacement; and, ‘recycling’ does not and cannot reclaim all the materials in them to ‘recreate’ them without more mining, to say little about the tremendous energy costs of recycling and pollutants/toxins that arise from the process.
This rationalisation also ignores the already overloaded planetary sinks and their increasing inability to absorb more pollutants/toxins. And the pollution and toxins that would be released into our ecosystems by the scale of ‘renewables’ production some are calling for would be monumental. Absolutely monumental.
Also keep in mind that the estimates provided above for how many solar panels and/or wind turbines would be required to replace the hydrocarbon-produced electricity that our complex societies demand do not take into account the number of additional panels or turbines that would be required to make up for the intermittency of these technologies. The sun only shines for a limited number of hours per day, and/or can encounter very cloudy or snowy conditions for many locations, and sometimes the wind doesn’t blow.
Then there are the massive and unprecedented battery storage facilities that would be required to store harvested energy for use when the sun is not shining or the wind is not blowing. The negative impact upon our ecosystems from the production (that also require massive finite and rare-earth minerals via mining), use of, and reclamation/disposal of batteries would also be tremendously monumental.
Add on top of these ‘roadblocks’ to some ‘green/clean’ utopian future the infrastructure build-out that would be required to support all this ‘electrification of everything’ and the replacement of all those hydrocarbon-dependent technologies and the impact on our ecosystems is beyond comprehension.
Just as they do not reduce the drawdown of hydrocarbons and their use but add to them, ‘renewables’ do not ‘fight’ pollution–they exacerbate it, significantly. To maintain that ‘renewables’ fight pollution is probably even more outrageously egregious than holding that they don’t result in war.
I close Part 1 of this Contemplation with a section of Charles Hugh Smith’s latest book–The Mythology of Progress, Anti-Progress and a Mythology for the 21st Century–that highlights the lore surrounding ‘clean’ technology:
The Mythology of ‘Clean Technology’ “The disconnect between the inspirational, make-believe story of Progress and the real world reaches its most jarring extreme in the mythology of clean technology, which imagines a wondrous utopia of clean skies and clean air delivered by clean technology.
The mythology neatly ignores the polluted air, ravaged landscape and exploited workers of the developing world nations that are being torn apart for the minerals needed to build the supposedly clean technologies for the wealthy developed nations.
This is mythology at its most appalling, a bizarre myopia to the dreadful environmental destruction and human suffering caused by wealthy nations’ stripmining developed nations for the resources needed for hundreds of millions of batteries, copper for expanding the electrical grid and all the other ‘clean technologies’ that are only ‘clean’ because wealthy nations have offloaded all the poisoned air and water, environmental damage and poor health onto the developing nations–the penultimate expression of the asymmetry of the global power structure created by the mythology of Progress.
‘Clean technology’ is nothing more than the distorted, self-serving fantasy of the wealthy exploiting the powerless for their own pleasures and profits. The clean skies and electric bikes of Amsterdam and dozens of other developed-world capitals come not from clean technology but from the exploitation of the planet and the powerless in distant lands, far from the clean skies and profits of the powerful and wealthy.” (pp. 168-169)
See also this recent article in The Tyee by Andrew Nikiforuk on the ‘energy transition’ arguing that there is no energy ‘revolution’, only addition to our growing energy use.
What is going to be my standard WARNING/ADVICE going forward and that I have reiterated in various ways before this:
“Only time will tell how this all unfolds but there’s nothing wrong with preparing for the worst by ‘collapsing now to avoid the rush’ and pursuing self-sufficiency. By this I mean removing as many dependencies on the Matrix as is possible and making do, locally. And if one can do this without negative impacts upon our fragile ecosystems or do so while creating more resilient ecosystems, all the better.
Building community (maybe even just household) resilience to as high a level as possible seems prudent given the uncertainties of an unpredictable future. There’s no guarantee it will ensure ‘recovery’ after a significant societal stressor/shock but it should increase the probability of it and that, perhaps, is all we can ‘hope’ for from its pursuit.
If you have arrived here and get something out of my writing, please consider ordering the trilogy of my ‘fictional’ novel series, Olduvai (PDF files; only $9.99 Canadian), via my website or the link below — the ‘profits’ of which help me to keep my internet presence alive and first book available in print (and is available via various online retailers).
Attempting a new payment system as I am contemplating shutting down my site in the future (given the ever-increasing costs to keep it running).
If you are interested in purchasing any of the 3 books individually or the trilogy, please try the link below indicating which book(s) you are purchasing.
Costs (Canadian dollars):
Book 1: $2.99
Book 2: $3.89
Book 3: $3.89
Trilogy: $9.99
Feel free to throw in a ‘tip’ on top of the base cost if you wish; perhaps by paying in U.S. dollars instead of Canadian. Every few cents/dollars helps…
If you do not hear from me within 48 hours or you are having trouble with the system, please email me: olduvaitrilogy@gmail.com.
You can also find a variety of resources, particularly my summary notes for a handful of texts, especially William Catton’s Overshoot and Joseph Tainter’s Collapse of Complex Societies: see here.
AND
Released September 30, 2024
It Bears Repeating: Best Of…Volume 2
A compilation of writers focused on the nexus of limits to growth, energy, and ecological overshoot.
With a Foreword by Erik Michaels and Afterword by Dr. Guy McPherson, authors include: Dr. Peter A Victor, George Tsakraklides, Charles Hugh Smith, Dr. Tony Povilitis, Jordan Perry, Matt Orsagh, Justin McAffee, Jack Lowe, The Honest Sorcerer, Fast Eddy, Will Falk, Dr. Ugo Bardi, and Steve Bull.
The document is not a guided narrative towards a singular or overarching message; except, perhaps, that we are in a predicament of our own making with a far more chaotic future ahead of us than most imagine–and most certainly than what mainstream media/politics would have us believe.
Click here to access the document as a PDF file, free to download.
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXCII–Sorry, folks, but ‘renewables’ are NOT going to save humanity or the planet.
Tulum, Mexico. (1986) Photo by author.
In a truly stereotypical Canadian way, I begin with an apology to those who might disagree with or be affronted by what I am about to argue…
I’m sorry, but non-renewable, renewable energy-harvesting technologies (aka ‘renewables’) are NOT going to save humanity’s modern complex societies from impending ‘collapse’ or the planet’s fragile ecosystems from continuing breakdown.
I could back this up with the increasingly evidence-based assertion that we are so far into the predicament of ecological overshoot (and the vast array of negative consequences that will flow, or should I say are already flowing from this) that there is nothing we can do to avoid the impending ‘population collapse’ that accompanies a species when a finite, primary resource (in our case, hydrocarbons) can no longer support the growth of, or even sustain at its present size, the population–and for humans, this also includes the complexities that support our various societal institutions and modern living standards.
I could also add the burgeoning empirical observations and data that demonstrate the ecosystem destruction being wrought by our attempts to ‘power’ our energy-intensive complex societies and maintain much of our food production.
Yes, hydrocarbons have contributed to and caused the vast majority of this but the industrial processes necessary for ‘renewables’ are only adding to it and not improving things as most believe thanks to massive marketing propaganda–especially the ideas that they are ‘green/clean’ and can be an adequate substitute for hydrocarbons.
But I won’t say much about these things because, for the most part, you either accept what I am arguing or you don’t–evidence be damned. So, the following will either support your confirmation biases or it will challenge them. In fact, chances are that ecomodernists and technocornucopians that hold onto the idea that ‘renewables’ are some sort of technological saviour for our species haven’t even read this far; instead, they probably stopped after the second paragraph.
Regardless, I believe it’s past time for all of us to move beyond the initial grieving stages of denial, anger, and bargaining, and to accept that we are in a self-made predicament that has no ‘solution’ and recognise that it’s all over but the crying. Perhaps, as a result, we should do as Erik Michaels advises: Live Now! Or, as John Michael Greer has argued: Collapse now, and avoid the rush.
Of course, being who and what we are (along with increasing avenues for disseminating our beliefs and defending them), we find ourselves increasingly enmeshed in ‘narrative wars’ about what our issues are and how we might ‘solve’ or ‘mitigate’ them. One of those narrative battles we are caught up in concerns the role of non-renewable, renewable energy-harvesting technologies and the industrial products that they would power.
I offer a brief introduction and then comment I posted on a Facebook post in a group I help to administer regarding this conundrum.
The post in question is the sharing of a clip making the social media rounds for those engaged in our energy dilemma from the new television series Landman starring Billy Bob Thornton and as imdb.com states about the show, it is “A modern-day tale of fortune seeking in the world of West Texas oil rigs.”
Here is a link to the youtube video clip that was shared as well as a transcript of the dialogue in the clip. It gets right to the point of what some of the critics of ‘renewables’ have been arguing for the past number of years. And, of course, raises the hackles of those that support these technologies.
“Do you have any idea how much diesel they have to burn to mix that much concrete or make that steel, and haul this shit out here and put it together with a 450 foot crane? You wanna guess how much oil it takes to lubricate that thing or winterize it? In its 20-year lifespan it won’t offset the carbon footprint of making it.
And don’t even get me started on solar panels and the lithium in your Tesla battery. And never mind the fact that if the whole world decided to go electric tomorrow, we don’t have the transmission lines to get the electricity to the cities. It would take 30 years if we started tomorrow. And unfortunately for your grandkids, we have a 120-year petroleum-based infrastructure. Our whole lives depend on it.
Hell, it’s in everything… that road we came in on, the wheels on every car ever made, including yours, tennis rackets, lipstick, refrigerators, antihistamines, anything plastic, your cell phone case, artificial heart valves, any kind of clothing that’s not made with animal or plant fibers, soap, hand lotion, garbage bags, fishing boats, you name it… every fucking thing. And you know what the kicker is… we’re gonna run out before we find a replacement.
And believe me, if Exxon thought them fucking things were the future, they’d be putting them all over the goddamn place. Getting oil out of the ground is the most dangerous job in the world, we don’t do it because we like it, we do it because we’ve run out of options. And you’re out here trying to find something to blame for the danger besides your boss. There ain’t nobody to blame but the demand that we keep pumping it.”
As is typical when ‘renewables’ are criticised, a response to the post stating that all of the above was completely untrue and oil industry propaganda was made.
Now, I understand this ‘instinctual’ response to a firmly held belief. It’s so easy and natural to dismiss/deny the criticisms made about ‘renewables’ as simply oil industry propaganda–especially given the rising awareness that all monied interests engage in such marketing propaganda to sell their products: they highlight and repeat the supposed benefits of their product and/or the drawbacks of any competition (this holds true for ideas and narratives as well).
Only it doesn’t make much sense for this issue since the large hydrocarbon-extraction companies are heavily invested in ‘renewables’…but that’s a whole other kettle of fish that gets overlooked by many/most.
Anyways, humans tend to be loathe to hold conflicting thoughts, almost as much as anxiety-provoking ones. The internal stress due to the cognitive dissonance created ‘motivates’ us to reject ideas that challenge our beliefs/preconceived notions. It doesn’t matter how ‘true’ or reflective of ‘objective’ reality the challenging beliefs/notions are. We deny/ignore them. We then tend to double down on our own beliefs to reduce the stress/anxiety that arises and protect them, sometimes quite vociferously (oftentimes simply internally), against the ‘offending’ opinion/idea/argument.
But the assertions made in the show’s dialogue are not untrue. In fact, virtually every statement is true once one moves aside the opaque curtains that have been drawn around the ‘renewables’ industry by its marketers and supposedly well-meaning, environmentally-supportive advocates of them.
These items are not ‘green/clean’ but finite resource-dependent, industrial products requiring massive energy and material inputs, and creating significant ecosystem destruction and gargantuan waste streams (and again, sorry, but recycling doesn’t eliminate these).
In particular, these ‘renewables’ require significant quantities of hydrocarbons up and down their production chains, meaning the carbon footprint is huge, as is the ecosystem destruction beyond carbon emissions–especially if one considers the massive mining and material refinement necessary (and, no, you can’t electrify most of the equipment or processes required–to say little about the scale of such an undertaking that would be needed, sorry).
In addition, there do not exist the mineral resources to scale these ‘clean’ technologies up and build out the infrastructure to supply the electricity they would produce to the extent being suggested by their advocates (and yes, sorry, but attempting this would create massive ecological-systems destruction–massive).
The reality is that hydrocarbons, and especially oil, are the master resource for the vast array of complexities our modern world has developed over the past 125+ years. They are indeed in almost everything and help to ensure most food production, potable water procurement, and regional shelter needs–the truly fundamental things we need.
Without hydrocarbons our modern, industrialised world and its many complexities are fully and completely fubar. And given it is a finite resource that has encountered significant diminishing returns on our investments in its extraction, the writing is on the wall for what lies ahead…and it’s not pretty, not at all. Sorry.
This is in no way to suggest that we need to or should encourage ‘drill, baby, drill’ for more hydrocarbons. I am not a ‘fossil fuel shill’ as I have been repeatedly accused of when I criticise ‘renewables’.
What I believe we should be doing (but won’t except for some small pockets here and there) is using our knowledge about ecological overshoot and pre/historical episodes of societal collapse to inform our path going forward. For me that means encouraging purposeful ‘simplification’ so that we have some kind of say in our inevitable contraction–as minimal as this input may be.
We should not be (as we seem to be) doubling/tripling down on our standard problem-solving strategy of attempting greater complexity, especially via increased growth and technological innovation. I say this because this approach results in an exacerbation of our drawing down of finite resources and overloading of compensatory sinks that are contributing to an even more precipitous ‘collapse’ when it inevitably appears at our doorstep.
In addition, and perhaps more importantly, I would encourage everyone to be making one’s local community as self-sufficient/-reliant as possible.
Finally, sorry if this argument challenges your beliefs, but that is what the overwhelming evidence shows–not that I need to stress that here at the end of my thoughts given that if you’ve read this far, you probably agreed with most I’ve what I’ve had to say here and already know this.
I close with my comment on that post discussed above:
The ‘electrify everything’ via an ‘energy transition’ narrative is a ruse. It is designed to market industrial products and the idea that we can and will replace hydrocarbons with ‘clean/green’ energy then carry on with our business-as-usual trajectory…growing, expanding, improving, etc., etc..
It is making a shitload of money for those that already sit atop our wealth and power structures while exacerbating our finite resource drawdown and ecological systems destruction. It is not doing any of the beneficial things its marketers claim.
Just as we have been repeatedly lied into wars through massive propaganda, we are being led astray about the efficacy and ‘sustainability’ of ‘renewables’ so that a few can benefit from what is for all intents and purposes just another profiteering racket.
It also attempts to create an Overton Window where the necessary but neglected concept of degrowth with its economic contraction aspect is overlooked/dismissed/ignored.
The ‘renewables’ industry is NOT a friend of the planet nor any kind of saviour. It is a big industrial business selling products.
If you’ve made it to the end of this contemplation and have got something out of my writing, please consider ordering the trilogy of my ‘fictional’ novel series, Olduvai (PDF files; only $9.99 Canadian), via my website or the link below — the ‘profits’ of which help me to keep my internet presence alive and first book available in print (and is available via various online retailers).
Attempting a new payment system as I am contemplating shutting down my site in the future (given the ever-increasing costs to keep it running).
If you are interested in purchasing any of the 3 books individually or the trilogy, please try the link below indicating which book(s) you are purchasing.
Costs (Canadian dollars): Book 1: $2.99 Book 2: $3.89 Book 3: $3.89 Trilogy: $9.99
Feel free to throw in a ‘tip’ on top of the base cost if you wish; perhaps by paying in U.S. dollars instead of Canadian. Every few cents/dollars helps…
If you do not hear from me within 48 hours or you are having trouble with the system, please email me: olduvaitrilogy@gmail.com.
You can also find a variety of resources, particularly my summary notes for a handful of texts, especially Catton’s Overshoot and Tainter’s Collapse: see here.
Released September 30, 2024
It Bears Repeating: Best Of…Volume 2
A compilation of writers focused on the nexus of limits to growth, energy, and ecological overshoot.
With a Foreword by Erik Michaels and Afterword by Dr. Guy McPherson, authors include: Dr. Peter A Victor, George Tsakraklides, Charles Hugh Smith, Dr. Tony Povilitis, Jordan Perry, Matt Orsagh, Justin McAffee, Jack Lowe, The Honest Sorcerer, Fast Eddy, Will Falk, Dr. Ugo Bardi, and Steve Bull.
The document is not a guided narrative towards a singular or overarching message; except, perhaps, that we are in a predicament of our own making with a far more chaotic future ahead of us than most imagine–and most certainly than what mainstream media/politics would have us believe.
Click here to access the document as a PDF file, free to download.
I’ve been very, very slowly reading a paper by archaeologist Joseph Tainter (Problem Solving: Complexity, History, SustainabilityPopulation and Environment, Sep., 2000, Vol. 22, No. 1, pp. 3-41) that I will comment upon and summarise in a few weeks. In the meantime, I thought I would share a fresh experience.
A recent issue within a Facebook Group (Peak Oil: Twilight of the Oil Age) I am a member of has prompted me to throw together some thoughts, once again, regarding the push by many well-meaning individuals/groups to increase massively the production and distribution of non-renewable, renewable energy-harvesting technologies (aka ‘renewables’) and associated industrial products (e.g, electric vehicles, ‘renewables’-powered manufacturing).
The primary reason given this time is perhaps the most common used to rationalise/justify this push and move quickly towards a ‘clean/green’ energy transition: reduce significantly our extraction/use of hydrocarbons, thereby eliminating the greenhouse gases that are released in the process, and put a halt to rising global temperatures.
While all well and good, this calling for trying to reduce our species’ impact upon the planet, I continue to fear we are doing the exact opposite via a massive expansion of complex industrial products to provide electrical power to our ubiquitous energy-intensive technologies.
These technologies are contributing not only to our increased extraction and burning of hydrocarbons (they are, after all, a highly energy-intensive industrial product requiring massive amounts of hydrocarbons to produce, distribute, maintain, and dispose of/recycle), but to the overshoot of the various planetary boundaries that have been found to be significant to the stability and resilience of the Earth system (i.e., land system changes, novel entity distribution, climate change, biosphere integrity, freshwater change–see here).
Among a handful of arguments by ‘renewables’ advocates are some of the following:
their production is replacing/supplanting hydrocarbon extraction/production/use;
they have become less expensive than hydrocarbons;
they reduce greenhouse gases;
they are capable of replacing hydrocarbons.
Evidence, however, brings all of these assertions (or ‘hopes’) into question.
I’ve posted quite a number of Contemplations upon ‘renewables’ and attempted to demonstrate that they are not the ‘saviour’ for sustaining our society’s complexities as they are, for the most part, being marketed as.
See some of my more recent Contemplation on ‘renewables’:
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CLXXX-She Blinded Me With Science, and More On The ‘Clean’ Energy Debate…. June 2, 2024. BlogMediumSubstack
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CLXXVIII-Magic Permeates Our Thinking About ‘Solutions’. February 27, 2024. BlogMediumSubstack
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CLXXVI–Confessions Of A Fossil Fuel Shill. February 11, 2024. BlogMediumSubstack
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CLXXI–A ‘Solution’ to Our Predicaments: More Mass-Produced, Industrial Technologies. December 21, 2023.BlogMediumSubstack
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CLXX–To EV Or Not To EV? One Of Many Questions Regarding Our ‘Clean/Green’ Utopian Future, Part 1. December 18, 2023. BlogMediumSubstack Part 2. January 14, 2024. BlogMediumSubstack
Rather than repeat some of the arguments I have made previously, I thought it would be instructive to provide the recent thoughts of two others: Chris Smaje and Dr. Tom Murphy.
Below you will find summations of two recent posts by these two.
Basically, they both challenge the common/mainstream assertions about ‘renewables’ and the associated ‘clean/green’ energy transition. Two additional voices to consider…
-Chris has argued for some years that he believes “…the future is likely to devolve into low energy-input local societies based around widespread agrarianism…”
-the movement to this may occur in an unmanaged form (societal collapse from pursuing a business-as-usual path) or managed one (purposeful degrowth)
-critics have raised a third option: maintain current high-energy societies via rollout of ‘renewables’
-Chris admits that “A renewables-based transition to a lower-energy, more equitable, local and agrarian economy could be a wonderful thing.”
-his skepticism towards this third pathway, however, is primarily towards the notion that we can quickly transition to from high-carbon to low-carbon energy sources that can sustain our high-energy, growth-oriented global economy
-this perspective, labelled ecomodernism, focuses upon technological innovations and products to address environmental issues
Energy transition–the current state of play
-while the transition literature makes it appear that hydrocarbon use is quickly diminishing and ‘renewables’ is taking its place, the data shows this is not occurring
-the percentage of primary energy used has dipped slightly, but the quantity of hydrocarbon use has continued to increase without much if any of a pause
-looking at electricity generation, ‘renewable’ production has increased significantly from a very low point; but hydrocarbons still account for generating about 60% and in absolute terms has increased more than any other source
2024 Energy Institute Statistical Review of World Energy
-in other words, there is no ‘transition’ out of hydrocarbons despite the rapid growth of ‘renewables’; if there were, we’d be using less of them, not more
{NOTE: keep in mind, also, that the vast majority of ‘renewables’ are manufactured in China, where the primary energy source is coal and which has reached record extraction/use rates]
-despite these data, many continue to argue (based upon questionable assumptions, see next point) that hydrocarbon use will peak soon and then begin its inevitable decline, being replaced by ‘renewables’
-the International Energy Agency (IEA) suggests in a recent report (New Zero By 2050: A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector) that not only must electricity generation increase significantly, but that to reach Net Zero, hundreds of gas/coal plants (particularly in emerging and developing countries) need to be equipped with unproven technologies (carbon capture and storage), and electrical networks everywhere need to be expanded greatly
S-curves
-data, naturally, reflects the past and ‘renewables’ advocates often proffer their arguments with dependence upon impending exponential growth and technological breakthroughs
-appealling to future innovations creates a situation that can neither be proven nor unproven
-and Smaje admits ‘renewables’ are environmentally preferable [NOTE: I do not agree here mostly because there exist many aspects of ‘renewables’ production/distribution/maintenance/disposal/reclamation that are discounted in such a perspective; particularly the hydrocarbon inputs and ecological systems destructiveness of mining for needed components, both the ‘renewables’ and necessary storage products]
The real cost of renewables
-the electricity supply chain consists of several unbundled aspects (generation, transportation, buy/sell wholesalers, and consumers) and price decreases in one do not generally filter down to consumers
-while much has been made of the falling price of the material components of ‘renewables’, other costs have risen (e.g., land, integration of ‘renewables’-produced electricity, price of capital); the ‘levelised cost of energy’ (LCOE) metric often cited as proof of ‘renewables’ inexpensiveness, often excludes these other costs
-the intermittency of ‘renewables’ impacts the price received for electricity (since it varies depending upon supply and demand) making the LCOE low in theory but high in reality
-the IEA report cited above notes that to achieve Net Zero, electrical grids need to more than double in size and scope given the bottleneck it currently is for ‘renewable’-generated power; Chris notes that this will require massive fossil fuel-powered extraction
-adding the grid costs and additional facilities increases the actual cost of ‘renewables’ past that of hydrocarbons
-the financial institutions that provide the capital for ‘renewables’ projects have little interest given the low profitability and debt-servicing issues common in the sector
-while there is some efficiency in ‘renewables’ over hydrocarbons given the amount of energy lost to heat in the latter, hydrocarbons have a distinct advantage in also providing chemical feedstocks important in various other sectors
-in addition, electricity only supplies a fraction of industrial energy use (about 10-20%), with industries that cannot easily (or not at all) electrify
-as it stands, the globe is nowhere close to achieving Net Zero
-even if one accepts the argument that recycling and/or a circular economy can help to address these issues, there exist limits and our current trajectory is taking us nowhere near the ideal
Make Government Great Again?
-could the economic impediments be overcome if governments nationalised their electricity sectors?
-while China, in their quick adoption and rollout of ‘renewables’ suggests this may be possible, there remain difficult if not impossible realities to overcome [NOTE: it’s true that China has adopted a lot of ‘renewables’, and produces the vast majority; but China also is seeing record amounts of coal use in their power generation and use]
-regardless of who is in charge, there remains: industries that are difficult/impossible to electrify; intermittency of generation; high material costs; difficulty matching supply and demand
-nationalisation is no ‘easy’ feat and requires political, bureaucratic, and technical aspects; to say little about the lack of interest in such a move by many in government, industry, and the public–neoliberalism dominates almost everywhere
-instead, governments tend to offer incentives/subsidies; this approach, however, often results in boom/bust situations
-“..neoliberal globalization needs to end–but that’s not going to bring the Keynesian happy place back. There’s too much debt, and too little real growth.”
Batteries to the rescue?
-hydrocarbons are advantageous in that they can be turned on/off as needed; ‘renewables, however, require energy storage systems
-while there are constant cheers for potentially inexpensive and efficient systems to do this, none exist at the moment [current systems require hydrocarbon-based industrial and ecologically-destructive processes to produce] and the costs of decommissioning/reclaiming/disposing current systems must be considered–to say little about scaling such systems up
Minerals
-the mineral requirements for this ‘transition’ are critical and a number of analysts/researchers doubt the ability of our planet to provide what is being called for
-there exist limits/bottlenecks/diminishing returns for finite minerals/other resources (especially hydrocarbons), and concerns over the ecological impacts of the massive mining required
-here, many ‘renewables’ advocates point to the ecological destructiveness of hydrocarbons but “..if you set the bar as low as ‘not as bad as fossil fuels’ then a lot of things can jump over it.”
Energy cliffs, energy traps and economic slips
-while the concept of energy-return-on-energy-invested (EROEI; also known as net energy) is important to the global economic systems geared to growth, its real-life application to this issue is controversial
-despite the EROEI falling for hydrocarbons, it tends to remain higher than that for ‘renewables’
-energy cliff refers to the idea that as the EROEI of an energy source declines, the energy available to an economy declines more quickly; this is especially a problem for ‘renewables’ given their energy investment mostly occurs upfront creating less economic incentive to switch and resulting in a negative feedback (or energy trap)
-a transition may be more feasible for an economy not dependent upon growth, but we do not live in that world [and given the Ponzi-like structure of our economic systems it’s unlikely we could shift to such a system]
Geopolitics
-it appears that many countries (especially those not self-sufficient in hydrocarbons) are building out ‘renewables’ for energy security purposes, not for ‘decarbonisation’, given that world politics has become more volatile as the US’s hegemony wanes
-there is no fossil fuel-replacement occurring, however; what we are witnessing is an energy diversification and “…the pursuit of economic growth, energy security and geostrategic power is likely to drive increases–or at least retrenchment–in all forms of energy, including fossil fuels.”
-in fact, we may witness an increase in hydrocarbon use (especially coal), including the intensive-energy military sector–and particularly from the US is unlikely to “…give up its fossil-fuelled control of its oceanic trade empire without a fight…”
-domestically, governments opt for hydrocarbons over renewables to ensure grid stability during peak demand times and due to them being a less expensive option; this, however, can lead to grid failures when fuel shortages occur
-with global temperatures increasing, we can imagine a positive feedback loop where higher demand (air conditioning) leads to more hydrocarbon use, resulting in higher global temperatures and so on
-it’s also possible grids will be overwhelmed by demand and/or richer nations pushing up prices beyond the reach of poorer ones and impacting supply chains so that ‘renewables’ production is impacted negatively
-many/most poorer nations depend upon relatively cheaper hydrocarbons (especially coal); Africa, for example, produces 74% of its electricity from hydrocarbons and only 11% from ‘renewables’
-for any kind of global ‘transition’ to occur, it’s going to require a massive transfer of wealth from richer nations to poorer ones
On-grid
-‘renewables’ skeptics are often criticised as playing into the pursuits of Big Oil, but Chris counters that it is those who advocate for the transition that have interests that are more in line with Big Oil/Capital
-these interests are dominated by profit-making and many Big Oil companies have invested heavily in ‘renewables’ (deinvesting when profits are waning) [I would add that part of their support for ‘renewables’ is likely because the industrial processes required to produce/distribute/maintain/reclaim them are heavily dependent upon hydrocarbons]
Off-grid
-while techno-fix narratives sound serious, whether they actually offer ‘solutions’ to our meta-crisis times is questionable
-one often used approach is to market ‘renewables’ as beneficial to the ‘poor’ and ’emerging’ economies but what mostly occurs is a loss of autonomy, increased assimilation, disruption of traditional living, etc.
-ecomodern, techno-fix narratives brush aside these concerns
-Chris concludes his thoughts by stating that “I don’t think renewables transitions are a serious likelihood for most people worldwide, but I don’t expect to be taken seriously by those who think otherwise…the more we can get off-grid, use soft-energy paths and agroecology, and build local communities, the more we can avoid getting wrecked by the siren call of banoffees (business as nearly ordinary feasibly-fast (and) future-proofed energy-transition enthusiasts)…[and] off-grid doesn’t have to mean isolation or survivalism. There’s a world o localism to be won.”
-Tom presents “various reasons why renewable energy and recycling are not our way out of the predicament modernity has set out for us. It’s just a doubling-down that can’t really work anyway.”
A Past Enthusiast
-having lived an off-grid lifestyle and experimented with a number of off-grid configurations, Tom has an intimate relationship with the concept and products
-he originally believed ‘renewables’ were part of the answer to our issues of climate change and peak oil but has reached the conclusion that such narrow solutions tend to work only for narrowly-defined problems
Cost of Climate Change Dominance
-a narrow view of our ecological predicament where CO2 emissions can be eliminated via ‘renewables’ and all is well is attractive but overlooks the complexities
-the belief that climate change is the main issue and this can be corrected with technology denies the larger picture/complexities
-‘renewables’ fail to get us out of the mess we’ve created
Materials Demand
-‘renewable’ technologies require massive amounts of finite resources
-‘renewables’ require significantly more materials per unit of electrical energy delivered than that of hydrocarbon combustion; it is not a build-once-and-done game
-‘renewables’ are thus not actually ‘renewable’ as they depend upon finite materials in perpetuity
The Genius of Life
-Nature is remarkable in that it has figured out how to accomplish all it does with the small set of elements found upon our planet (e.g., 96% of human mass is composed of oxygen (65%), carbon (18%), hydrogen (10%), and nitrogen (3%)–all derived from air and water)
-natural recycling is essentially 100% efficient and can continue indefinitely
-modern human inventions, however, rely upon the wrong things (e.g., rare earth minerals), don’t last (some not even a human generation and rarely a lifetime), and leave often harmful waste streams (e.g., radioactive waste)
Recycling Limitations
-the common rebuttal to the significant material needs of ‘renewables’ is the idea of recycling or circular economy
-first, the massive initial build-out should not be discounted and you cannot recycle what’s not present
-and it’s worth considering that even the substantial speed of ‘renewables’ production over the past couple of decades has not been able to meet human energy needs with hydrocarbon-use increases being necessary
-the massive outlay required to even meet growing needs would result in significant ecological systems destructive
-second, even the most efficient recycling is imperfect with fantasy-level 90% recovery resulting in a 50% loss of material after just 7 cycles and 90% loss after 22–it is not indefinite
-wind turbines and solar panels last a couple of decades prior to requiring replacement, so at best recycling can push ‘renewables’ out for a handful of centuries (that’s if everything goes ‘just right’)
What Do We DO with Energy?
-at the heart of our predicament is what we do with energy
-much is used to cause ecological systems damage (e.g., clear forests, industrial agriculture, mine, manufacture products, etc.)
-regardless of the energy source or technology, we are destroying planet health
Intent Matters
-with technology in hand, we appear intent on harming Nature
-it matters not if the technology is hydrocarbon-based or ‘renewable-based’
-Tom suspects, however, that it won’t be long before “…the deteriorating web of life will create cascading failures that end up making humans victims, too, and pulling the power cord to the destructive machine.”
Obligatory Titanic Metaphor
-powering modernity with different technology does not change the outcome, just as lithium batteries instead of a coal-fired engine would not have altered the Titanic’s tragedy
Cease What, Exactly
-none of our destructive activities are likely to cease if we alter our energy source
-eliminating CO2 might be great but it doesn’t change our ecological predicament in the least if everything else remains the same
-“…doing so keeps our boot on the throat of the community of life so it can’t breathe. Doing so keeps the sixth mass extinction basically on track, uninterrupted—though perhaps not as quickly or warmly.”
If you’ve made it to the end of this contemplation and have got something out of my writing, please consider ordering the trilogy of my ‘fictional’ novel series, Olduvai (PDF files; only $9.99 Canadian), via my website or the link below — the ‘profits’ of which help me to keep my internet presence alive and first book available in print (and is available via various online retailers).
Attempting a new payment system as I am contemplating shutting down my site in the future (given the ever-increasing costs to keep it running).
If you are interested in purchasing any of the 3 books individually or the trilogy, please try the link below indicating which book(s) you are purchasing.
Feel free to throw in a ‘tip’ on top of the base cost if you wish; perhaps by paying in U.S. dollars instead of Canadian. Every few cents/dollars helps…
If you do not hear from me within 48 hours or you are having trouble with the system, please email me: olduvaitrilogy@gmail.com.
You can also find a variety of resources, particularly my summary notes for a handful of texts, especially Catton’s Overshoot and Tainter’s Collapse: see here.
It Bears Repeating: Best Of…Volume 1
A compilation of writers focused on the nexus of limits to growth, energy, and ecological overshoot.
With a Foreword and Afterword by Michael Dowd, authors include: Max Wilbert; Tim Watkins; Mike Stasse; Dr. Bill Rees; Dr. Tim Morgan; Rob Mielcarski; Dr. Simon Michaux; Erik Michaels; Just Collapse’s Tristan Sykes & Dr. Kate Booth; Kevin Hester; Alice Friedemann; David Casey; and, Steve Bull.
The document is not a guided narrative towards a singular or overarching message; except, perhaps, that we are in a predicament of our own making with a far more chaotic future ahead of us than most imagine–and most certainly than what mainstream media/politics would have us believe.
Click here to access the document as a PDF file, free to download.
Introducing The Bulletin, a collation of recent articles focusing upon those predicaments flowing from the ongoing collapse of our global, industrialised complex society.
Photo by CHUTTERSNAP / UnsplashLet me say this loud for the people in the back:
RENEWABLES ARE NOT A PANACEA FOR CLIMATE CHANGE
Sure, wind, solar or geothermal energy might reduce carbon intensity per unit of output. Indeed, an EV, for example, emits less carbon than an ICE vehicle.
Unfortunately, it’s more complicated. It always is.
💡
Let me stop right here for a second. I am no fossil fuels apologist. And I’m not trying to thwart the efforts to improve the planet. However, I am a realist and observer of human and political behavior. In this article, I describe what will likely happen, as opposed to what I wish would happen.
First, renewables must be evaluated from a birth-to-death perspective. This includes the manufacturing processes, inputs and raw materials extraction. Accounting for these, the tradeoff is less black-and-white and often highly influenced by the longevity of the renewable alternative.
Break-even estimates vary wildly, and are highly dependent on what you’re measuring – e.g. financial cost or carbon emissions. I think it’s fair to say any renewable used to replace fossil fuels must have a lifespan across decades to be a viable alternative.
Studies show conflicting information – potentially influenced by inherent biases – with one recent study suggesting the breakeven between EVs and ICE vehicles is beyond normal usage.
Other studies show carbon parity can occur much earlier, depending on the underlying energy source.
My point is there are hidden complexities beneath the renewables transition, which has been misused as a soundbite to appease the citizenry.
Looking longer-term, those hidden complexities worsen. Transitioning to alternative energy sources requires massive consumption of copper, nickel, lithium and other metals. Research by Simon Michaux, Associate Professor at Geological Survey of Finland, suggests at current production rates there simply won’t be enough raw materials to feed the transition.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Visualizing The Copper Investment Opportunity In One Chart
Copper is essential for clean energy applications such as solar panels, wind turbines, and electric vehicles (EVs), as well as for expanding electrical grids.
The surge in demand for the metal, driven by the growing adoption of these technologies, presents a unique investment opportunity for early investors in copper mining companies.
Copper is naturally abundant on Earth, but extracting the metal at the pace necessary for an electrified economy could be a challenge. The timeline for bringing a copper mine from discovery to production is lengthy, averaging over 16 years.
Top producers like Chile and Peru are facing strikes and protests, along with declining ore grades. Russia, ranked seventh in copper production, faces an expected decline in production due to the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the increasing adoption of carbon-free technology only highlights copper’s significance.
High Demand for Transport and Electricity Grid
The demand for copper in the transport sector is projected to increase by 11.1 times by 2050, from 2022. EVs, for example, can contain more than a mile of copper wiring.
Additionally, the demand for copper needed to expand the global electricity grid is projected to increase by 4.8 times by 2050, from 2022.
By 2030, the copper supply gap is projected to approach 10 million metric tons, with both copper prices and copper mining stocks potentially set to benefit.
As the world embraces clean technologies, the search for and expansion of copper mines will be essential. Early investors who gain exposure to copper miners may benefit from the rapidly increasing demand.
Sprott offers convenient exchange-traded alternatives for investors seeking exposure to copper miners.
The energy transition is essential but complex and challenging.
The pace of the transition and the balance between future and current energy security are key issues.
Economic and logistical barriers, as well as geopolitical and environmental concerns, need to be addressed for a successful transition.
The future of the global energy sector is caught up in a messy and misleading ideological debate. Depending on which politically informed echo chamber one inevitably finds themself confined to on social media, they are either told that the energy transition is a dangerous myth that will end in economic disaster and permanent rolling blackouts, or that clean energy is going to save the world overnight – as soon as conservatives get out of the way. As usual, the truth lies somewhere in between.
The energy transition is strictly necessary. But it’s going to be very, very hard. It’s damaging to deny that there will almost certainly be shocks, missteps, and setbacks as we undergo one of the most disruptive chapters in industrial history. In large part we’re relying on untested and in many cases as-yet unproven technologies to emerge in the nick of time.
There’s a temptation to sugar-coat the scale of the imperative to make the energy transition more palatable and less daunting. But there’s no denying it – it’s a very uncomfortable, and even frightening, petition to be in. And there will be winners and losers as economic priorities shift – the energy transition is good for humanity as a whole, but it certainly isn’t good for everyone. Acknowledging these difficult truths is essential to properly planning for and managing humanity’s greatest cooperative project.
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A short introductory contemplation to a multipart one on our energy future[1].
It’s difficult to make predictions, especially about the future. -various attributions (e.g., Niels Bohr, Yogi Berra, Mark Twain)
Energy[2]. It is the fundamental component necessary for all physical, chemical, and biological processes. So life…hell, the universe appears impossible without it[3].
While all forms of energy are ultimately important to human life, it is the bioenergetic and food energy aspects that are perhaps most salient[4]. For human complex societies that require energy inputs to ‘power’/support the organisational structures that help to create and sustain our varied and numerous complexities, it is the transformation of various energy sources into ‘usable’ forms that is vital[5].
As Vaclav Smil writes at the beginning of his 2017 text, Energy and Civilization: A History:
“Energy is the only universal currency: one of its many forms must be transformed to get anything done. Universal manifestations of these transformations range from the enormous rotations of galaxies to thermo- nuclear reactions in stars. On Earth they range from the terra-forming forces of plate tectonics that part ocean floors and raise new mountain ranges to the cumulative erosive impacts of tiny raindrops (as the Romans knew, gutta cavat lapidem non vi, sed saepe cadendo — A drop of water hollows a stone not by force but by continually dripping). Life on Earth — despite decades of attempts to catch a meaningful extraterrestrial signal, still the only life in the universe we know of — would be impossible without the photosynthetic conversion of solar energy into phytomass (plant biomass). Humans depend on this transformation for their survival, and on many more energy flows for their civilized existence. As Richard Adams (1982, 27) put it,
We can think thoughts wildly, but if we do not have the wherewithal to convert them into action, they will remain thoughts. … History acts in unpredictable ways. Events in history, however, necessarily take on a structure or organization that must accord with their energetic components.
The evolution of human societies has resulted in larger populations, a growing complexity of social and productive arrangements, and a higher quality of life for a growing number of people. From a fundamental biophysical perspective, both prehistoric human evolution and the course of history can be seen as the quest for controlling greater stores and flows of more concentrated and more versatile forms of energy and converting them, in more affordable ways at lower costs and with higher efficiencies, into heat, light, and motion.”
In this energy-transforming quest, fossil fuels have become the most critical and fundamental energy source to our modern, industrialised and exceedingly complex global society. As can be seen in the graph below, it is estimated that fossil fuel-based energy (i.e., coal, oil, and natural gas) is responsible for 80+% of our current energy needs that support our many varied complexities from transportation and food production to industrial production and communications.
Evidence suggests there is no current substitute — at density or scale — for the energy provided by fossil fuels[6]. We continue to be exposed to countless promises and potential technological ‘breakthroughs’ to replace them (especially when it comes to ‘clean/green’ energy sources, or should I say non-renewable, renewable energy-harvesting technologies), but the cold hard fact is that our dependence upon fossil fuels continues and is actually increasing, even when one zooms in on the past twenty years when ‘renewables’ have been pursued with ‘gusto’ as shown in the following graph (although not as much fervor as some would like and argue for — ignoring/rationalising away the ecological systems destruction that would accompany such a ‘war effort-like’ push).
All of the ‘renewables’ we have adopted have been additive to our fossil fuel dependency. They have not supplanted any — or at least minimally — fossil fuel extraction or use[7]. In fact, it could be argued that they have increased it due to their dependency upon fossil fuel-based industrial processes[8].
Add to this that there is convincing evidence that we have encountered significant diminishing returns in our extraction of fossil fuels[9]. This can be seen in our need to increase continually the energy and resource inputs towards accessing and extracting these fuels (e.g., deep sea drilling, hydraulic fracturing, bitumen refinement).
This necessity necessarily has an impact on the net energy that we have for supporting our complexities. We are increasingly having to put more and more energy/resources into fossil fuel extraction and refinement resulting in less and less energy/resources leftover to maintain our complex systems, let alone have any leftover to pursue growth as we have the past century or more[10].
So, we have a finite resource that is requiring greater energy/resource inputs to access and retrieve but that we depend significantly upon with no comparable replacement — to say little about the ecological systems destruction accompanying all of this (‘renewables’ and fossil fuels alike).
This is an obvious conundrum. Where do we go from here is what a number of people want to know…and I will explore this further in Part 2.
[1] Please note that I am not an ‘expert/academic/researcher/etc.’ in the topics discussed but an avid ‘student’ of them as I try to make sense of how and why events are unfolding the way they are. This is why I have included quite a number of references (to those who may be considered ‘experts) to my thoughts. Declaring this, I am also wary of the term ‘expert’ in light of criticisms such as those expressed by Philip Tetlock, Nicholas Nassim Taleb, and others: see this, this, this, this, and/or this. The views expressed, therefore, are part of my personal journey of understanding; they could be accurate but they might not be…in the end, I believe we all believe what we want to believe.
