Bishop Hill No more democracy
Jan 6, 2010 Climate Ecofascism is a word that is bandied about with gay abandon by many on the sceptic side, but it may well be a term that finds greater currency in the near future. Why do I say that? Read Hans von Storch and Nico Stehr on the impatience of climatologists with the democratic process and the admiration some of them express for authoritarian forms of government.
...the times are changing. Within the broad field of climatology and climate policy one is able to discern growing concerns about the virtues of democracy... it is an inconvenient democracy, which is identified as the culprit holding back action on climate change. As Mike Hulme has noted , it can be frustrating to learn that citizens have minds of their own.
Leading climate scientists insist that humanity is at a crossroads. A continuation of present economic and political trends leads to disaster if not collapse. To create a globally sustainable way of life, we immediately need in the words of German climate scientist Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, a "great transformation." What exactly is meant by the statement is vague. Part, if not the heart of this great transformation is in the eyes of some climate scientists as well as other scientists part of the great debate about climate change a new political regime and forms of governance: "We need an authoritarian form of government in order to implement the scientific consensus on greenhouse gas emissions" according to the Australian scholars David Shearman and Joseph Wayne Smith their book The Climate Change Challenge and the Failure of Democracy. The well-known climate researcher James Hansen adds resignedly and frustrated as well as vaguely, "the democratic process does not work". In The Vanishing Face of Gaia, James Lovelock emphasizes that we need to abandon democracy in order to meet the challenges of climate change head on. We are in a state of war. In order to pull the world out of its state of lethargy, the equivalent of a global warming "nothing but blood, toil, tears and sweat" speech is urgently needed.
Reader Comments (70)
Anon I agree with you, that there is a race against time. I think, however you make much of the negatives (a hybrid Fusion system is being experimented on, for instance, which could use nuclear waste as fuel. There is no reason then, to imagine that Nuclear waste will have to be stored for thousands of years. Even if this was so, There are other developments in progress, the Japanese space elevator for instance. That could reduce the cost of shipping material off planet) When the 'problem' is with us for thousands of years, I have confidence that there is time to solve it. When you try to make the point that we have only two years, before we run into serious problems, that would be Alarming. But is that actualy true? If Oil completely ran out, and no new fields were discovered, it can be manufactured, can it not? Coal is not set to run out in the near future. There are other alternatives for oil.
Some Physics (and slightly off topic but still):
Regarding Fusion: you take out the energy as neutrons shooting through the reactor walls, passing a layer of Lithium (iirc) and then into water that is heated to steam to drive generators. The main problem is that the entire fusion reactor will become radioactive in a few years due to neutron irradiation.
I can also imagine that the superconducting magnets would loose efficiency due to the same problem hence leading to a very short life time of said Fusion reactors (this goes for both Tokamak and mirror reactors).
Regarding Fission: Todays normal nuclear reactors use about 4% of the fuel, the rest is long lived waste. Breeders use approximatly 95-99% of the fuel and can theoretically burn all Actinides until what's left is lightly radioactive lead which would be harmless (from a radioactive POV) in less than 100 years.
Iirc all nuclear submarines use breeder reactors, France had one that was closed due to political reasons, Russia or Ukraine have a breeder that has been in operation since 1976 (also iirc). The Japanese Breeder scandal was due to contractor cheating and not to a fault with the technology.
Moving to fast breeders and actinide burners would probably make our energy future safe for the next 10k years.
fenbeagle: I think round 1 of the oil crunch already happened, it could be argued it was the catalyst of the credit crunch when oil prices peaked, which is a sign of things to come. One main issue for me is that the global industrialists know all about peak oil at least since Colin Campbell testified in the 70's, and know that it will not be profitable to power down and mitigate, so we will see global resource wars, as that is far more profitable scenario. If one analyses the credit crunch in this regard, one could say it was manufactured to create demand destruction whilst profiting the global banksters/industrialists who are now buying up assets for pennies, round 2 will be much worse, alot of people are already predicting the 2nd wave of depression this year!
None of the technological solutions will be online in time to mitigate a 6% decline (compound). These new technologies, any replacement technology, will require huge amounts of energy in the form of oil to manufacture and bring online, leaving much less net oil energy in the system. Trying to replace 700million internal combustion engines (global number) with electric vehicles when one tyre takes 9 barrels of oil to make might highlight the size of the issue. Any "biofuel" will be at the expense of food production - there are already food riots around the world as basic costs have at least doubled in one year alone, this situation can only get worse, our whole food supply depends on fossil fuels - from ammonia fertiliser to fuel for planting, pesticides, harvesting, shipping, transport and actual shopping for the food. Here is some very good global net energy analysis http://netenergy.theoildrum.com/node/5500
When looking for alternatives we would need a replacement for 31 billion barrels of oil per year, that's what we use now, any of that used to produce/manufacture alternatives takes from the sum we use now, much less net energy still means we will hit a crunch.
Peter S, indeed one of the main issues for fusion is replacement of the breeding blanket, this is really a good article covering fusion http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/2164
Nuclear is not the panacea IMO. The French rely heavily on it, yet we (UK) were exporting electricity to them in summer 08/09 because it was too warm (weather) for the cooling systems to operate. New modern plants will use huge amounts of oil to bring online, if we started now they might be ready in 15-20 years, by which time it will be far too late as net supplies will be much lower. If our net energy remains at todays levels for that manufacturing period, it will be at the expense of someone somewhere in the world starving, if it's not our own western populations.
I wish I had a better answer to the problem, after studying peak oil for 9 years, I'm scared. It is THE problem, hence why I say AGW is a political cover.
Cheers
Regarding Fusion: ..The main problem is that the entire fusion reactor will become radioactive in a few years due to neutron irradiation.
Thats not the main problem. The main problem is that its a pipe dream. Despite over 50 years of research no fusion reactor has ever produced any power and we are not even close.
Regarding Fission: Todays normal nuclear reactors use about 4% of the fuel, the rest is long lived waste. Breeders use approximatly 95-99% of the fuel and can theoretically burn all Actinides until what's left is lightly radioactive lead which would be harmless (from a radioactive POV) in less than 100 years. ... Moving to fast breeders and actinide burners would probably make our energy future safe for the next 10k years. .. Peter S
Again I think you have completely missed the problems for some fanciful theoretical benefit. The main problems with breeder reactors are:
1. Breeder reactors produce plutonium-239, which can produce nuclear bombs.
2 The Liquid Sodium Coolant used is highly corrosive and dangerous
3. Extracting the plutonium creates highly toxic, long-lived, nuclear waste
We needn't worry about not having enough power. Oil gas and coal can provide us with all the power we need, along with supplementary renewable energy. When they do start running out we can produce more nuclear power, solar power, etc which are too expensive at the moment to compete with coal, oil or gas. The market will decide when oil is actually running out. The reason why California, for example is running short of power is because they are artificially legislating the production of power by "green methods" and artificially legislating out the production of power by coal and oil. Markets not ideology are the things that work in the long run.
PS Under optimum conditions about 75% of the energy of natural uranium can be used in fast breeders and not 95-99% claimed by you.
http://www.ecofascism.com/article18.html Here is a very interesting history of eco-fascism via the UN. Quite a long intro on Kurt Waldheim.
Richard: Markets can solve some of the problems in some areas, but only if all things remain relatively equal to today. Yet I suspect that it's not going to unfold in such a simple way that will allow it. The roller coaster economic times are going to cause constant disequilibrium. Good luck finding stability other than at a much lower standard of living.
Markets allocate resources according to one, and only one, factor: wealth. Markets will continue to function by progressively squeezing out buyers starting at the bottom of the food chain and working their way up.It is about ever increasing scarcity and higher prices. Business as usual cannot continue, vastly higher prices will mean a much lower standard of living. Maybe you forgot the fuel price protests, imagine for a moment the level of protest we will see when not only fuel becomes vastly more expensive, but also food (and everything else).
What happens to global industrial economy when the resources are no longer there, i.e. not enough oil and gas to go around? like, in around 2 years, and that is if we don't increase global demand (which is actually increasing).
How can a growth based global economy function when it's primary energy resources are decreasing at 6% per year?
I find your argument paradoxical, when primary energy sources start running out do you really think we can magic up some nuclear, solar etc. without the primary energy sources, and raw materials required to manufacture them? We can print up as much money as markets require for stability, we cannot print up Oil.
@Richard
1. Breeder reactors produce plutonium-239, which can produce nuclear bombs.
2 The Liquid Sodium Coolant used is highly corrosive and dangerous
3. Extracting the plutonium creates highly toxic, long-lived, nuclear waste
I was not talking exclusivley about Uranium breeders, I was talking about Actinide Breeders. Uranium breeders fission plutonium-239.
1. Breeders can burn any actinide (with different power output ofc). Non Uranium breeders are in development in India since they have vast Thorium assets. Thorium breeders produce and fission U-233. Keeping the plutonium in metallic form and mixed with other actinides would reduce prolifieration (I think that's the word) problems.
2. Liquid Sodium is a problem, there are other alternatives but it's mainly an engineering problem.
3. With metallic fuel and fissioning of all Actinides you reduce alot of the long-lived waste to short-lived waste.
The 75% figure sounds like it's with an Uranium Breeder without fuel recycling. With a fast breeder "economy" the whole Nuclear fission process from ore-energy-waste has to be reshaped and this will take alot of time, energy, effort and money.
Regarding Fusion: What I mean is that if we in the forseeable future will develop functioning self sustained fusion, the commercialisation of them will face many problems with radioactivity.
Peter S I was not talking exclusivley about Uranium breeders, I was talking about Actinide Breeders. Uranium breeders fission plutonium-239... Breeders can burn any actinide (with different power output ofc). Non Uranium breeders are in development in India since they have vast Thorium assets. Thorium breeders produce and fission U-233. Keeping the plutonium in metallic form and mixed with other actinides would reduce prolifieration (I think that's the word) problems.
There are only 2 actinides found on Earth, in any appreciable quantities, uranium and thorium. Thorium breeders would produce U-233, which is also bomb material. India may have "vast" thorium assets but they are eclipsed by those of Australia and the US. The 75% is with thorium reactors.
Thorium reactors are potentially attractive but at the moment due to the high cost of fuel separation cannot compete with Uranium and conventional reactor designs, which in turn cannot compete with coal, oil or gas.
Regarding Fusion: What I mean is that if we in the forseeable future will develop functioning self sustained fusion, the commercialisation of them will face many problems with radioactivity. No point discussing a problem which doesnt exist.
Anon What happens to global industrial economy when the resources are no longer there, i.e. not enough oil and gas to go around? like, in around 2 years, and that is if we don't increase global demand (which is actually increasing).
Where the heck do you get your information from?
1. There is enough oil and gas to meet any increased demand upto 2030 at least. "The world’s remaining resources of natural gas are easily large enough to cover any conceivable rate of demand increase through to 2030 and well beyond" - This is from the International Energy Agency
2. Global Energy use has actually decreased in 2009 due to the recession.
How can a growth based global economy function when it's primary energy resources are decreasing at 6% per year?
Depends what you mean by "primary energy resources", if you take the new finds in oil and gas our "primary energy resources" are actually increasing. Not in actual terms but in discovered terms.
And our coal reserves are enough for a few centuries.
I find your argument paradoxical, when primary energy sources start running out do you really think we can magic up some nuclear, solar etc. without the primary energy sources, and raw materials required to manufacture them? We can print up as much money as markets require for stability, we cannot print up Oil.
The sure way to know when we have reached peak oil is when the prices of oil and gas go up to such a extent as to make Nuclear and other energy sources economic. We will have the resources if we produce energy the most economic way, and that the market decides. We will not have the resources if we tax conventional energy to discourage it and subsidise alternate energy, which doesnt pay for itself, which is what Europe and the US is doing. When you pay for something that doesnt pay for itself, you print money and tax the citizens. A sure way to go rapidly bankrupt.
Not only that, you run short of energy to run your farms, factories, cities, houses and vehicles and countries like China and India, who are not as daft as you, surge ahead, as they are doing.
The "peak X" idea that we will run out of X in about 20 years time has been around for some 40 years and has itself peaked. The only peak we've reached is "peak BS".
The stone age did not run out of stone and the bronze age did not run out of bronze. There are no examples from history of societies or civilisations running out of minerals and fizzling.
So far, nuclear seems to have been a "solution" looking for a problem.
The oil resource is far from running out, oil exploration is a very spasmodic affair, being cut back, and the bulk of the guys being sacked as soon as the prices start to fall. This results in masses of wasted data and loss of experienced personnel.
Yes, oil is finite, however, with a relatively small increase in price, wells that were approaching the end of their economic lives because they were pumping too slowly, become proffitable to persist with, masses of sub economic "Resources" become economic "Reserves".
Raise prices slightly higher still and both coal to oil and oilshale working and distillation become more attractive.
Coal is still a massive resource.
At School we were tought that in Africa, there was a little coal and not very good in South Africa, Zimbabwe and a little coal field in Nigeria - and that was it! full stop.
With the little work I did on coal in Southern Africa, I saw local entrepreneurs going in to extract pillars (25% of the resource) of anthracite that had been left behind by the multi-nationals, I drilled seams of coal with 10m of coal and 10m overburden - ripe for opencasting. I did work on coal prospects in Botswana, much of which is underlain by coal bearing strata, but it has hardly been looked at yet. There were guys drilling seams in Mozambique that were around 80m thick! again, virtually un explored. Strata of that age, with coal in it, continues through Tanzania into Kenya - almost completely unexplored.
What the hell underlies the rift valleys and much of the DRC and southern Sudan, no one really knows, we do know that oil has started to be found there.
It wouldn't suprise me if places like Mozambique and Kenya become the new places to outsource to, as China becomes too expensive and too prickly to deal with. I'm sure that the local politicians those places would love to get the bribes that will mean - someone with very deep pockets will have to let those politicians set up home in them before anything starts to happen though...
Just to illustrate the dangers of extrapolating lack of knowledge into policy:
Following WW2, The Australian Govt was worried that they were running out of iron ore, so they banned its export. The result was, no exploration was done - there was no point, as the only market was domestic.
The discovery of the banded iron formations in the Hammersly mountains was accidental, but development of the mines railway and deep ports required the export ban to be removed first!
I'm not sure what ranking Australia has as an Iron ore exporter, I'd be suprised if it wasn't in the top 3.
OK, back to topic.
Bureaucratic policy makers are blind to innovation, it is risky and they like safe decisions that get them promoted and no nasty questions to answer.
That is why the (richest) commies were driving 1940s style cars, 1930s technology tractors etc etc, once the factory was built, that is what it supplied. The peoples revolutionary widget factory had to be kept busy, so all tractors would be required to contain widgets, regardless that widgets became obsolete 30 years ago.
Private finance built most of the worlds turnpike roads, most of its railways, and ran them far more efficeintly than the state or semi state can, because if they didn't, they would go bust or be bought by someone who could do the job.
When I speak to farming friends now, they each spend about 2 days a week filling in forms and keeping records up to date for an army of pen pushers (none of whom capable of running a business) to find fault with. that is 2 days of useless time that previously would have been spent tending their business.
One friend eventually went into a "stewardship scheme" as the independant advice was, if he didn't he would be plagued by inspections and prosecutions until he went in or went to prison.
That, is state corporatism.
If I were to discuss Locke's statements about the duties of free people and about absolution for taking on those duties, Dear Bishop, would likely get a call from the boys in blue, and I'd likely be in hot water for "incitement".
Philip Luty, an individual whom I've yet to have communication of any sort with, argued that there was no point in gun control as it only affects the law abiding, crimminals can still get guns and they are easy to make anyway.
People didn't believe the easy to make bit, so he designed built and test fired a sub machinegun, made from standard pipe fittings and ordinary DIY tools. he wrote the whole thing up, published and duly spent five years in prison for his efforts. Nasty, but that is the law.
Once he got out, he didn't keep quiet, he had the "homegunsmith.com" website and continued to point out the idiocy of Britain's gun laws and how easy it is for anyone motivated to, to build their own with readily available materials and tools.
2009, Luty's website was taken down.
Luty had been arrested under anti freedom, sorry, "terrorism" legislation. Apparently the cops were not willing to tell anyone they had him, where they had him or why they had him.
His crime - some "terrorist suspects" were found with one of his books, therefore he had "aided and abbetted terrorists"
That my friends is political dis-appearence - British style, 2009.
We have come a long way from British prime Ministers trying to encourage "a rifle in every cottage in England"
Now, why are the British Home Office so frightened of British people having the means to defend themselves?
Here is an editorial looking at homicide rates for civillian concealed carry permit holders. The system is; if you are old enough, have no felony convictions, and do a short training course, a permit SHALL be issued.
http://www2.hernandotoday.com/content/2010/jan/08/ha-gun-control-advocates-play-fast-and-loose/
Hardly the "Wild west" is it?
Keith
Apologies:
H/T to Jeff at Alphecca.com for the newspaper editorial
Keith
Information sources:
http://www.peakoil.net/
http://www.theoildrum.com/
http://www.simmonsco-intl.com/
Cheers
This should make it a bit easier, here's a link to Matt Simmons' 36 slides from his presentation at the ASPO Peak Oil Conference. He shows data from all around the world and states that in his opinion, we probably hit Global Peak Gas soon after we hit Global Peak Oil back in 2005. (pdf link)
http://www.simmonsco-intl.com/files/ASPO%202009%20Final.pdf
Keith and Anon - It is possible, in fact plausible, that Peak Oil will happen. I do not agree with the pessimists that it will happen in the next couple of years or that it has already happened. And I do not agree with you Keith that it will not peak in the foreseeable future.
IEA, which I quoted and who are the worlds foremost authority on Oil and Gas, have conceded that Oil May peak by 2030, the most likely date being 2037 and Gas may peak after a few decades more. So it is wise to think of alternatives for energy production.
I think the way to go is more coal plants with better cleaner technology, followed by conventional Nuclear Power Plants, Hydroelectric projects and Geothermal - where available. Why do I think that? Coal Plants are the cheapest form of power and if left to the market would assume its rightful place in it. Nuclear Power has a long gestation period so planning is required ahead of time, when Oil gets so expensive as to make Nuclear attractive.
We should also invest more on research into Hydrogen technology, by shifting money to it from climate research. That will keep us going for the foreseeable future.
The US is very well placed with its coal reserves but only suffering because of its asinine policies.
Hi Richard,
The oil price explosions that we have seen are pointing the way towards profits to be made from alternative sources of fuel. I'm thinking particularly about South Africa's SASOL, coal to oil technologies, and efficeint ways of extracting and cracking the hydrocarbons from oil shales and tar sands.
Although the big oil companies are looking at these now, I suspect that some of the entrepreneurs who are currently active with exploration juniors, typically listed on the Vancouver stock exchange, will provide the investment vehicles for doing the risky development work. These are guys who currently raise share capital to spend on mineral exploration, say to drill for gold in Nevada, or look for diamond indicator minerals in the Canadian arctic. Both they and their investors are particularly skilled in this sort of very risky but potentially very high reward business. (take a look at "the Northern Miner" for an idea of their activities).
I really do not think the state sector has any roll in this, other than being obstructive and destructive.
Although there are always fools on the financial markets, who will loose money, that money pays part of the profits for those who forecast correctly, and ultimately money for our pension funds.
a perception of rising prices for fuel in the future, leads investors to pay for longer term storage of fuel.
For the investor it is motivated by proffit - buy when it is common, pay for storage, sell when it is scarce, and hopefully cover costs and make more than base interest rate on your money.
For us, it levels out price spikes, and ensures continuous availability. (so long as some lefty c#*t doesn't enact anti "price Gouging" rules that remove the incentive to invest in keeping supplies going and ending shortages sooner - Remember the USSR had fixed prices and empty shelves in the shops, the two were connected).
Coupled with the rising futures market, the investment in exploration companies increases, and investment in the companies that develop, refine and distribute the exploration finds.
Those multinationals; BP, Exxon, Shell, Total etc, will be keeping a close eye on the little entrepreneurial companies who are looking at replacement technologies, with a view to buying any who produce interesting processes.
"Exhaustion" of a resource rarely seems to happen, I can't really think of an example.
What I can think of, are lots of mines stood with mineral in them that no one wants because technology has moved on, that raw material has either been replaced, or has become completely obsolete.
I think that will be the case with oil.
I think there will be some price spikes, and yes, there will be continuing squabbles over the Middle East and Caucases, but some of the money lost by fools speculating on futures will find its way to entrepreneurs and researchers working on alternatives.
Coal and Oil shale are arguably very good feedstocks for the wider chemicals industry, and the nitrogenous compounds present in them are released as Ammonia on distillation, so we are not suddenly going to run out of nitrogen fertiliser. At one time the Ammonia liquor from gas and coke works was an embarrasing waste. I did some work on the plume of ammonia that had been dumped into the river gravels from one of Derby's coal gas works. That would be recovered and sold from a modern plant, the cyanides and sulphides would likewise be recovered.
One of my Great Grandfathers used to run his car on by-product Benzene from the coke works where he worked - the technology is nothing new, if liquid fuels had been the paying product, rather than metallurgical coke, presumably distillation could have been tailored to maximize their production. He was also offered a very tempting package to go to Japan after WWi, to set up coke works there - in an earlier iteration of tiger economies. Just as well Great Granny didn't want to go and talked him out of it...
In Summary, I think oil will gradually be replaced, I'm not going to rule out fusion or some new high tech power source appearing, but there are plenty of existing technologies waiting for a slight rise in price, and once they pick up, economies of scale will bring prices down again.
Keith
Almost forgot Geothermal.
For district heating in places like the UK and Ireland, it looks kind of marginal. 40 degrees C saline water at 1KM depth does not really sound exciting. for power generation using steam as a working fluid, 200 C was reckoned to be the lower limit for heat to be worth recovering. Near Dublin, that means drilling to around 3KM, to get something barely worth having.
For places like Iceland, geothermal is a real goer.
on some of the big submarine super volcanoes, it would be potentially very interesting.
Oilfield technology would require adapting, which is never straight forward, but the siesmic exploration techniques, drilling and aquifer development techniques are all there to be adapted. Heat exchanger (the hot water is likely to be far too mineralised to use through a turbine directly) and turbine technologies are all well proven.
Somewhere like Yellowstone would be a really interesting site. If the working fluid for the turbine was say methanol or one of the light hydrocarbons, full use could be made of the high delta T from the cold winters to condense it at below zero C
Can you imagine the squeals from the greens if Yellowstone was publicly touted as a "green" energy resource? Worth every penny to hear them.
@ Richard
"There are only 2 actinides found on Earth, in any appreciable quantities, uranium and thorium. Thorium breeders would produce U-233, which is also bomb material."
The long lived waste are mostly (again if I recall correctly) other actinides that have been produced in the reactor, these can also be transmuted and fissioned (just like the Th and U), hence the name "actinide reactor". You'd use the highly radioactive waste and in the end you would have waste with a very low amount of radioactivity. A breeder reactor is basically industrialised transmutation reactor, thus what you start with out of natural Actinides (Th, U) is not what you end up with. ;)
U-233 could be considered bomb material (being fissionable) but it's not that good for the purpose, hence why nations make bombs out of Plutonium-239 and not U-233.
I believe that one of the people involved in the Manhattan Project once said that fast neutron reactors are the only real way forward for nuclear power. I agree with that. Also oil is better used for making polymers than to burn it in my humble opinion.
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