There’s a lot to talk about here.

“But that does not help your case, because it only makes the task 10 times harder.”

It doesn’t change my case at all. I already knew how much energy was to be produced.

“IPCC projections are irrelevant in this case because they do not take into account Peak Oil at all”

They’re modelling demand, not supply, so peak oil isn’t relevant. If anything it would reduce emission increases even further.

“If we haven’t yet heard of it, how exactly do you expect it to be a factor in 2020????”

I don’t. I said 2050.

“This is why I call people insane – because it is nothing else to rely on blind faith that something will appear.”

History since the industrial revolution has been a story of an accelerating rate of invention. It is a pretty basic observation to see that things do appear, and that they are doing so for good reasons, not by accident or coincidence. So long as the same conditions apply, human invention will continue.

Why do you have such a strong faith that they won’t?

“The limitations of solar are clear – you need a large area.”

We’ve got plenty of large areas. The problem is that the material you have to cover that area with is currently too expensive.

“Why people ever take biotech seriously is a mystery to me. Actually it is not, I know why – because they have zero understanding of the thermodynamics involved.”

How do you know? Has it ever occurred to you to check? You could have simply asked, and I would have told you that I understood the thermodynamics, and then you wouldn’t have to make such a silly error.

Yes, of course it’s harvesting solar energy. And yes, the efficiency of photosynthesis is low. But that form of efficiency is the wrong thing to measure in determining whether it is viable. And you’re forgetting that one of the main points of invoking biotech is to consider engineering a massive increase in efficiency. What if plants could grow solar cells?

“First, there is no substitute for energy”

True. But there are substitutes for sources of energy.

“Since then we haven’t really added anything to the mix, nuclear didn’t scale up well and it’s depletable too (actually depleted with current techonolgy). 100 years. What makes you think that a technology that doesn’t exist yet will appear in the next 10 years and scale up fast enough??”

Nuclear scales up as easily as any other energy source. It hasn’t expanded partly because oil and gas are currently even easier, cheaper, and more plentiful, and partly because of the anti-nuclear campaigners combined with a lot of public ignorance.

How long did it take the French?

The 100 years figure is based on current stockpiles (built up during the cold war) and assuming thermal reactors. Thermal reactors extract only 2% of the energy extractable with a fast breeder. So we’ve got 5,000 years worth even without going digging for more, which of course we can do any time we want. Most calculations of the ultimate extractable energy are over 100,000 years at current rates of use, and I have seen even higher. We only use thermal reactors because they’re slightly cheaper, and because there is no shortage of fuel to make breeding necessary. The limiting factor in nuclear is the capital costs of the more complex engineering required, not fuel.

So since the technology already existed at an advanced prototype stage 15 years ago, I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to expect something to turn up over the next 40, should we turn our minds to it. Over the next 10 years, we will no doubt go for thermal reactors again.

“Are you aware of the chemical and physical properties of these elements that makes them so special.”

Well done for asking the question this time! Yes, I am.

“And we are not talking about rare earth only, we are talking about copper, aluminium, etc.”

What, like chromium, copper, nickel, tin, and tungsten? You recognise that list, yes?

“There is no substitute for phosphates by definition”

True enough. We will eventually need to recycle it, or extract it from the sea. Better technology in the future will make that easier.

“There no substitute for most other elements either. What makes you think they both exist and will be found on time?”

There is no substitute at the moment. But technology moves on.

There was once an argument made that we were running out of copper, as massive amounts were used to lay telegraph cables around the world. And no other metal has comparable conductivity, corrosion-resistance, and availability either. There is no substitute. – Until we invented fibre optics for communications, that is. Which are made from sand, which is in plentiful supply. Who could have predicted that?

I can just as easily ask the question, what makes you think they don’t and that they won’t? Explain.

“Once again, complete scientific ignorance (this time in the form of zero understanding of basic thermodynamics) precludes any possibility for productive conversation.”

If you didn’t spend half your time complaining about our “scientific ignorance”, you’d have more time for that conversation.

The original question was about the depletion of various elements. So I point out that the problem cannot be depletion, since the total quantity is conserved. So now you raise entropy as the problem, for all the world as if that was what you said in the first place.

But I already knew about it, and that it has an answer. Yes, it takes energy to concentrate them again. But we’ve got the energy, so all you’re really saying is that it will, at some point in the future, become a bit more expensive.

That’s rather different to a fundamental physical limit, violating the laws of thermodynamics.

“First, this is a claim made by people with zero understanding or expertise on the subject and every incentive to lie about it (Simon and Lomborg)”

Simon and Lomborg don’t make the claim. They simply point to all the official statistics, measurements, studies and experts who make the claim.

And much the same statement could be made of Environmentalist lobby groups whose power and wealth depends on public concern and contributions, if that’s the way you think.

“Reality check: the reason why the environment may look marginally better is that all the manufacturing has been moved to the Third world and developing countries.”

I don’t think so. A smaller proportion of our economies is in manufacturing, but a greater amount, since our economies are far bigger.

Population GDP %Manufacturing
Europe 0.5bn $15tr 20%
US 0.3bn $15tr 15%
China 1.3bn $5tr 30%

Europe and the US combined have half the population of China, and 6 times the economy. So per capita the West has 12 times the productivity, but devotes half as much of it to manufacturing. Hence the people of the West manufacture about 6 times as much as those of the developing world.

The bit that has moved overseas is the bit that can be done by an uneducated and therefore cheap workforce. They’re not very good at it. They’re less efficient, they have other priorities, and that’s why they do more environmental damage.

“At the rate we’re going, the current extinction event will rival the big really historical ones.”

The observed rate is about one species per year, unless you pay attention to dubious extrapolations from computer models.

“Apparently the Dust Bowl never happened”

Are you telling me the Dust Bowl is still there?

“Yes, and it takes thousands of years for this to happen”

Take a close look at the Nile delta.

“Ever heard of something called the Green Revolution AKA Using Soil to Turn Fossil Fuels and Fertilizers into Food?”

Ha! I’ve only been going on about it more or less continually for the past week or more. Where did you get the idea that I might not know about it?

“Problem 3 of the homework: how possible it is to use X+Y amount of fossil fuels and fertilizers, where Y is a positive quantity if it is not possible to use X amount of them?”

That’s a different question. I was answering your point about soil loss.

Since it is possible to use X amount of them, and more, this isn’t a problem.

May I say, this was another very good post on your part, with lots of meaty content. Much better than some of the earlier stuff. Well done!

But still, there is no reason to worry… wow… You have no idea how something that current trends do not at suggest is likely to happen can happen but you are absolutely certain it will…

The future is uncertain, we face a lot of challenges but we are making progress.

Can you elaborate on what exactly the progress consists of? We’re curious to know

I think your problem is that you’ve gotten so stuck on this paradigm of scarcity that you’ve given up all hope of finding workable solutions. I can’t restore that with words. You will just have see for yourself if you are still around in 20-30 years.

The paradigm of scarcity is what the natural world operates under. There wouldn’t be a billion of obese people (and an unknown number of obese pets) in the world otherwise. If it has been the dominant paradigm for 4 billion years, and has been selected for by evolution, there is every reason to think that 200 years of abundance entirely founded on 4 billion years of concentration of energy and materials will not change that.

I would be willing to bet that the price of oil will go down, not up within the next 20-40 years as it becomes obsolete and too dangerous (in terms of environmental damage) to use. There will probably still be much of it still in the ground after the transition period.

Giving up…

Uh, yes, I think I missed one zero. But that does not help your case, because it only makes the task 10 times harder. IPCC projections are irrelevant in this case because they do not take into account Peak Oil at all (the tragedy of focusing at the individual elements of the global crisis in isolation that I talk about so often).

Also, the numbers I listed were derived based on what the expected production numbers for oil will be in 2020. In 2020 there will be a shortfall of some 20-25 million barrels, possibly more, depending on demands (60-65 million actual production vs say 90 million demand). Right now oil is 30% of our total energy, so out of 130PWh that’s 60, 1/3 of which is 20. Similarly the number for 2050 comes from a ballpark estimate of the shortfall between, this time all fossil fuels and projected demand in a scenario without any major social turmoil.

I should think that in 2020 we will still be using mainly oil, gas, and coal, although probably a greater proportion of nuclear than today. By 2050, we may be starting to move to something else. There are several possibilities for which it would be feasible, such as fast breeders, but we can’t predict ahead of time which will be chosen, as it depends on future technological developments. Maybe it’ll be nanotech solar panels, maybe engineered biotech – maybe something we haven’t even heard of yet.

If we haven’t yet heard of it, how exactly do you expect it to be a factor in 2020???? This is why I call people insane – because it is nothing else to rely on blind faith that something will appear. The limitations of solar are clear – you need a large area. Why people ever take biotech seriously is a mystery to me. Actually it is not, I know why – because they have zero understanding of the thermodynamics involved. Biomass is doing the same thing as solar – harvesting solar energy. Only it’s doing it at 1/3 (in best cases in the tropics) to 1/20 the efficiency. In addition you deplete top soil and destroy ecosystems. Sheer madness.

It is like the Victorians calculating that at the rate civilisation was expanding, they were going to need a massive number of horses to power it (which they also showed they couldn’t possibly supply), and disposing of the ‘waste’ left on the streets was going to be a major difficulty. You might call it the “peak horse” problem.

We passed peak horse in the early part of the 20th century, and 30 years later there were virtually no horses still in use. A Victorian gentleman-scientist in 1880 might well have speculated about what the future would end up using – steam engines perhaps – but would have been confidently optimistic that we would think of something. Futurology is notoriously unreliable, but the explosive rate of general scientific development even in the 19th century was already clear.

Again, these are things that have been explained numerous times some people still aren’t willing to listen/aren’t able to understand. First, there is no substitute for energy (but try explaining that to economists). Second, here are the historical examples of technological substitution and expansion of energy supply:

1. Initially we had only human muscle power, which is really a very inefficient way of converting sunlight into work
2. The we discovered fire made possible using stored sunlight for some applications (but not for everything)
3. Then we domesticated animals like horses and oxen which expanded the pool of sunlight we could transform into work (we don’t eat grass) Still very inefficient though. We also invented agriculture which made possible the expansion of our numbers because, again, we could transform more sunlight into energy, this time to build human biomass.
4. The we found coal, which allowed us to use historical sunlight.
5. Later we added oil and gas. More ancient sunlight added to the mix. This was 100 years ago

Since then we haven’t really added anything to the mix, nuclear didn’t scale up well and it’s depletable too (actually depleted with current techonolgy). 100 years. What makes you think that a technology that doesn’t exist yet will appear in the next 10 years and scale up fast enough?? Wishful thinking of the worst kind. The tooth fairy does not exist, deal with it

As for the other items you mention, answers are readily to hand. Rare Earth metals will be replaced by substitutes – as metals have since iron replaced bronze.

Are you aware of the chemical and physical properties of these elements that makes them so special. And we are not talking about rare earth only, we are talking about copper, aluminium, etc. Also phosphates. There is no substitute for phosphates by definition – it is absolutely required for modern agriculture. There no substitute for most other elements
either. What makes you think they both exist and will be found on time? Explain to us.

You will recall that precisely this point was the subject of a certain famous bet Paul Ehrlich made. The total amount of any element on Earth is close to constant. One of the effects of gravity.

Once again, complete scientific ignorance (this time in the form of zero understanding of basic thermodynamics) precludes any possibility for productive conversation. Yes, there vast amounts of any element in the earth crust. At minuscule concentrations in rock. At very high entropy, which means that it will take a lot of negative entropy (i.e. energy) to concentrate them into usable form (google search for “mineralogical barrier” is highly advisable). Which has been conveniently done for us by natural processes but in limited quantities. Which we took and dissipated into the environment.

Ecosystems are self healing, and indeed mostly healthier today than they have been for the past half-dozen centuries.

Once again, something I and many other have explained before and nobody bothered to read and understand. Ecosystems have not gotten better at all. First, this is a claim made by people with zero understanding or expertise on the subject and every incentive to lie about it (Simon and Lomborg), which is easily believed by city slickers who rarely leave the confines of the human-made bubble world they live in to actually notice the real situation while in the same have absolutely no idea what is going on around the world because they are simply not interested as long as there is food on the table and entertainment on TV. Reality check: the reason why the environment may look marginally better is that all the manufacturing has been moved to the Third world and developing countries. Which is also the reason the economy of the USA is falling apart but this a digression. The point is that the environment as a whole has not gotten better because the total amount of damage has increased. That you don’t see it doesn’t mean it does not exist. In fact, however, you should be able to see because a lot of it is still visible, unless you count urban sprawl as “improvement” of the environment. Second, ecosystems are not always “self-healing”. Newfoundland cod fisheries collapsed in the early 90s. There has been no fishing there since then (because there was no fish). 20 years later there is no sign of recovery. The same thing has been observed in many other cases. The ecosystem shifted to another equilibrium state.

It is true that ecosystems are self-healing. In the very long run though. Species extinction has been constantly accelerating worldwide. At the rate we’re going, the current extinction event will rival the big really historical ones. Did ecosystem recover? They did, but it took hundreds of thousands to millions of years for this to happen.

Fish reproduce all by themselves, if you leave them alone. And if we switch from hunter-gatherer to using fish farms, we can do it even faster than nature can.

You can not use fish farms, because you’ will be importing nutrients (and food from somewhere else). It is not sustainable. There are such things and nutrient cycles and energy flows that you have to think about before you decide that fish farms are “solution”. Honestly, get a basic education in ecology before you come to argue.

And we haven’t lost any top soil, except locally in certain areas.

Seriously? Sorry to say it but you’re an absolute idiot. Actually I am not sorry because you really are. Apparently the Dust Bowl never happened, Madagascar is a fertile paradise, deserts are not advancing, irrigation does not increase soil salinity, we use millions of tons of fertilizers just because we have to support jobs in the chemical industry and all the scientists who are seriously concerned about the problem have no clue what they’re talking about. FYI some 40% of arable land worldwide is completely or partially degraded and every year another

As I noted earlier, top soil is manufactured by plants growing in it, and is cycled naturally by erosion, rivers, floods, etc.

Yes, and it takes thousands of years for this to happen

It would be pretty hard to have so vastly increased the amount of food we can produce if this was not so.

Ever heard of something called the Green Revolution AKA Using Soil to Turn Fossil Fuels and Fertilizers into Food? If you haven’t then Problem 1 in your homework is to read a little bit about it, and Problem 2 is ponder over what happens if you remove the fossil fuel plus fertilizer inputs.

And for that matter, we can even grow crops without soil – at the cost of some extra effort.

Yes, we can. With even more energy and fertilizer input. Problem 3 of the homework: how possible it is to use X+Y amount of fossil fuels and fertilizers, where Y is a positive quantity if it is not possible to use X amount of them?

How should I know? I don’t a crystal ball to predict the future with. I do know that there are a lot projects underway and on the drawing boards of several start up companies here in the US to address the issues you mentioned.

The future is uncertain, we face a lot of challenges but we are making progress. I think your problem is that you’ve gotten so stuck on this paradigm of scarcity that you’ve given up all hope of finding workable solutions. I can’t restore that with words. You will just have see for yourself if you are still around in 20-30 years.

I would be willing to bet that the price of oil will go down, not up within the next 20-40 years as it becomes obsolete and too dangerous (in terms of environmental damage) to use. There will probably still be much of it still in the ground after the transition period.

I think you may have got your units (and magnitudes?) mixed up.

Current global energy rate of use I think is 15 TW. The amount of energy used in a year is roughly 500 EJ, about 130 PWh per year.

The SRES A1F1 scenario used by the IPCC to represent a future of rapid development with continued use of fossil fuels projects emissions by 2050 increasing by a factor of 3-4. Not a factor of 10-15 as you seem to have suggested.

I should think that in 2020 we will still be using mainly oil, gas, and coal, although probably a greater proportion of nuclear than today. By 2050, we may be starting to move to something else. There are several possibilities for which it would be feasible, such as fast breeders, but we can’t predict ahead of time which will be chosen, as it depends on future technological developments. Maybe it’ll be nanotech solar panels, maybe engineered biotech – maybe something we haven’t even heard of yet.

It is like the Victorians calculating that at the rate civilisation was expanding, they were going to need a massive number of horses to power it (which they also showed they couldn’t possibly supply), and disposing of the ‘waste’ left on the streets was going to be a major difficulty. You might call it the “peak horse” problem.

We passed peak horse in the early part of the 20th century, and 30 years later there were virtually no horses still in use. A Victorian gentleman-scientist in 1880 might well have speculated about what the future would end up using – steam engines perhaps – but would have been confidently optimistic that we would think of something. Futurology is notoriously unreliable, but the explosive rate of general scientific development even in the 19th century was already clear.

As for the other items you mention, answers are readily to hand. Rare Earth metals will be replaced by substitutes – as metals have since iron replaced bronze. You will recall that precisely this point was the subject of a certain famous bet Paul Ehrlich made. The total amount of any element on Earth is close to constant. One of the effects of gravity.

Ecosystems are self healing, and indeed mostly healthier today than they have been for the past half-dozen centuries. Fish reproduce all by themselves, if you leave them alone. And if we switch from hunter-gatherer to using fish farms, we can do it even faster than nature can. And we haven’t lost any top soil, except locally in certain areas. As I noted earlier, top soil is manufactured by plants growing in it, and is cycled naturally by erosion, rivers, floods, etc. It would be pretty hard to have so vastly increased the amount of food we can produce if this was not so. And for that matter, we can even grow crops without soil – at the cost of some extra effort.

But I think all of those are good and sensible questions you’re asking. I doubt you’ll consider my answers helpful, but I can always hope.

Can you please be more specific and explain to us what exactly the forward progress we’re making consists of and how it is going to provide ~2PWh of energy by 2020 and 20-30 PWh in 2050? Please explain.

While we’re on the subject, would you also explain how the forward progress we’re making will make rare earth elements and even the not so rare metals we’re completely dependent on and we are rapidly depleting, become abundant? Would you also explain how we’re going to repair the ecosystems, return fish back to the ocean, have the top soil we’ve lost back, etc.?