That’s the title of my piece in the Fin yesterday, reproduced over the fold. Feel free to discuss, but please take anything related to nuclear power straight to the sandpit, and even there, try to avoid repeating the same old points.
One of the more intriguing sidelights to debates over climate change and energy policy is the idea of Peak Oil. On the face of it, the Peak Oil hypothesis is a straightforward claim. The amount of oil generated by any given field follows a bell-shaped curve, first rising as the field is developed and then declining as the oil becomes harder and harder to pump.
The curve is referred to as the Hubbert curve, after US geologist M King Hubbert[1] who used it to predict the peak of US oil output around 1970. Applying Hubbert’s analysis to the world as a whole yielded the prediction that the global peak in oil production should be happening around now.
On the evidence available, the predictions of the Peak Oil hypothesis don’t look too bad. Despite near-record prices for oil, the output of crude oil has remained broadly constant for the last seven years. Such an apparent plateau is exactly what the Hubbert curve would predict, bearing in mind that commercial production began 150 years ago.
The economic effects of the depletion of oil resources will be mixed. Clearly, since underlying demand is rising with population and income growth, the price of oil must rise to clear the market. That’s good for suppliers of oil, as well as competing energy sources, and bad for consumers. Overall because of the unpriced negative effects of burning oil, the most important of which is the release of carbon dioxide, a reduction in oil output is beneficial for the planet as a whole.
This is all straightforward: economists have been analysing markets for exhaustible resources ever since the pioneering work of Harold Hotelling in the 1930s. The observed outcomes fit Hotelling’s model pretty well – rising real prices are needed to sustain an optimal extraction path.
But discussions around Peak Oil are dominated, not by economic analysis, but by a range of more or less apocalyptic scenarios. In these scenarios, an end to ever-growing output of oil means an end to industrial civilisation as we know it.
There are a number of misunderstandings here. A lot of discussion seems to assume that Peak Oil means an immediate end to oil production, when the Hubbert curve implies a gradual decline over 100 years or more.
More importantly, though, the Peak Oil story is about production. But, if oil is essential to modern civilisation, what matters is not production but consumption.
The Oil Peak that actually mattered was the peak in consumption per person, which took place back in 1980 at 5.3 barrels per person per year. Since then, consumption per person has dropped to 4.4 barrels per person per year. Given the growth of demand in Asia, consumption per person in the countries that were already rich in 1980 has fallen much faster. Meanwhile living standards have risen substantially[2], unconstrained by declining consumption per person of oil, and of energy more generally.
Oddly enough, most people who worry about Peak Oil are also environmentalists concerned about climate change. From this viewpoint, which I share, Peak Oil looks like good news rather than bad. But the optimistic interpretation is trumped by the spurious idea that there is a 1-1 relationship between oil (or energy) and economic activity. This fallacious idea is held both by Peak Oil fans and by the rightwing doomsayers who suggest that reducing emissions of CO2 will destroy the economy.
A particularly interesting subgroup of Peak Oil fans are those who see nuclear energy as the only possible solution, a view that was mooted by Hubbert himself. This part of the discussion is dominated by a belief in something called ‘baseload power demand’ which must be met at all times if disaster is to be avoided. The idea that demand responds to prices and market structures seems entirely foreign to this discussion.
One of the few upsides of the disastrous Fukushima meltdown is that it has allowed a perfect test of this theory. Following the meltdown, Japan has taken 38 of its 54 reactors offline. It’s now midsummer there, and the blackouts predicted by the scaremongers have not occurred. Instead, the reduction in supply has been handled by (mostly voluntary) efficiency measures.
Energy is important, but it is no more ‘essential’ or ‘special’ than many other goods and services in a modern economy. If the supply is reduced, the market will respond to bring demand into line, especially if this response is facilitated by sensible government policy. No single source or technology, such as oil, nuclear or solar is essential, although none should be dismissed out of hand.
fn1. A fascinating guy, by the way. He was associated with the Technocracy movement, which briefly in the 1930s looked like a serious contender as an alternative form of government for the US. Wikipedia has lots on this.
fn2. In the rich world as a whole, and in most of Asia. Those in the bottom half of the US income distribution and in some very poor countries haven’t done so well, but that has nothing to do with oil.
John Quiggin 
@BilB
I strongly sustect you’re right. Hardly anyone IMO, accounts vehicle depeciation in their running costs. In practice, if not in theory, it’s an invisible, odourless, tasteless, colourless and weightless cost essential to life which can’t be measured. 😉 (TM: Abbott inc.)
That doesn’t mean people should ignore it of course. We can’t legislate that they do, and so we have a serious cultural obstacle to people acting rationally in their own interests. The only real way to fix the problem is to similarly ignore sunk cost losses on rolling stock upgrades when assessing feasibility of public transport, and to fund the cost of the system out of the marginal running cost of competing ad hoc transport — hence the idea of road usage charges rather than fuel excises, sales taxes and fixed costs like registration and CTP.
If we shift the burdens away from sunk cost to marginal cost, then people will start to drive fewer miles as sole occupant in their vehicles.
I thought I had already deleted the comment to which this refers, but I’ve done so now, and am deleting this response since its now irrelevant. Could I remind everyone to read the comments policy from time to time, and particularly if you are engaged in a dispute with other commenters – JQ
The true average cost of owning a car is close to what rog says.
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/pf/08/cost-car-ownership.asp#axzz1UJ1WtR6j
This link gives US data.
When you add on social and public costs (roads, accidents, mortalities etc etc) plus negative externalities and opportunity costs, the cost per car is high indeed, perhaps $20,000 per car per year to the nation.
The automobile culture is like a cancer on our society.
“The Oil Peak that actually mattered was the peak in consumption per person, which took place back in 1980 at 5.3 barrels per person per year. Since then, consumption per person has dropped to 4.4 barrels per person per year.”
But hasn’t the world population grown by 37% during this time frame?
Regarding 44 JQ
I guess what I should have done in the face of an unwarranted attack on the professionalism of The Oil Drum, is counter with a vote of confidence for this site.
The Oil Drum in my experience offers an unparalleled degree of professional comment on a broad spectrum of matters relating to energy, economics, politics, and life in an energy challenged world. I personally benefit greatly from the broad exposure to information that I would otherwise never encounter. The topics are presented faithfully and sincerely with full scope for those with other pespectives to challenge and comment. The technicla competence of the contributors is of the highest standard. in my opinion.
The problem with public transport, Fran, is that it is not overall time or cost efficient. It can be efficient but usually only in a narrow field of useage, usually the daily trip to work for those who work regular hours and live near to a trunk line which passes or terminates near their destination. For everyone else or most other situations PT is a huge failure.
A friend, who has a farm management degree (I say this to indicate that he is constantly testing the efficiency of how things work around him) took his 4 kids on a public transport outing to Manly from the Blue Mountains. This trip was going to take all day no matter how it was done but the cost was over $150 for transport and some food along the way. By personal transport this cost would have been half and several hours at least shorter.
In my one (so far) trip to China, every trip to and from the factory was shared with others. Even each trip in the car (saab) of the business owner. They are very good at trip sharing, it cost little extra time, and was socially interesting. The cell phone makes this work very well. Perhaps there is an app there to be done by some clever programmer. The Car Pool app.
I’ll second BilB’s vote of confidence in The Oil Drum. A quick search back reveals physics professors, engineers, a PhD in economics, a PhD in chemistry, a professor of energy economics and associate professor of computer science and systems.
There is also a robust comments section from which you can often learn even more than the article.
An important point to make about peak oil, which I gleaned from Question Everything, is that if the extraction rate of oil is at its peak now, then the total net energy available to the economy to do work peaked 20 or 30 years before. The EROEI of oil has declined steadily, if not exponentially, from around 100:1 to 10:1 Saudi and 3:1 US.
@Salient Green
In which case, the peak in net oil energy per person was even further in the past, strengthening the conclusions of the original post
@Christopher Dobbie
Yes, that’s the point. Each of those people is making do with less oil, and, in most countries, doing a lot better than they were back in 1980 when everyone was consuming more oil. Conclusion: oil consumption is not a critical determinant of welfare
Substitutes due to discovery and increasing knowledge and changes in relative prices, and productivity improvements and changes in relative pricing leading to more efficient use.
JQ, the extraction rate now is more or less steady but when it starts to decline the EROEI will be a multiplier for a faster decline in net energy. That could make things more difficult. Hopefully the extraction rate will not drop too quickly.
For those wanting to see Sydney, they are doing Sunday family deals $2.50 a head unlimited travel bus train light rail and ferry.
Neither good nor bad. The increasing price for oil doesn’t just fuel interest in renewable energy, it can also provide an impetus to go back to coal.
Coals a lot less clean than oil, and there’s still enough of it in the ground to well and truly screw the climate.
The real and very considerable problem is that we need to transition from the current situation (87% of world power provided by non-renewables) to a situation where 100% of power is provided by renewables. The timeframe for doing this (to hopefully avoid catastrophic climate change and to stay ahead of economic contraction by energy scarcity) is about 40 years. That is by about 2050.
In that time span, at current population and economic growth rates (assuming ongoing growth as Prof Quiggin does) the world will move from needing about 475 exajoules of energy per annum to needing to needing about double that or 950 exajoules. The IEA in 2008 predicted a 50% increase in world energy needs by 2030. A conservative estimate of another (non-compounding) 50% would equal 100% by 2050.
Given that about 4/5 of our current energy production must be retired by then (in fact it is more but lets leave it at that) this means we must find and collect (380 + 475) = 855 exajoules of new renewable power by 2050.
Intruigingly, this mob;
http://www.fastcompany.com/1751784/for-12-trillion-everything-can-go-right
reckon that we can build 400 exajoules renwable capacity by 2050 for $12 trillion. I have no idea how they costed this. However, on a quick read of the article they do not seem to factor in the imperatives to retire existing non-renewables. Thus we need more like 800 exajoules. Let’s assume another 55 exajoules saved by efficiencies. I had already allowed for some efficiencies above but lets allow for some more. 800 exajoules on these costings would cost $24 trillion of todays dollars.
Perhaps, JQ could comment on the $24 trillion price tag and its feasibility. I suspect the price as such is feasible. I just wonder if all the raw materials are there to make the extensive infrastructure. Remember that solar and wind energy are large by very diffuse sources, requiring very extensive collection infrastructure. Plus we need to fund the changover in energy terms by using a good part of the remaining non-renewable endowment to build the renewables.
@Ikonoclast
This is why many think it can’t be done without fission energy based on E = mc^2. It’s hard to see a silicon panel factory being exclusively powered if not expanding by the same panels. The Chinese who must get the credit for recent PV price drops of course use all the coal they want. It’s a double whoopee because their customers in the West get subsidies.
Current world energy use is both unsustainable and inequitable. To stay at our current total continuous energy use of 15 Tw a global frugal middle class of 8 bn would need to use less than 2 kw each. The West’s middle classes use about 5 kw now. That’s a future with no coal, gas or nukes. Goodbye cars, plasma TVs, high protein diets, plane travel and air conditioning. A fulfilling career will revolve around growing spuds.
If somebody can explain how it can be done I’m all ears.
I’ll just add my weight to the “cutting into the fat” theory. There are many oil consuming activities which could be quite easily replaced with substitutes for little cost. There are far fewer (but almost essential) activities which have only very poor substitutes. So oil consumption per capita could have declined from a peak 30 years ago without ill effects, but at some time in the future a lot of problems will emerge.
@Hermit
Solar panels have sufficient EROEI to reproduce themselves (and more) and you know it. You have brought this up before in earlier posts and were shown to be wrong.
I still believe that the total consumption of oil and other hydrocarbons remains the central problem. It may be true that average consumption has dipped without appreciable consequences, so far, but for how much longer? As population increases, as demand increases from wider use of automobiles and greater air travel and marine transport of goods, I think we will reach a point where efficiency increases are swamped by demand exceeding falling production. That must lead to higher prices, this demand destruction starting with the poor, increased agricultural input costs, thus increased food prices and increased greenhouse pollution as currently unprofitable enterprises like oil sands, coal to liquids, various projects with shale and keragens etc all become feasible. The cornutopians say that there are several trillion more barrels in these sources, and if they are touched, there goes climate stability. To make it even hairier, the dementors of the Tea Party tendency, in the US, are determined to revoke energy efficiency programs and standards and gut scientific budgets. Their fellow lunatics in the UK and here, are, reading between the lines, fervently expecting the times to suit them, and allow similar insanity to run amok here.
@BilB
I’m largely sympathetic to your claims against public transport. In even the best designed conurbations, there will be times when sole occupant ad hoc car travel will be the least of all evils. I’ve also suggested (including at this place IIRC) that the idea of some sort of crowd-sourced WAP enabled car-pooling sounds plausible.
Of course. no major Australian city would count as “the best designed conurbation” so there’s a long way to go before we start getting to that point.
As to your travelling group, while I’m keen on the idea of intercity HSR, I’m samongst those who reagrd high speed rail within the major conurbations as very worthwhile. We really ought to have a system that would allow people to travel from the Blue Mountains to the city in about 40 minutes.
As to the cost, I’d be very surprised if the true cost of a 200km round trip (plus parking) weren’t close to $100. People consider only fuel, but in practice, if you do your sums properly, the petrol is just the most obvious expense. You are at risk of a breakdown, and further expense (towing, new transport etc) and of course your depreciation and recurrent maintenance per km must be accounted.
Fran, vehicle depreciation depends entirely on the age of the vehicle. From taxation point of view you can only depreciate an asset once. For the young who use second hand vehicles more, deprecition is entirely different to the retired who are more likely to be driving new vehicles. The depreciation period is also an issue. I say again that most people do not consider depreciation into the daily running cost formula for their vehicles. The other reason for this is that even for those families who utilise public transport the ownership of a vehicle is seen, these days, as an essential family asset which they must afford regardless.
Having said all of that, public transport is still an essential part of the mix of solutions. This is why a collapsible pushbike is one of my three personal projects. My design now largely framed up will collapse to 320 x 420 x 140 at about 7 kilogram (larger than I wanted but that is with the larger wheel size) with a 7 speed gear hub and fully internal drive (now exposed messy bits). Larger than I originally planned but that is with the larger wheel size. The idea is that one can have 6 of these in the boot of the car and have room for a picnic basket, or it is small enough to carry on public transport for extra range at the end of a PT commute. Another feature is that it can be converted to an electric bike in several minutes. But the point is that there are ultimately a variety of solutions to every problem, even if they have not yet been devised.
Ikonoclast@15,
I calculate that the entire world’s current energy delivery can be converted to CSP for about 12 trillion dollars based on estimates from Europe of 7 billion dollars per gigawatt of baseload capacity, so the UN report is credible in my opinion. Asuming my figures are close that is, which I based it on global delivery of 1.71 x 10^16 watt hours.
@BilB
I must be getting cynical. I used to read The Oild Drum quite a bit, but I got tired of reading speculative pieces by people well outside their fields of expertise ‘proving’ yet again that renewable energy always has an EROEI of less than 1, based on the most pessimistic available assumptions, or that nuclear energy has an EROEI of less than 1, based on the most pessimistic available figures, and so forth. I haven’t been there in a while – maybe it’s improved. I haven’t disputed that the technical articles written by the experts in the relevant field are good quality. I admit I was a bit surprised that BilB is such a staunch defender of it, given the number of ‘renewable energy is a false hope’ type pieces it has published. Bit, as I said, maybe it’s improved lately.
The other thing that put me off The Oil Drum was the persistent adherence to several theories that are easily shown to be wrong, such as the ‘export land model’, which ignores the fact that consumption in importing countries can and does decline, and the theory that the collapse of the Soviet Union was caused by peak oil.
I guess there’s something to be said for presenting a variety of views, but mixing actual expert opinion and crankery (which IMHO, was the mix at The Oil Drum) tends to make me doubt the value of information. The tendency of many commenters in the The Oil Drum comments threads to accuse people of malfeasance for simply expressing a divergent view from that of the author of a post was also a bit off-putting. Anyway, I hope that puts to rest any suspicions that I am a shill for big oil, or Murdoch, or something.
Tim Macknay,
If you have a problem with particular Oil Drum articles or authors, take it up over there. It is inappropriate, in my opinion, for you to make the critical remarks that you are making here, implying that you have superior knowledge, without supplying links, so that others can evaluate your assertions on the specific articles that you are citing.
@Ikonoclast
I haven’t gone over this in detail, but $24 trillion over (to make things round) 24 years, sounds about right. World output is about $50 trillion, so $1tn/year is 2 per centl, which is the kind of value I would expect.
To bring things back to the Australian economy, our share would be about $480 billion, or $20 billion a year. A 2GW coal-fired power station would cost around $5 billion, but given the absence of fuel costs, 2GW of (availability-adjusted) renewables would be competitive with coal at $10 billion or more. So, you would be adding/replacing a coal-fired power station every year or two.
Show me the visionary projects! (Apologies to Jerry Maguire.)
If it is possible to replace all fossils with renewables why haven’t we started in earnest? That’s not a rhetorical question. I do genuinely wonder why we have not started in earnest. Though some may now point to evidence that we have started in earnest.
It seems to me that renewable feasibility depends on a number of necessary conditions (the order of the points does not imply any order of precedence);
1. Financial feasibility. (YES)
2. Broad environmental availability of sufficient energy. (YES)
3. Energy density sufficient for EROIE viability. (YES, probably)
4. Sufficient space for required facilities. (YES on a global basis)
5. Sufficient materials to build the infrastructure. (Unknown to me)
6. Stabilisation of population and (ultimately) of energy demand. (Unknown).
On that assessment, it looks more possible to me than it has ever looked before. JQ’s arguments have altered my views quite a bit. I am still firm on the issue of ultimate limits to growth. It is axiomatic that there are limits to growth on a finite earth.
I still foresee very large transition problems. Oil, compressed gas and their products are energy dense, convenient to handle and convenient to combust for energy. Apart from discretionary and usually solo travel in automobiles (admittedly a big piece of the pie that we can economise on), our transport and agriculture system is completely reliant on oil and gas fuels. We also have all this existing plant, stock and infrastruture predicated on oil/gas use. In addition, the world economy depends heavily on automobile manufacture for economic activity.
All of this investment must be retired or converted so it is not just about replacing the actual energy production side. Does anyone foresee problems on this side of the eqaution?
@BilB
Others put it forward as a good source of information, and I expressed my doubts about it. Everyone is free to check the site out and make up their own mind. Frankly, I don’t know why you’re getting on such a high horse about it. Anyway, that’s all I have to say on the subject.
I hope your peak oil denial works out for you on your planet.
Over here on planet Earth, peak oil is going to be a real game-changer. Every dollar in capital investment since 1950 has been predicated on a crude oil price – $35/barrel. What that implies is all the capital investment made since 1950 or so is now ‘underwater’ and non- performing.
Interestingly, all sorts of creditworthiness difficulties are emerging all over the surface of my planet. In our fiat money world, energy is rationed by access to credit, not by access to energy itself.
The other problem we have to deal with here on planet Earth is the return on consumption activity has been below zero for decades … but the so-called ‘finance community’ has been able to use that credit I just mentioned to ‘bring forward’ funds from the future based on (fraudulent) collateral value of current consumption: a Ponzi scheme.
The wheels are coming off the Ponzi and everyone is pointing the fingers at the credit purveyors, but what does ‘everyone’ know. The prob is not enough cheap fuel to support ‘growth’ whatever that is, and allow debt service to take place.
Long story, short: the inhabitants of our planet are now being force to make choices from bad to worse: to drive a car (I’m sure you don’t have those) or enjoy retirement, to drive a car or live in a nice house. The choices are getting harder all the time: drive a car or have a job, drive a car or have something to eat.
Drive a car or avoid getting killed by a militiaman.
I suspect reading a newspaper is going to become very difficult if it hasn’t already done so.
@steve from virginia
I think this is the kind of comment (I’m guessing as a result of being linked by the Oil Drum) referred to by Tim Macknay.
@Ikonoclast
On the issue of materials requirements, Barry Brook has some back of envelope calculations for build rates and materials in three limit cases – wind, CSP and nuclear. Electricity demand is assumed to grow five fold by 2050 which is not implausible given projected increase in energy demand and electricifcation of “everything”. If you think that growth is too high, then scale everything down a bit. Estimates are based on current technology. Here are the required build rates and materials requirements if the whole electricity supply was from each of the technologiesper day:
Wind: 1,250,000 tonnes of concrete and 335,000 tonnes of steel and 340 sq km of land.
CSP: 2,215,000 tonnes of concrete, 690,000 tonnes of steel and 45 sq km of land. (That’s 520 m^2 of mirror fields per second)
Nuclear: 160,000 tonnes of concrete and 10,000 tonnes of steel and maybe a couple of sq kms for the site.
These are for each and every day from 2010 to 2050. As the clock is ticking away and it’s now 2011, these figure have already gone up.
But it gets worse. Wind turbines only have a service life of 20 years, so you would have to do it more than twice minus whatever part of the infrastructure can be reused.
And worse still for renewables because the overbuild and/or storage required is not included.
Are you feeling pessimistic yet?
I have yet to see anybody refute these figures
http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/10/18/tcase4/
How about this for a proposition then JQ; “Peak oil could have quite mild effects given a desire by government to invest wisely in alternative infrastructure like trains. Given that this will does not exist, there will be a lot more pain.”
Tim Macknay, JQ, felt it necessary to belittle the authors of The Oil Drum because he took issue with his interpretation of their views on specific topics, not the commenters, is how I read his contribution.
@quokka
I don’t want to pull rank, but Barry Brook is neither an expert on energy economics nor an unbiased source, and the figures are expressed in a way that makes them almost impossible to interpret (land requirements in square meters per second, for example).
The fact that the leading experts in the field have reached the opposite conclusion (that 80 per cent renewable is feasible by 2050) impresses me more than the fact that they have not bothered to refute Barry’s figures.
@sam
That’s pretty much right, I think. However, i have sufficient faith in democracy to think that governments will have to do better on this issue sooner or later if they want to stay in office.
@BilB
For the record, I don’t think I mentioned the Oil Drum except to suggest that “Steve from Virginia” appeared to represent the more apocalyptic and ill-informed section of its readership.
@John Quiggin
The good news is that we won’t have long to wait to see if this is plausible. Both Germany’s Merkel and Japan’s Kan want to go all out on renewables. To get from say 15% to 80% of a static energy use total in 39 years means the displacement must average 1-2% a year. By 2015 we would expect at least 6% more renewables. In Germany’s case I believe the solar subsidy expires in 2013. If such countries are not ‘on track’ in the early years then we must question whether 80% by 2050 is possible.
The concern over peak oil is as well placed as concern over peak steam (as used in transportation). That peak was passed some time ago. And except for aficionados without many tears.
Quokka, if you live near a wind turbine it’s pretty easy to repudiate Barry Brook’s figures yourself. If you go to one you’ll probably find that the pylons, due to the tragic shortage of dirt in Australia, are stuck in bedrock. This dramatically limits the amount of concrete required. Now Barry Brook lives in South Australia and could have at any time gone to an actual wind turbine and checked its foundation, but apparently hasn’t. I know he’s busy and all, but the fact that he hasn’t done this kind of makes it seem like he just doesn’t care.
quokka, and what are the numbers of years that the toxic waste from wind and solar-thermal need to be safely stored away, lest they kill people? I believe that nuclear waste needs to be kept safe for hundreds, if not thousands of years, unless there is some ‘unforeseen’ event, like an earthquake and tsunami, in Japan of all places (who could have predicted it?) that solves the problem by scattering the waste over the countryside.
@John Quiggin
Your point seems to hang on the idea that “spurious idea that there is a 1-1 relationship between oil (or energy) and economic activity.” What is the relationship if its not 1-1? sure you can squeeze efficiency in energy use and use debt to offset anything else, but for how long? Would love to see a paper on this, any links?
can economic growth continue forever? you seem to be saying yes to this.
Dan, think of it this way: I with my trusty pen knife or a trained neurosurgeon could spend the same amount of energy removing a tumour from someone’s brain, however the service provided by the trained neurosurgeon is likely to be worth considerably more in economic terms than my own work. In fact, my own attempt would be likely to result in a dead loss, both in economic terms and in its actual effect.
@Ronald Brak
Clearly you are not a member of the ‘self-esteem’ generation to have such a low opinion of your own neurosurgical skills!
@Ronald Brak
Thanks Ronald, but I must be still missing something, hasn’t a lot of energy gone into training that neurosurgeon and none to training you? From what I understand specialisation could not occur without surplus energy. If 2 people on an island had to fish all day just to catch enough fish to survive there could be no specialisation. What I am trying to work out is what would happen in a declining net energy economy. The idea that our economic growth has been on the back of easy energy growth and easy debt growth (future energy) is very widespread. I am not ready to chuck that idea out the window, but I am always happy to review my understanding.
Actually I have an implausibly high opinion of my neurosurgical skills given that I’ve never actually received any training in the area. I just didn’t mention my irrational overconfidence on account of how I am a member of the ‘self-effacing’ generation.
Dan, in a standard representation of technology all inputs (land, water, labor, capital, energy, information and so on) are essential. But you can substitute one for another. For example, with an irrigation and water storage system (which makes use of capital and energy) you can get the same output from less land and water. Or, with better information, you can reduce the energy requirements to operate your irrigation system.
The general idea is called substitutability in production, and can be found in any good micro-economics textbook.
For some kinds of activities, opportunities for substitution are limited. But for the economy as a whole, there are plenty of opportunities to expand output of things like brain surgery without any significant addition to the use of energy.
You can see this easily enough by comparing countries. Developed countries all maintain roughly the same living standard despite massive differences in energy use per person.
Dan, it takes about 100,000,000,000 joules to train a neurosurgeon. That’s about how much energy there is in about $110 worth of oil. If you had a pair of twins who were identical except that one had just completed six years of training to become a neurosurgeon and the other had no training of any kind but owned 14 barrels of oil, you probably wouldn’t consider them to be on equal economic footing.
I honestly find the responses to the figures for material requirements and build rates that I reproduced above to be jaw dropping.
1. Whatever the material requirements are to build wind turbines, they are as far as I can reasonably determine completely orthogonal to any issues that may or may not be involved in dealing with n* waste.
2. I fail to see how wandering around paddocks in SA staring at wind turbines is a more rigorous approach than for example referring to the University of Sydney ISA study which found an an average requirement of 433 tonnes of concrete and 116 tonnes of steel per MW wind capacity which form the empirical basis for the final figures for wind. The figures do add up.
3. I also fail to see how one needs to be an “energy expert” – whatever that is – to make such calculations. Just go to credible and preferably authoritative sources for the raw data and exercise some rather basic arithmetic skills. Not only is this not that hard to do – it is something that should be strongly encouraged lest there be over consumption of the energy kool-aid that James Hansen has recently sharply criticized. Hansen keeps emphasizing this point over and over again – young people MUST be sceptical (in the true sense) of “solutions”. Scenarios with numbers attached are one of the best ways of going about that.
It seems to me that scepticism has left the room. If the build rate/material requirements are wrong by a lot, eg by an order of magnitude, then show they are wrong and include working and sources. If there is a slight of hand misrepresenting the issues involved, then demonstrate it.
Ronald Brak, your analogy regarding trained neuro-surgeon delivering more value than untrained, if enthusiastic, amateur, depends, I would say, on the identity of the patient. If the ‘client’ was, say, GW Bush, an unfortunate early demise would save trilllions in wasted resources. And quokka, thanks for ‘othogonal’ but could you expand on its meaning in this context? As for constructions costs etc, certainly they might be greater for wind and solar, but their de-commissioning costs are surely some orders of magnitude less than those for nuclear. And, remind me, has any nuclear plant ever been successfully de-commissioned. And that still does not consider the costs of storing nuclear waste for centuries and the horrendous costs if an accident occurs.
And why would you want to de-commission a wind or solar plant in under 100 years. Replace mirrors, PV panels, nacelles and blades but the concrete is very long lasting as is the steel supporting structures with proper maintenance.