Democratic Underground - I have some problems with the Figueiredo and Kuntsler Scenarios

First off - we are not going to run up against a brick wall with respect to crude oil. It will get scarcer (worse deposits in worse places where the crude is more expensive to refine). As a thoroughly indoctrinated techie of the Stan Ovshinsky - Amory Lovins persuasion, I buy into the scenario in Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert's Peak by Kenneth S. Deffeyes. The Deffeyes model (which is also the Ovshinsky and Lovins models) is that as crude oil becomes more expensive only its "highest and best uses" will be justified. Or, "at $125/bbl it's too expensive to burn."

When you realize that the combined total of

is under 15% of the petroleum drilled - we could, theoretically kill off 85% of our petroleum production - or pay well over $125/bbl (and it would still be "cheap").

Also, the nitrogen fertilizers do not come from the carbon - but from "Haber Nitrogen Fixation" of the "byproduct hydrogen." This byproduct hydrogen could be obtained the same way we will obtain hydrogen for transportation -- electrolysis of water by nuclear generated electricity.

I do not agree with Figueiredo's observation that

Demographic consequences are also a distinct possibility, both at the level of the population growth rate as well as pertaining to the spatial distribution of population — namely a de-urbanization, with a return to the countryside in order to farm the land. The present proportion in developed countries, in which 10% of the population feeds the remnant 90%, in all likelihood cannot be maintained. More people will have to dedicate themselves to farming

We will "farm smarter" rather then "farming harder".

I do agree with Figueiredo's observation that

Industry will be directly affected, naturally beginning by the most "energivorous". The obsolescence of some parts of the world’s industrial park constitutes a strong possibility, as well as the dumping and discarding of many of them (oil refineries, factories of conventional vehicles, etc). We might see the emergence of smaller industries more self-sufficient in the use of energy, following the lines advocated by Schumacher. Therefore, it will not represent a return to the historical past because now mankind benefits from a patrimony of acquired knowledge that can be put to the service of producing in new moulds (electronics devours less energy and can be at the service of production). This process would most certainly lead to the development of renewable forms of energy (solar thermal and photovoltaic, wind-power, tides, waves, geothermic, hydroelectric, biogas and biomass, etc), of natural gas (whose Hubbert’s Curve appears more linear, more extensive in time and with a less defined peak) and of nuclear.

We will see "manufacturing smarter" and "manufacturing smarter things" - just compare last years CRT displays and Vacuum picture tube televisions with today's flat panel liquid crystal technology - for an energy saving in excess of 97%.

But I do not agree with Figueiredo's observation that

Less certain are the prospects of the hydrogen, since the latter is not a primary energy source (Its advocates, like Rifkin and the European Union, have not yet explained where it can be extracted from at sustainable costs when natural gas and oil come to an end — there’s also an energy waste in order to obtain hydrogen from water!)

Hydrogen is not energy - it is a means of moving chemical energy around from one place (electrolysis of water by nuclear power generated electricity at a massive central station) to another place (local village fuel cell to generate electricity locally for local consumption --- this is my latest project).

I am also becoming a convert to Berkeley's Stu Cohen and his "Urban Land Use Coalition" that "personal motor vehicles" are an endangered species - and that we have to return to pedestrian friendly urban communities where all of life's necessities are within walking distance (as Stu would say with a twinkle in his eye "Like the San Francisco Bay Area's urban cores.")

Personally and professionally, I do regard Figueiredo's comment

"Another type of negationist thinking pertains to those who bear a boundless faith in technological progress. Such type of negationism is more frequent among those who know nothing about science, but who, so to speak, rely on science to resolve the problem. This kind of negationism is visible at the political level, among politicians, mainly heads of State and heads of government."

as being incorrect -- as one who has the dirty and cracked fingernails of an old fashion engineer whose career started when FORTRAN was a gleam in Backus' eye and Fourier Transforms required pencil and paper (before "MatLab for Windows"):-)

Reply #3: I have some problems with the Figueiredo and Kuntsler Scenarios [View All]