Politics Vs Climate (and how to stop it)

[Dog's_Breakfast]

DB, I think you're missing the bigger picture. If we decide that coal and nuclear are, assessed on their own merits, "bad", and we stop using them, then logically that compels us to make do with what we have - that 10% that you insist is not enough.

Switching them off is the necessary precondition which will drive social changes and innovation to reduce our power consumption by 90%. It's ridiculous, but that's just the way humanity works. As long as there is an abundance of something, we'll use it until we're backed into a corner (or worse - there are plenty of cities dead and forgotten under desert sands because their operators couldn't tell the difference between credit and wealth). I suspect you will insist that we MUST burn 35kWh/capita to sustain our "quality of life", but I can see no proof that this is true. If you can give me one single reason why 3.5kWh/capita (for the sake of argument) would plunge civilisation back into the dark ages, I'd like to hear it.

Hi Finley. Like always, you've got thought-provoking ideas that I enjoy reading, and like to respond to.

Your above comment seems to be a variation on the "power down" theme that I've read about so many times on numerous green blogs. Now I happen to agree that we humans waste a lot of power, and could do things more efficiently. I'm a big advocate of energy conservation. Those absorption air-conditioners you've mentioned a few times are a great example. I personally try to cut waste - all my lightbulbs are energy efficient fluorescents and LEDs, I use a fan instead of air-conditioner, energy-efficient refrigerator, energy-efficient (laptop) computers, I try to use my motorcycle instead of the car (and bicycle when possible), I no longer eat beef (not vegetarian though - I do eat chicken), I no longer travel abroad. And so on.

While I'm proud of my attempts to be energy efficient, I also realize it's just a drop in the bucket. Most of the food I eat gets grown with fossil fuel inputs (tractors, trucks), farm chemicals and artificial fertilizer. Ditto for most of the consumer goods sitting around my house, including the computer I'm now typing on. Not to mention that the computer needs a constant supply of electricty (otherwise it's just a paperweight), plus the Internet that we are both connecting to consumes lots of power.

I have spent plenty of time in third world countries with marginal electric grids (or no grid at all in rural backwaters). I know what it's like to live with nothing but candlelight (or campfire light) at night, cook over the campfire, no phone or radio or TV, wash clothes by hand in a bucket, cut off from any possibility of medical care should the need arise. Essentially, this is the way our ancestors lived, and some of the hardcore greenies advocate that we simply readopt a 19th century standard of living. I (and not only I) have a problem accepting that. Not only was this "simpler way of life" not always comfortable, but I also don't think that the current world population of 7 billion (and still rising fast) could survive on 19th century technology. It's worth taking a look at just how fast the world's population has risen:

World Population Growth

Year Population
1 200 million
1000 275 million
1500 450 million
1650 500 million
1750 700 million
1804 1 billion
1850 1.2 billion
1900 1.6 billion
1927 2 billion
1950 2.55 billion
1955 2.8 billion
1960 3 billion
1965 3.3 billion
1970 3.7 billion
1975 4 billion
1980 4.5 billion
1985 4.85 billion
1990 5.3 billion
1995 5.7 billion
1999 6 billion
2006 6.5 billion
2009 6.8 billion
2011 7 billion
2025 8 billion
2043 9 billion
2083 10 billion

This astonishing population growth has been made possible thanks to fossil fuel inputs. What we will do when the fossil fuel runs out, or when we can't burn it anymore because it's killing the atmosphere, is anyone's guess. My guess is that lots of people will starve. I also expect lots of wars to break out as everyone scrambles to lay claim to whatever resources are left.

You might argue that we don't need to do that if we're getting energy "too cheap to meter" from 4th-gen reactors, but again that's a very narrow view. The very existence of cheap energy means that destructive businesses are empowered to do damage on a larger scale, and faster, than they otherwise would. Consider forestry, for example: if the cost of harvesting, transporting, and retailing wood products doubles, don't you think that might decrease the rate at which wood is wasted? In agriculture, would farmers be so keen to use artificial nitrogen fertiliser if it costs $3/kilo instead of $1?

Well, first off, I never claimed that nuclear power would be "too cheap to meter." Yes indeed, I have seen others make that argument (mainly lobbyists for the nuclear power industry), but I've never believed it. I support 4th generation nukes because I think they offer the only proven technology that can power the world at present levels of consumption without adding greenhouse gases. The widely-touted "alternatives" - solar and wind - are not up to the task, regardless of what they cost. It's not a question of money, it's a question of what works. I have met some devout greenies who claim that we have enough wind to "power the world 10 times over," and I think they are just engaging in wishful thinking - they don't understand the technology, but they have this religious belief in wind that is unshakable. Additionally, they have a religious belief that "nuclear is evil" and there is no way to get them to look at the issue with an open mind. Thus we find ourselves in the present situation where the world is shutting down nukes and burning more coal as a result, all the while promising the imminent arrival of "alternative energy."

But I do appreciate what you're saying about costs - that low prices encourage wasteful habits. That's the big argument in favor of carbon taxes - just make it expensive, and people will use less or find alternatives. I view that as simplistic. Raise prices high enough, and people may have to sit in their apartments freezing in winter by candlelight. That does save energy, especially if they do indeed freeze to death, as this will help us achieve the desirable goal of negative population growth. I probably don't need to add that this isn't the most humane way to go about achieving a low-carbon emissions future.

The world’s total electricity generating capacity is around 4500GW (2007 figures), or 4.5 terawatts. These days a new nuclear powerplant typically has a capacity of 1.3GW, so we'd be looking at around 4000 new nukes worldwide to satisfy demand. I would guess that there's no more than a dozen new nukes under construction world wide, so we are long way from a nuclear renaissance.

In a word: Taipower. From an American Chamber of Commerce report (which yes does of course state that part of the cost overrun was due to the project being temporarily suspended - I don't dispute that):

...

Thanks for posting that, MM. However, I'm a little more kind to Taipower than you are. The report you mentioned seems to confirm something I've long suspected...when the government doesn't want to do something (in this case, Ah-bien didn't want to complete the 4th nuke but he was being forced to do so), the "solution" is to bury the project in red tape and utter bullshit so that it never gets done. Of course, now that Ma has been in office for 4 years, that argument is getting a little thin, but the culture of bureaucratic incompetence is well entrenched and I'm not sure that is Taipower's fault.

One other thing - the first three nukes were all built rather quickly back in the 1970s. Taiwan simply bought the plants off the shelf from the USA. Nuclear powerplants were a big business back in those days prior to Three Mile Island. But Taipower has no real experience building nukes, and even worse, Taiwan doesn't have a school of nuclear engineering. Yes, lots of "electrical engineers" graduate every year, but none with any knowledge of how a nuke plant is built. In fact, it's becoming a worldwide shortage of qualified people as older engineers retire and no money is being spent on nuclear engineering since it is a "dirty technology" that we are supposedly going to soon be rid of. If Taiwan ever decides that 4th generation nukes are needed, they'd better get started building the engineering expertise to make this happen.

[finley]

I have spent plenty of time in third world countries with marginal electric grids (or no grid at all in rural backwaters). I know what it's like to live with nothing but candlelight (or campfire light) at night, cook over the campfire, no phone or radio or TV, wash clothes by hand in a bucket, cut off from any possibility of medical care should the need arise. Essentially, this is the way our ancestors lived, and some of the hardcore greenies advocate that we simply readopt a 19th century standard of living. I (and not only I) have a problem accepting that. Not only was this "simpler way of life" not always comfortable, but I also don't think that the current world population of 7 billion (and still rising fast) could survive on 19th century technology.

DB: you're still looking at this as an either-or. Yes, there's the hair-shirt brigade who suggest we need to go back to the 19th century. But in fact, a lot of things were pretty inefficient back then. Burning candles and keeping a horse is immensely wasteful. It only worked (after a fashion) because there were fewer people.

As I've said before, we need to move into the 21st century. As it is, we're firmly stuck in the 20th (most of the technology we take for granted was invented pre-1950). Here's Finley's challenge: name one energy-sucking system or method that (in your opinion) is a crucial part of a modern lifestyle, and I'll suggest an alternative that will give equivalent (or better) performance with an 80-90% reduction in energy input. Disclaimer: the solution might involve not doing the thing you think is necessary, and doing something different instead.

This astonishing population growth has been made possible thanks to fossil fuel inputs.

Dunno about that. Most of that population growth has been in poor countries. As countries get richer, their population growth levels off until it falls below replacement level. This same trajectory has happened over and over again.

The interesting bit is that the "breakpoint" (where the birthrate approaches 2.1) occurs with quite a modest increase in living standards: once people attain a basic level of security (food, water, safety) they pretty much stop cranking out kids. It seems to me that, for this reason if no other, we should be pushing modern, low-energy technologies in poor countries like there's no tomorrow. Rogue governments that deliberately block poverty-reducing efforts should be summarily removed by force. I can think of few other methods that would have such a profound effect on world security and human progress.

And if your claim is true (that fossil fuel use promotes population growth) then that's a great reason for restricting fossil fuels

What we will do when the fossil fuel runs out, or when we can't burn it anymore because it's killing the atmosphere, is anyone's guess. My guess is that lots of people will starve. I also expect lots of wars to break out as everyone scrambles to lay claim to whatever resources are left.

Probably not. I'm quite optimistic about this. They won't "run out" as such - they'll just get progressively more expensive. There will come a point (in the very near future - my guess is 2030) when renewable sources become indisputably cheaper that non-renewable ones, to the point where even massive subsidy (of oil, nuclear, etc) can't hide the price difference. As that changeover occurs, there are going to be a bunch of new industries springing up to drive a whole new way of doing things. Those companies are going to be making a shitload of money, and personally I'm positioning myself to be in the right place when that happens.

Wars and squabbles will only occur if governments insist on propping up the status quo too far beyond it's use-by date.

[Dog's_Breakfast]

DB: you're still looking at this as an either-or. Yes, there's the hair-shirt brigade who suggest we need to go back to the 19th century. But in fact, a lot of things were pretty inefficient back then. Burning candles and keeping a horse is immensely wasteful. It only worked (after a fashion) because there were fewer people.

Candles and oil lanterns seem to be a workable solution to provide light at night if you've got no electricity, though they don't provide very bright illumination. These days candles are made from paraffin (a petroleum product), though traditionally a lot of other things have been used (seed oils, beeswax, whale oil, yak butter, etc). Cooking was traditionally done with firewood, which can be expected to be very scarce in a world of 7 billion plus people. Horses - yeah, not realisitc as everyday transportation in our overpopulated world.

As for what I expect to happen in the coming decades, I predict a very uneven situation. That is to say, some countries will do better than others. Oil-exporting countries in the Middle East (ie Saudi Arabia) will do well as long as they have oil to export - when it runs out, they will revert to the 12th century and their overpopulated desert land will become a massive graveyard (as well as an exporter of fanatical religious fundamentalism). France, which derives 75% of it's electrical power from nukes, will be in an envious position as compared to Germany which is retiring its nukes and going to imported natural gas (from Russia) along with some showcase solar and wind projects that will probably supply 10% of their power.

But my main concern is for Taiwan, since this is where I live. We are overpopulated here, so "back to the land" is not an option. I can't imagine all those folks living in high-rises in Taipei and Kaohsiung getting by with backyard farming and wind mills - if we revert to a 19th-century lifestyle, they will perish. Folks in rural Taiwan could probably survive if the starving urban hoards don't overwhelm whem. Folks out on Lanyu would have the advantage of isolation and low-population density, so possibly they could revert to their traditional taro-farming and fishing.

If Taiwan is to survive without famines and strife, non-fossil fuel energy will be needed. I contend that nuclear provides the most viable non-fossil fuel option. Not only could it keep the lights on and the factories humming, but it can be used to manufacture ammonia to be used as transport fuel so that farm tractors and trucks will bring food to the table (as opposed to ox-driven ploughs and horse-drawn carriages).

Just today I FOUND A VERY USEFUL WEB SITE about energy use in Taiwan. It's in English, and gives hard facts and figures, as well as some propaganda. It's here. From the introduction:

At the end of 2008, the total installed electricity generation capacity was 46,381.6 MW in Taiwan, including a capacity of 7,733.3 MW of co-generation plants. The total installed capacity of renewable energy is now 2,967.6 MW, within which hydropower is 1937.9 MW, photovoltaic power is 5.6 MW, wind power is 252.1 MW, and biomass power is 772.0 MW, including a capacity of 649.7 of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) . The electricity generation in 2008 totaled 238,325.9 million kWh, of which only 3.52% came from renewable energy.

What leaps out to me from these statistics: conventional hydropower is 65% of the "renewable" energy. Second place (26% of total) is "biomass" which in this case means garbage incinerators. Wind-power is 8.5% of the renewables (0.54% of total electrical capacity), but even this is a fudge since we are talking about "installed capacity" - in very non-windy Taiwan, it's unlikely that the wind generators produce power at more than 25% of their capacity - if you accept my "fudge factor" I would guess that wind currently supplies around 0.13% of Taiwan's total electrcity consumption. Solar currently produces next to nothing, and is mainly used for domestic hot water, though I think it has good potential to increase if we're willing to pay the costs (solar PV is not cheap).

As I've said before, we need to move into the 21st century. As it is, we're firmly stuck in the 20th (most of the technology we take for granted was invented pre-1950). Here's Finley's challenge: name one energy-sucking system or method that (in your opinion) is a crucial part of a modern lifestyle, and I'll suggest an alternative that will give equivalent (or better) performance with an 80-90% reduction in energy input. Disclaimer: the solution might involve not doing the thing you think is necessary, and doing something different instead.

I'll take your challenge. What about agriculture (the most vital industry since we all need to eat)? The biggest power demands are for tractors, truck transport of crops to market, electricity for water-pumping, industrial manufactured pesticides, herbicides and fertilizer, refrigeration of veggies, fish and other perishables. Fish farming (popular in Taiwan, and a very efficient source of protein) depends on electric motors to aerate the ponds and pump water. I'd be interested to hear how you could cut these power inputs by 80% or more.

Most of that population growth has been in poor countries. As countries get richer, their population growth levels off until it falls below replacement level. This same trajectory has happened over and over again.

Good point, but is the world growing wealthier? I have a vision of rising poverty due to a combination of religious fundamentalism leading to more births, fossil fuel depletion, and the ongoing financial shenanigans in the (mostly developed) countries. It would be nice to think that the 21st century will be more prosperous and peaceful than the last one, but I have my doubts. But then you are more optimistic than I am.

[finley]

Candles and oil lanternctricity, though they don't provide very bright illumination.s seem to be a workable solution to provide light at night if you've got no ele

But why would we ever have no electricity? We'll just have rather less of it, so we'll have to use it for sensible things (like lighting, which consumes next-to-nothing) instead of stupid things (like aircon, which can be largely designed out).

Cooking was traditionally done with firewood, which can be expected to be very scarce in a world of 7 billion plus people.

Not at all. For various reasons, we're going to need a huge increase in the number of trees - at least double what we have now. Most of the new plantations will be productive species, professionally managed by people who know what they're doing (as opposed to criminal gangs). Some of the "scrap" can be sold for cooking, which does need energy-dense fuels. In an energy-poor world, well-managed agroforestry is going to become a license to print money.

But my main concern is for Taiwan, since this is where I live. We are overpopulated here, so "back to the land" is not an option.

I believe it's theoretically possible, but for a 26m+ population, it wouldn't be easy. At 10m, it would be a no-brainer. Politically speaking, it's never going to happen, which means that Taiwan will, sadly, become dependent on nuclear (and therefore on foreign fuel supplies). My guess is that Taiwan will slowly slip further and further behind on the technology curve until it becomes an unimportant backwater; it'll have enough energy to support its population with commodity trade and services, but that's all. China will then quietly annexe Taiwan when it thinks nobody is looking.

Incidentally, I find that biomass-burning statistic absolutely frightening. I thought it was a couple of %, tops. The energy produced is worth less than the garbage going in (or, more accurately, less than it originally cost to produce it), not to mention the loss of valuable materials. We are sending billions of NT$ up in smoke simply because Taiwan can't be bothered to fix its addiction to producing trash.

Solar currently produces next to nothing, and is mainly used for domestic hot water, though I think it has good potential to increase if we're willing to pay the costs (solar PV is not cheap).

Solar is very cheap. Even competing against subsidized fossil fuel, a hot-water installation (in Taiwan) pays for itself in <5 years and has an expected lifetime, with occasional maintenance, of 15+ years. PV is certainly more expensive, but it compares fairly well with coal or nuclear. On average, in a sunny country, I estimate PV-generated electricity could retail for (on average) 0.20 euros/kWh if proper marketing mechanisms were in place - which they're not. That's comparable with the current domestic prices in the EU.

[finley]

What about agriculture (the most vital industry since we all need to eat)? The biggest power demands are for tractors, truck transport of crops to market, electricity for water-pumping, industrial manufactured pesticides, herbicides and fertilizer, refrigeration of veggies, fish and other perishables. Fish farming (popular in Taiwan, and a very efficient source of protein) depends on electric motors to aerate the ponds and pump water. I'd be interested to hear how you could cut these power inputs by 80% or more.

No problem. Easy as falling off a John Deere. However, the answer requires you to accept three assertions as true (I can prove them, but not without rambling a lot):

1) Agriculture is currently configured to serve the machines, not humanity. This simple fact constrains the entire supply chain. At a mundane level, whether a piece of land is "suitable" or "unsuitable" for agriculture is determined purely by whether you can drive a tractor or combine over it. We're living in a bloody James Cameron sci-fi movie and we don't even know it.

2) Industrial agriculture is not only unsustainable but laughably inefficient. For every farmer out in the fields, there are another ten people (or the equivalent in man-hours) designing and marketing the equipment, running the chemical plants, digging phosphates out of the ground, driving the trucks, operating the oil wells, paying the subsidy taxes ... the list goes on. You're right that food is the most vital industry, and that's why a big chunk of humanity is working (indirectly) to get it from the field to your table. Unfortunately, a lot of what they do is wasted effort.

3) Current agricultural practice is fifty years behind the current state of our knowledge of how ecosystems work and how crops grow. I have a brochure somewhere (produced by the USDA, IIRC) encouraging farmers to use legume intercropping instead of nitrogen fertiliser. Why? Because apart from the soil improvements it yields, it's cheaper. Basically, there's a whole bunch of stuff that farmers do simply because that's what they've always done, and farmers are a notoriously conservative lot. When they find it doesn't work very well, the government bails them out. For example, in Taiwan, the gov't subsidises fertilizer use and compensates farmers (every single year) for crop failures caused by heavy rain. If the gov't didn't do this, they would be forced to update their methods ... or exit the industry.

The trick, then, is to bring things back to a human scale.

- A smaller plot of land farmed intensively sustainably delivers twice the yield (per hectare) of a larger field on which machines and chemicals are deployed. Broadscale farming is, by its nature, wasteful and inefficient because the farmer cannot pay attention to details.

- Tractors and ploughs do a great deal of harm to the land, especially on tropical soils. I put a heavy mulch layer on my land, so the ground underneath is teeming with burrowers (earthworms, especially). The soil is moist and friable. The bugs do for free what the guy next door does with a machine, and his land looks like the surface of the moon. I'm amazed he gets any produce at all from it. Although some writers suggest you can get away with as little as 20% land area set aside for mulch production, my experience suggests 50/50, and more is better.

- Water pumps are not needed except during (IMO) August-October. Even then, a judicious combination of holding tanks, solar pumps, and gravity-fed pulse irrigation does the job with minimal energy input.

- Transport in general is a disaster. Basically, the entire model of bulk shipment needs to change. There needs to be a method of getting small(ish) quantities of food directly from farm to table (or to small local distributors). I touched on this topic elsewhere. If you have an automated, driverless transport system optimised for small (<100kg) shipments, retail prices (and energy use) could fall drastically, even with much higher production costs. Refrigeration and storage requirements are also drastically reduced.

- Industrial manufactured pesticides, herbicides and fertilizer - that, again, is a whole thread all by itself. First prove to me that we need them. My experience is that they are complete waste of time and money, and the USDA (as mentioned earlier) is starting to agree. The Union of Concerned Scientists recently published a report condemning Monsanto for pushing technological solutions to problems that don't exist in the first place.

- Protein - a properly integrated farm, with animals that "earn their keep" (for example, ducks that roam around eating bugs and weeds) can provide low-cost, high-quality meat without little or no technology.

- Don't forget retailing. This is where the biggest markup happens, because it's where the most waste occurs. As I said, if food can get more directly from farm to table, there will be an inevitable reduction in energy waste and cost.

I think one deeply-entrenched problem is that people consider a farming career to be somewhat less prestigious than, say, cesspit pumping or pig semen collection. Governments encourage this, because people in cities, in offices, are easy to tax and control. Guys with pitchforks, muscles, and an attitude, less so. Somehow that needs to change, because farming is not the last resort of the poor and the unemployed; it's an honest, honourable profession as valid as teaching, doctoring or lawyering, and demands a similar level of knowledge and experience. There are plenty of people all over the world who might find fulfilment working on the land, instead of being herded through pisspoor "education" systems and thence into a pointless, tedious, underpaid job.

That was rather a long reply. There is actually a whole thread on sustainable agriculture (started by pingdong) which has lapsed a bit, but does have more details if you're interested. I should stress (because it maybe isn't clear in the above) that I'm not suggesting we eliminate the machines. We just need to make them much smaller, and make the humans their masters - instead of the reverse.

[Dog's_Breakfast]

Although interest in this thread is probably waning, I saw something today that I thought was very relevant. It concerns an op-ed opinion piece in response to Friends of the Earth anti-nuke propaganda. By way of full disclosure, I used to be a member of the Friends of the Earth - I'll hang my head in shame over that. Anyway, very well written piece and just takes a few minutes to read:

http://bravenewclimate.com/2012/07/20/i ... cial-case/

[urodacus]

Massive depopulation is the most sensible answer. Many problems will disappear once the world loses 3/4 of its population load. Yes, that's radical, but it's not too far off many potential outcomes of the current scenario anyway, so let's speed things up a bit by rattling the hornet's nest in a few places and see what that shakes out.

I'll be one of the first wave to go, if you want. How about you?

[Dog's_Breakfast]

Massive depopulation is the most sensible answer. Many problems will disappear once the world loses 3/4 of its population load. Yes, that's radical, but it's not too far off many potential outcomes of the current scenario anyway, so let's speed things up a bit by rattling the hornet's nest in a few places and see what that shakes out.

I'll be one of the first wave to go, if you want. How about you?

You aren't wrong, Urodacus. If everyone cuts their energy consumption by 20% and then the world's population increase by 20%, we haven't made any progress at all.

As for finding volunteers for suicide, that probably won't be easy.

I don't actually expect to be around 20 years from now, and I haven't brought any off-spring into this world. Thus, despite the fact that I am currently an energy consumer, I can assume the moral high ground in stating that future generations will not have to bear the burden of my descendants' consumer lifestyle.

The world's human population is indeed increasingly rapidly despite some encouraging exceptions (Taiwan, for one). At one time in my younger, more optimistic youth, I envisioned that the world would finally get it's act together and do the right thing in supporting worldwide family planning, limiting every couple to no more than two children. Now I see that as an unrealistic dream. Indeed, the rise of religious fundamentalism is being accompanied by an increase in the birth rate even in advanced countries that should know better. Countries that have implemented severe policies to limit births (ie China) have been heavily criticized for it.

Of course, when humane family planning methods fail, the world can always fall back on the traditional methods - war, genocide, famines and plagues.

Anyone who got through advanced biology in college is probably familiar with the phrase "success means extinction." That is, once a species overcomes all obstacles (mainly predators), that species multiplies until it strips all the available food supply, and starves, and becomes extinct. I see no reason why that would not apply to humans as well as other creatures.

Yes, we will have zero population growth one way or another. I would prefer it to be achieved "the nice way," but there are no guarantees.

[urodacus]

the traditional methods - war, genocide, famines and plagues.

Well, that's what I'm banking on.

I'll be gone in a few years too, with no offspring to worry about, so I 'll just spend their inheritance now anyway.

[headhonchoII]

I never heard of the success means extinction paradigm, although perhaps you mean the classic bacteria exponential growth, plateau and death phase curve?
I don't think that applies exactly to humans to but it could definitely get nasty at some point.