What I am Reading - The Water Knife

Climate Change is an unknown.  No human has experienced a climate like we are in the process of  setting up.  Ever.   I just read a new book by Paolo Bacigalupi that tries real hard to imagine what some of the consequences of this new world might be.  His new book The Water Knife delves into the politics of several U. S. Southwestern States, in the near future, fighting for a very limited supply of a very necessary, and therefore precious, resource - water. The central figure of the novel is an undercover operative for the Nevada water authority and is on assignment in bordering states, covertly trying to gain access to an ancient Native American water treaty while officially grappling with competing water officials and sabotaging water projects unhelpful to the Nevada plan.  In the meantime he comes in contact with an assortment of seamy characters and destitute local citizens trying to make a life in a very degraded environment.  This is the third book I have read of Mr. Bacigalupi's and I have enjoyed them all.  He incorporates a lot of well thought out technical detail and cultural subtleties in his story line.  It is not a pretty world he writes about but he has a way of making it seem possible.  I recommend it to anyone who is interested in thinking about all of the possibilities our new world might bring to the table.

The difficulty with keeping it simple.

Global annual fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions through year 2007, in million metric tons of carbon, as reported by the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/home.html. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I am still here, folks.  Not active on this site, obviously, but still watching, waiting and learning.  I now believe that the main dilemma we are facing has become less a problem to solve than a forgone conclusion that we must find a way to accept.  We are clearly unwilling, as a species, to restrain our prodigious consumptive habits.  We will not limit our population.  We will not reduce our dependence on hydro-carbons.  We will not throttle our resource-gorging lifestyles.  If we cannot, or will not, do any of these things then the carbon dioxide load of the atmosphere will continue to climb into uncharted territory and the planet will slowly evolve into an unlivable habitat for all life, including humans.

We are fooling ourselves if we think that there is a way to continue our exorbitant lifestyle and, at the same time, find a way to stave off the rapid deterioration of our planet's living environment.  It is really very simple.  Everything we do, or have, in today's consumer society is produced by burning hydro-carbons.  Our food, our utilities, our stuff, medicine, transportation, the internet, even mining hydrocarbons is not possible without using more hydrocarbons.  Burning hydrocarbons, in turn, produce carbon dioxide gases that migrate into the atmosphere (staying there for a very, very long time by the way) which causes heat to be trapped on the earths surface.  If you are still with me here, it follows that virtually everything that is consumed contributes to the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and  the resultant Climate Change.

Climate Change, therefore is all up to you (and me too of course).  The more you consume the more you contribute to climate change.  When you consume something, everything that is consumed to produce, distribute, sell and recycle it are part of your consumption as well.  And, don't forget the other part of the equation,  everything your children consume (and their children) is also part of your consumption.  It really is that simple.

Thinking about Sustainable Behavior

I accept peak oil as a fact. Having done that, I am forced to concede many other consequences that must surely follow. One of those consequences is a future of significantly reduced consumption for everyone. That follows both because the production of consumer goods will be limited directly by energy constraints and also because we will be spending a greater share of our resources in acquiring the energy sources and thus will have less to direct towards the consumption of other things. Here in the U. S. that reality will be particularly jolting since our per capita level of consumption is so high compared to the average world consumption and is treated as a social entitlement.

No matter how much we grumble, however, as energy limits are reached we will be forced to retool our thinking and behavior with regard to consumption and sustainability. I have spent many an hour imagining how I personally, and we collectively, might approach this new reality. One of the realizations that I came to was that we have developed some pretty bizarre assumptions in our pursuit of profit in a world of “unlimited” resources (that itself, of course, is the most bizarre). One such example, is the notion of “planned obsolescence.” This, to me, is the bi-polar opposite of sustainable behavior. Intentionally designing a product to have a limited life cycle (presumably for the purpose of increasing production/sales/consumption of the product) screams out idiocy in a rational world of real world limits.

Overtly planned obsolescence is a particularly vile example but there are many, more subtle, examples of essentially the same idea. Consider the intent of fashion or style. Fads are the epitome of this construct. This is really planned obsolescence as well, however cleverly it is woven into the social fabric. Nothing should become “so last year” in just a year. Even the marketing concept of trading off quality for price (think of post-war Japanese fare) feeds this insidious cycle of consumption. If you really think it through, you realize that we have structured our entire economic existence on a doctrine of non-sustainable behavior. Harmless enough, and surely profitable, but only in a surreal world of limitless resources.

What would product design look like if we were really interested in sustainable behavior. Let’s try “planned permanence.” A truly sustainable world would use non-renewable resources as if they were precious artifacts. A product that was produced in such a world would be intended to last forever or for as long a possible. These products would be perfectly functional, durable, repairable, maintainable, upgradable and in the end completely recyclable. There would be no economics of scale. Only those that were needed would be made. Finally, when you obtained such a product you would expect to keep it for as long as you had a need for such a product. Imagine inheriting your grandfather’s toolkit and having the builder’s grandson tune it up for you. Until you can accept such a way of life you won’t be happy in a truly limited resource, recyclable world.

Petrophy

The Oil Drum: Campfire | Population Growth Must Stop

 

Population, consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions will continue to grow until we either face up to the fact that there are limits on our finite Earth or we are confronted by a catastrophe large enough to turn us from our current course.

I have written about population before.  Most mainstream media sources still won’t touch the subject but it finally appears to be a subject worth approaching in some quarters.  I have a feeling the “population question” will become more loudly discussed in the future.

Most of us don’t want to worry about population.  If we can afford to raise a child, or many children, that should be the end of the discussion.  Why should anybody care?  I live in, and love, America.  In America we are free to make those kinds of personal decisions.  I don’t want to think that it is anybody else’s business either. 

But there are other concerns if we care to think about ourselves as members of the human race.  In fact, living in America means that our babies are going to be using up an enormous share of the resources available to all of mankind.  We like to think that we are free to do that too, if we can afford it.  If everyone in the world consumed as we do in the U. S., however, worldwide consumption would have to increase by nearly an order of magnitude.  It is somebody else’s business I’m afraid.

At some point the unbridled growth in population and the cultural need to consume ever more resources as a mark of the good life will run headlong into the absolute finiteness of our supply of resources.  At precisely that point we will have to answer the “population question” or we will be handed the default solution.  It would be nice to think that we might find a cultural or social way out of this dilemma.  I am not optimistic.

The Oil Drum: Campfire | Population Growth Must Stop

Economist Debates: Green jobs

Economist Debates: Green jobs - According to this post, a majority of readers support a government effort to develop green jobs. This is a good thing. It is important to keep the effect that we have on the environment in mind as we go about our daily business. But it is not enough. We must also find a way to reduce our consumption....period.


We have entered into a period in our history that will result in a continual reduction in our ability to extract resources from the earth's supply for the forseeable future. There will simply be less to go around as supplies dwindle and population (at least for awhile) continues to rise. In short, the days of growth in consumption are over. Somehow, we must find a way to wean ourselves off of our consumptive behavior if we are to make an acceptable journey into our future.

I would like to see society recognize that this is the case but I seriously doubt that it will happen. We are hooked, plain and simple. We know what we want and we will try to find a way to get it until the day we can't. Let's start thinking about an identity for a new stingy (and green) society. It will have to be invented from scratch. It has been a long time since it was last needed.

What "Lower Consumption" Means

[Link: The Oil Drum: Campfire | What "Lower Consumption" Means] "The fevered frenzy of Industrial Civilization’s resource consumption appears to have finally reached its apex and begun its decline in this, the first decade of the twenty-first century. A closer look at the physical realities of resource extraction reveals that the resource situation is, in fact, terminal for our high-consumin’ civilization. Resource depletion is a predicament requiring adaptation to an entirely new low-consumption paradigm, rather than a problem to be solved with technological or social solutions. As a country, we need to start the conversation about what a lower-consumption, resource-poor society would look like, and begin the appropriate preparations."

These are the types of discussions we should all be having today. You and I cannot be certain of what the future will hold. It is certainly possible that a new, unpredicted energy source or technological trick will allow us to move on into the future with our existing lifestyle. Possible but not probable. I don't know about you but I have been taught that to assume the improbable is normally not the best way to do your critical planning. Even if we could continue on, the earth and its climate seem to be telling us we can't anyway. I think that we are approaching a point of crisis in society. A point where most of us will understand in our gut that something needs to be done but won't really know what to do. It is thought exercises like these that might allow us to move in the right direction when that time comes.

Peak Oil: Global Oil Production’s Peaked, Analyst Says

[Link: WSJ]

"non-OPEC oil production apparently peaked in the first quarter of 2007, and given precipitous falls in oil output from Russia to Mexico, there’s not much hope for a recovery. OPEC production—and thus global output—peaked a little later, in the first quarter of 2008."

We are growing complacent about the resource situation, particularly oil. The disastrous economic situation and resultant collapse of oil prices has led us to believe that there is no longer an oil supply problem. It was all just another speculative investment bubble you see. But Peak Oil doesn't work that way. We aren't using as much oil as we did but we are still using a lot of oil. All we have done is take the pressure off of the suppliers and when demand firms up again we are right back in the thick of it.
This article from the Wall Street Journal says we have already slipped over the peak and when recovery comes we will be already on the downward slope. Trying to grow with a shrinking energy supply. It isn't going to be pretty.

The (Not So) Invincible Society - Scitizen

[Link: The (Not So) Invincible Society - Scitizen] "He reasons that if a significant portion of the complex, interdependent systems that make up our society fail, society will collapse. And, if that happens, it would be all but impossible to restart industrial society. He argues that industrial society relies on the continuous operation of these systems to obtain essential minerals from very lean ores using copious amounts of energy, energy procured using these same complex systems."

This little article makes a big point and one that has entered my mind on many occasions. We have reached a point in our energy use that the extraction of the resources requires a high level of usage of those same resources. If/when we encounter an interruption of the extraction process it may then be impossible to restart.

As the author reasons, the only obvious acceptable path is to try and reach for a sustainable model of living while we still have the resources to make the change. A sustainable model that results directly from a breakdown of the industrial system is probably not one we would want to have to endure.

Bubble Isn't Price Driver, Poll Says

WSJ.com: "The global surge in food and energy prices is being driven primarily by fundamental market conditions, rather than an investment bubble, say the majority of economists in the latest Wall Street Journal forecasting survey."

If you spend a little time trying to understand the dynamics of our population and the mechanics of our consumer culture you will have no trouble accepting this conclusion. We are beginning to test the limits of our ability to extract increasing quantities of raw materials from our planet. These limits relate to the primary capability of extraction, the secondary ability to convert the raw materials to usable forms (including provision of infrastructure) and the tertiary ability to deal with the negative ramifications of the raw material's use (global warming). These limits can only be avoided by reducing population or reducing the individual consumption of a vast majority of the population. As far as I know, there are no known political means to accomplish either of these effects. That leaves the natural method. It will probably start with rising prices for raw materials and products that critically depend on their use. I would guess that would be oil and food.

World Energy and Population

[Link: World Energy and Population]

This article is the first of two articles on global availability of energy through the first half of this century. This article discusses the actual energy likely to be available and the second article delves more deeply into the consequences of these trends and is shown here. This is not the only attempt to approach this subject in the popular press. Several writers, most of the peak oil variety, have done these same sorts of projections. Some of those articles are more strident than this one and I consider that a plus. We don't need additional reasons to fear the future. I like the scope of this presentation though, because the author has tried to isolate the effects without overly complicated or hopeful assumptions about future developments in the field.

With gas and heating fuel prices heading for the sky we have all begun to feel that something new and momentous is happening. When new circumstances arise unexpectedly, it is sometimes difficult to keep from looking for a magical cause or maybe even hoping for a magical cure. Forget it. That won't happen this time either. The best we can do is try to understand what is really happening. Articles like this can help with that. A rational solution can only be derived from a realistic perception of the problem at hand.

Global over-population is the real issue

"The UN last year revised its forecasts upwards, predicting that there will be 9.2 billion people by 2050, and I simply cannot understand why no one discusses this impending calamity, and why no world statesmen have the guts to treat the issue with the seriousness it deserves."

[Link: Telegraph]

I have actually seen a few articles in the media recently on the subject of population. It is about time. It is probably way too late in fact. As the author of this article recalls, there was a time a few decades ago when the subject was discussed but the moment quietly passed. Today we are not only neglecting to discuss the subject we are purposefully avoiding it.

The world is facing a myriad of problems today but most, if not all, of those problems can trace their roots to over-consumption of resources by humans. Even the global warming problem is derived from excessive burning of hydrocarbons and the subsequent loading of the atmosphere with carbon compounds. Consumption is, in turn, a product of both increased living standard and, most importantly, increased population. A few are suggesting that we should voluntarily reduce our living standards but not as many are suggesting that we should similarly limit our population in order to curtail consumption. In fact, it will probably need to be both.

Let's face it. Most exercises in population control are not only controversial they are actually unpleasant. Simply put, either less people have to be born or more people have to die. One solution toys with the very essence of humanity and the other smacks of murder. That is probably why we can't talk about it but it shouldn't be the reason we can't do any thing about it. That is because the other side of the coin is that we will all die if we don't.

We are how many we are essentially because of the use of hydrocarbon fuels, insecticides and fertilizers in the growing and delivering of our food. Without hydrocarbons we would not be able to achieve nearly the crop yields we have become accustomed to. But hydrocarbons are soon to be less available than they have been in the past. We must find a way to limit our numbers consistent with that reduction and/or we will suffer a proportional reduction in living standard. It is that simple. I cannot say that any woman (or family) should be denied the opportunity to procreate. That is what being human is all about. But I am willing to ask that everyone consider the possibility of limiting one's contribution to the human gene pool. If I were to put it in a simple phrase it would be: Have two if you must but one is best with the understanding that it is admirable to remain childless. More than two children today is unfair to the future. Even with this constraint it will be decades before any serious population reduction will occur but we should think of it as preparation for the real future. We will never again have the energy resources we have today. Clearly, there will be a way to keep our population in line with this new reality. It is up to us to make that way our choice rather than nature's.

Did Katrina Hide the Real Peak in World Oil Production?

"We also look at the question of whether the impact of Hurricane Katrina may have hidden the real peak in world oil production. We find that if an adjustment is made for hurricane impacts, the peak month of production seems to be December 2005 on a crude and condensate basis, and September 2005 on an all liquids basis. The higher adjusted peaks, and greater declines since the adjusted peaks, further suggest that we may be post-peak."

[Link:The Oil Drum]

This is a very enlightening article. It points out very clearly that one can't base one's opinion about Peak Oil on one, or even a few, country's oil production numbers. The production of oil is effected by a multitude of factors, many of which are specific to only one producer, and obviously can't be viewed piecemeal. I think that the most significant insight that this article provides is the clear graphical evidence that the powerful production growth areas are not keeping up with the multitude of declining sources.

Coal-to-Liquid Boondoggle - washingtonpost.com

To turn coal into liquid fuel it must be fired up to 1,000 degrees and mixed with water. Then the gas that's created is transformed into fuel that can be used in cars and jets. Unfortunately, creating CTL, as it is known, is a very intensive process requiring coal, water and cash. To wean the United States off of just 1 million barrels of the 21 million barrels of crude oil consumed daily, an estimated 120 million tons of coal would need to be mined each year. The process requires vast amounts of water, particularly a concern in the parched West. And the price of a plant is estimated at $4 billion.

[ Link: washingtonpost.com]

Does anyone notice a huge hole in this discussion of the pros and cons of coal liquification? The purpose of this new wonderful technology is to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, right? Supposedly, that will help us with our national security, help fight climate change (if we handle it right) and lead the way in our response to oil depletion. The only problems are water and financing. We have all the coal we could ever want. The article does mention in passing that the process is accomplished by heating the coal up to 1000 deg. F. However, where that energy is going to come from they don't say. Natural gas? More coal? Oil? Nuclear? Whatever is going to be used to heat the coal is either going to add back to our dependence on foreign energy and/or limit the net energy from the process, isn't it? By definition we don't have any extra fuel laying around or we wouldn't be doing this. And what about all of the energy required to catch and store all of that CO2? I'm sorry but I don't see how this is going to help.

Reducing your personal footprint while you still can.

Resource limitations and climate change are on the tongues of everyone nowadays. Most of us have a vague idea that we are facing some big change in our lifestyle sometime in the future. Almost nobody, however, has stepped up to the reality of that impending change.

Consider the conversations we all have about reducing our environmental footprint. How many of us really understand why we should do that? Most of our thinking is still stuck in the '70s mindset. We are reducing our energy/resource consumption to do our part in reducing environmental degradation. Wrong! There is little we can do to limit the environmental change that is overtaking us. We (humankind) will use all of the hydrocarbon resources that we can obtain and then some. The climate will adjust to that full load of carbon saturation by reverting to the searing climate profile that it demonstrated the last time all of that carbon was out in the open. No, you are not going to prevent that from happening. There are too many of us.

In fact, what you are doing when you reduce your use of resources is practicing. You are getting ready for a new world that is coming, no matter what any of us do. You are making adjustments to your consumption profile while you still have a choice. Listen carefully. This is not a temporary belt tightening. While you have time, buy a new belt. Better yet, learn how to make one. There are no significant new hydrocarbon resources being created for our next energy binge.

Those who are looking for a change of technology rather than a reduction in consumption are fooling themselves. They are still doing their thinking in an oil-age brain. We should not accept any technological fix until we can see it producing a viable net output entirely independent of hydrocarbons. Show me a windmill that has been built entirely from scratch using only windmill energy to obtain and move raw materials, manufacture the infrastructure and build, install and maintain hardware on site. We won't get nearly enough net power from that model to provide anything approaching the present Western lifestyle for even a fraction of the present population of the earth let alone the projected overshoot population that is set to increase into the future. Technology is energy. With less energy there will be less technology. With less technology there will be less energy.

So make your lifestyle changes. It is important. For you.

So you want to save the planet? What should you consider first?

When the OPEC oil embargo hit in October 1973, Rosenfeld did a little math. He discovered that if Americans used energy as efficiently as the Europeans or Japanese, the United States could have been exporting oil in 1973, rather than sitting in rationing lines at gas stations. The solution, he realized, was not to bend the Arab oil regimes to America's will but to end America's thralldom to them by wasting less energy.

[Link: OpEdNews.com]

I remember those days after the OPEC Oil Shock. Gasoline rationing, everybody trying to figure out how to save energy, Jimmy Carter's "moral equivalent of war" speech, all of those things. I did my part. I added insulation and bought some double paned glass for my house, even bought a cool little gas-stingy car from Detroit which is the worst car I ever owned, by the way. The double paned glass in particular was a direct result of the realization that, as the author notes, conserving energy is every bit as good as finding new energy or, more importantly, not using imported energy. My purchase was subsidized by my power company, acting on that logic. That is all good and society has used it to save a lot of energy in the intervening time period. I am sure there is much more savings to be made in that way. I think that to really deal with the energy problem that we have, however, we are going to have to take energy conservation to a another level.

Peak Oil, or more correctly oil depletion, by definition has one principle cause. Excessive consumption of hydrocarbons and the products that depend on hydrocarbons. Global warming is really just a symptom of that same excessive hydrocarbon consumption. Both of these issues have come to crisis even with the great improvements in energy effciency that have been introduced since the energy crisis in the '70s. Clearly a more drastic reduction in consumption is needed if we are to have a chance of dealing with these two problems. Consumption is the product of the number of consumers and the average level of consumption of those consumers. With that in mind, it is my personal opinion that nothing will be accomplished until there is real population reduction. I don't have any idea how society will deal with this reality but I know that somewhere down the line mothers need to have many fewer babies, and they need to teach those babies to consume less by consumming less themselves. I am going to leave that one there. There is almost no common ground in our society where that discussion might be held. Which leaves us with the other factor, consumption itself.

Like it or not we live in a society that promotes consumption. Consumption is jobs. Consumptions is sales. Consumption is the preferred social activity. Consumption is the economy, stupid. I am old enough that I was raised by parents who became adults during the great depression. Consumption, for them, was painful. Things were precious and needed to be protected. The less consummed the better. Somewhere along the line that philosophy has gotten stood on its head. My children do not consider anything permanent. If a new trend comes along, they chuck the "old" to make room for the new. This is not a knock on them. Society has driven that behavior down their throats. If you have the resources that is the way you do it. It is not just my kids. Our friends kids act that way as well. I will admit that, as a consumer, I am somewhere in the never-never land between my parents and my children. I tend to turn over my stuff and pursue the latest toys, but it hurts.

Is there a way to get out of the consumption-as-a-way-of-life mode of operation? Maybe. What would have to change. First, we would have to start looking at our stuff a little differently. We would have to put a premium on durability. The best stuff would last forever and come with full instructions for maintaining it with that in mind. If it didn't last forever it would have to be easily repairable and the replacement parts would have to be readily available, forever. And it wouldn't go out of style. Technical improvements would be slowly introduced after thorough testing and would really be improvements. Ideally, the old stuff could be upgraded. Hey, you might even be able to make it yourself. Taking care of your stuff would be important so you would only have stuff you really needed. In a best case scenario, the big stuff would be pooled with neighbors and family. Everybody doesn't need everything all the time. Specifically, since we are ultimately trying to eliminate hydrocarbon consumption, we would buy our stuff to minimize hydrocarbon depletion. The best stuff wouldn't require hydrocarbons to run it, or produce it. No plastics. Low energy, sustainable production methods. Recycled supplies. The best stuff is produced and sold locally. No global supply networks. In a word the best stuff is not much stuff.

Doesn't sound like a very good economic model does it? That is the rub. For most of history that is the way things worked, you know. It is only when the hydrocarbon wind-fall came along and allowed us to imagine there were no limits that this consumptive economic model could really take off. Maybe we can get back into that old pre-oil frame of mind. One thing is certain. The people in the yellow pages aren't going to like it at all.

In depth - Study sees harmful hunt for extra oil

A report from Wood Mackenzie, the Edinburgh-based consultancy, calculates that the world holds 3,600bn barrels of unconventional oil and gas that need a lot of energy to extract.

So far only 8 per cent of that has begun to be developed, because the world has relied on easier sources of oil and gas.

Only 15 per cent of the 3,600bn is heavy and extra-heavy oil, with the rest being even more challenging.

[Link: FT.com]

The concept of ERoEI (Energy Return on Energy Invested) is thrown around a lot in discussions of energy depletion and Peak Oil. Most of us think of it as a measure of the difficulty of obtaining the oil but its real importance might be its relationship to reserves. Think about it for a second. If a barrel of very difficult to extract oil has an ERoEI of 1.0 (ie it takes the energy equivalent of a barrel of oil to extract it) it really doesn't exist. There is no reason to go after it. In other words you can't really count that barrel as part of our energy reserves if we count the barrel we will use to get it out. Taking that a little further, we really should degrade all reserve estimates by the ratio of ERoEI of the oil in reserve. If oil is twice as hard to get out, it should only count as half as much oil when we add up our reserves. I am going to have to think about this some more but if I am right the world's oil reserves have just gone down a lot.

Running out of oil may not be the issue at all

Watson said other above-ground risks include higher costs of finding oil that could chill production and the lack of enough engineers and other professionals to replace the industry's aging work force.

"Above-ground peak oil will trump below-ground peak oil every time," Watson said.

[link: Chron.com - Houston Chronicle]

The shorter version of this article is "there is plenty of oil, we just won't be able to get at it so Peak Oil is a myth." I guess I am just dense but I don't remember anywhere that the phenomenon of oil depletion is only related to physical reserves or that it will occur without any difficulty. That is what peak oil is for Heaven's sake. It is like picking fruit on a tree. The first half of the harvest is no problem then you realize that those beauties up in the top or over the neighbors fence are going to be a lot more trouble than they are worth. That is when you leave them there and move on to the next tree. Unless, of course, there are no more trees. At that point if you want more fruit you are going to pay the price. At some point even that last branch may not be worth the effort and the birds are going to get the benefit. Those "above-ground" peak oil problems that he is complaining about are part and parcel of the peak oil problem.

The Olduvai Theory: Terminal Decline Imminent

Richard Duncan has released an update to his Oldavai Theory and it is much like the others. He has looked at recent data and it doesn't really change anything. In a previous post I explained my recent epiphany regarding the essence of his idea which is that the collapse of per capita energy availability (which can be considered a measure of civilization's prosperity) is not dependent on a collapse of oil production itself but merely a reduction in the rate of increase in oil production. Since this is something that is already clearly happening we are almost certainly in the throws of an impending descent. Read his report, we all have a need to know.

Mr. Duncan has released his report in the form of a Report.pdf, Figure1.pdf and Figure2.pdf

(You will need to have javascript enabled to view these files.)

Once a Dream Fuel, Palm Oil May Be an Eco-Nightmare

Link: New York Times

Rising demand for palm oil in Europe brought about the clearing of huge tracts of Southeast Asian rainforest and the overuse of chemical fertilizer there.

Worse still, the scientists said, space for the expanding palm plantations was often created by draining and burning peatland, which sent huge amounts of carbon emissions into the atmosphere.

As we desperately try to replace oil as a primary fuel for our civilization's transportation needs, this is going to be an ongoing story I'm afraid. Most high capacity agricultural projects are high impact operations. We have developed agricultural methods that are efficient and energy intensive. That is the way things are done today. But that is for food. The fuel industry is going to be added on top of the food industry. There will be no place safe from the gasoline farmers. Of course it will be an eco-nightmare. How could it not be.

Daniel J. Popeo: The state of our energy is dangerous

Those of us who are convinced that hydrocarbon resources are in finite supply, and that we might be challenging the limits of its availability, are often reminded of the many flaws in our logic. For instance, we are encouraged to remember the power of the market. When the price of scarce hydrocarbons gets high enough more will appear. The invisible hand of Supply and Demand will guarantee that we can produce what we need. Maybe more expensive, but there. Others implore us to take into account the force of technology. The ingenuity of man will come through as it always has. Like the market, when there is a need there will be a solution.

This author however reminds us of another way that we have misjudged our predicament. It seems that the energy is there if only our poor energy companies were not throttled by the powerful government bureaucracies and all consuming environmental organizations. In other words, we are not short of energy resources, we are merely keeping ourselves from using it. He doesn't mention that we have had a national administration in power for six years that came from the oil industry and instead of tearing down those impenetrable barriers set up by the environmental juggernauts that control our country's resources they invaded a weak middle eastern country to insure our oil interests there. He also mentioned that we have not built a refinery in 30 years. I don't think he mentioned, however, that a refinery was proposed in the western United States last year and it wasn't built because, after getting all of the environmental approvals they needed, they couldn't find anybody that would guarantee a supply of oil that could be refined.

He is obviously unwilling to accept any restraints on our use of resources that might limit his lifestyle. If he could just roll back those pesky rules and regulations he would get us all the energy we would need. That may have made some sense a couple of decades ago, but I would think that the immediate threat of Global Warming would have been a strong enough signal that, hey, maybe the environmentalists have a point here.

[Link: Daniel J. Popeo: The state of our energy is dangerous - Examiner.com]