3 Cats Stalking

Food for the new world

A few years ago (not sure just when) Alice and I read "Protein Power" by the Drs Eades and adopted a low-carb, high-protein diet as our way of life. They also had a good discussion of the kinds of supplements we should be taking. I remember daughter Deb concurred in what we were doing and offered some good advice.

Though we have had our health problems, and we still fight weight issues, I believe our quality of life is far better for what we have done by adopting the low-carb approach. Fat is not the problem; sugar and refined starch is. We have essentially eliminated sugars from our diet, and we are avoiding flour when given the opportunity.

Over the years I have become concerned about the diet of the whole human race and how there has been a strong push to highly refined grains as the staples for the human race in the coming years. The health of the USA population with its tendency to obeisity is a good example of how it does not work.

I have also given considerable thought to just what kind of food can support 7B people in the future as our fuel and soil and water resources are depleted. That is one of the issues I talked about in my book, Was a Time When. It is an ongoing discussion.

There is a recent post by Tom Murphy of the "Do the Math" blog where he looks at the relative EROIE for various food types. His post was reposted to TheOilDrum, and it, with the comments that follow, are a treasure-trove of ideas, comments, and generally good information about the world's food situation. Take a look at http://www.theoildrum.com/node/9145#more to read up on this post. This is one of the best discussions of the whole issue I have seen in a long time.

New Good Things to Read

Not only did I recently publish my new novel, Was a Time When, but there have been several exceptional blog posts on the Internet you should all check out.

Crash_Watcher has a link to a really great YouTube video (34 minutes but it is worth it) in his blog entry titled Peak Fossil Fuels and Limits to Growth in 34 Minutes. As he warns, even the knowledgable set might need to watch it several times to get the whole idea.

Alice Friedemann writes in the CounterCurrents.org blog about Why Do Political And Economic Leaders Deny Peak Oil And Climate Change? This is one of the more complete reviews I have seen about why our society wants to keep denying there is a problem, and how this reflects back into our political system. Unfortunately, the wall that keeps us from taking rational action on the problems we face is pretty high.

Tom Murphy's article The Way is Shut in his Do The Math blog is a great summary of his search for some way to solve the energy problem of the future and talks about his plans for taking action in the future. You might also look at his past posts that study the various possibilities for alternate energy. On thing is for sure, liquid fuels are going to become a real problem since there is nothing that comes close to what we can get from petroleum.

In my novel I approach our situation as a given and build a scenario on what the world will be like if we essentially do nothing to solve our problems. Tom apologizes for using fear as a tool to get people to pay attention, but I conclude that unless people have some real idea about what life could become, they will simply say it cannot happen.

Read all these articles and my book. Then you decide where we are and where we can go. We really have few options, and they are fast disappearing.

And Tom's points about asymetric risk should be carefully considered. If you think we "doomers" are all wrong, and it turns out we are, you have not lost too much -- you will have spent less money and will be living a more conservative life. But if we are right and you are in danger, doing something about it now might make a big difference and you could lose a lot.

Think about the future and have a good day.

Sam Penny, the Prudent RVer

 

"Was a Time When" Published on Kindle, Dec 27, 2011

It's done, or at least the Kindle part is done. I published my new book last night as a Kindle book. It is available at Amazon for $3.98 and ready for immediate download.

The paper copy book will be available around mid-January.

I am very interested in getting some professional reviews of the book. If you have a blog where you discuss books or the fate of the world in the next 75 years, let me know your background and how to reach you and I will send you a review copy, either a .pdf or a paper copy (when available), free of charge.

For your information, here is my product description.

This tale began in 2006 as the autobiography of my fictional great-grandson, Sam, yet-to-be-born in 2015.

Sam would live through the greatest cultural transition ever experienced by the human race. I encased his memoirs in a short story telling of an expedition of Neu-human archeologists from a thousand years in the future, 3100 A.D., who return to the Pacific Coast searching for their roots. They find Sam's recorded life story and hear a first-hand account of the “Great Collapse” of human society as they had come to call it.

Sam Hardy's life begins at the peak of the tremendous spurt of technology and social advance in the second decade of the 21st century, powered by what many still thought at the time would be an infinite supply of energy and a stable world of commerce and trade. Sam writes the history of humanity's course through the transitions that result from expected natural disasters, resource depletion, climate change, over-population, and economic and cultural failure as his family and tribe struggle to learn to live in a new world of limited resources and crashing dreams.

There are many possible worlds our progeny could face, but in my mind the world described here unfortunately seems to be one of the more probable. My goal is to tell of some of the changes that can be expected as our society searches for its future, and as those technologies and resources on which our civilization depend fall away.

This is a tale of retrospection, as seen through the eyes of someone who lives through it and remembers that there Was a Time When things were so different. And yet, in Sam's final words, there is still hope:

“So this is goodbye. Maybe I have been wrong in my pessimism and damnation of humanity, and there really is a future for mankind on this planet. At least I have joined a group that is beginning the steps to future recovery. God willing, I will have the chance to watch that future blossom. I pray this band I join will build the roots of a better civilization than what my peers built for the last one.”

I will be discussing the book and offering ideas on other options and how to cope with the future at www.WasATimeWhen.com. Come by for a visit.

My Daughter Asked, "Peak Oil ... NOT?"

My daughter sent along a link to an article by Raymond Learsley at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/raymond-j-learsy/extra-extra-wsj-and-nytim_b_975406.html and asked me to comment on it. My reaction follows:

Deb,

The original proposition of "peak oil" began with a model of how the production rate of oil from a "typical" oil field varied over time. The oil field would produce more and more as more wells were drilled until it reached a point at which the rate of production began to fall for various geological reasons: dropping pressures, depleted formations, water intrusion, etc. The point in time at which the peak rate occurred was called Peak Oil. M. King Hubbert in 1956 proposed a mathematical model (the logistics model) to describe this behavior.

King and others proposed that the rate of production of a related group of oil fields would exhibit the same sort of behavior, and King showed that the Texas fields did indeed follow that pattern. Others showed that the North Sea fields and some of the MidEast fields followed the pattern. Still other said the oil production rate for all the world's oil fields would follow this pattern. This meant that at some time in the future, the rate of production for the entire globe would fall back to zero.

There were strong arguments that this would not occur because of the discovery of new fields and advances in technology would make up the difference. The view that the supply of oil could at some time in the future go down was discounted because a majority of those the oil patch felt that advances would happen faster than increases in the demand for oil.

In 1972 the book "Limits to Growth" was published. It described a model in which a rapidly growing population with a finite supply of resources showed that growth could not be sustained forever, and at some time in the 21st century society would collapse and the population would diminish to match the resources available. I actually worked with the World3 model during the early 70s when I was teaching System Simulation Techniques at UC Extension to see how the predictions came about.

Reaction to this book was very strong, and mainstream economics theory refused to accept that this possible course of history could matter. In 2002 a review of the original book with reality found that the results of the 1972 study were still on track. I believe that part of this has come from the recognition that Peak Oil is indeed a factor to be considered in the near future of our world.

Which brings us to today. The arguments about growth and peak oil are becoming louder and louder. And they are becoming more important and potentially earth-shaking.

Today the mainstream of economics is based upon Keynesian theory that has as one of its basic tenants the belief that growth can always happen. Holding up that belief is the belief that there is an infinite supply of resources. It is this theory that leads to the need to save the banks and provide stimuli to our economy. Those that argue against this plan also believe in the infinite supply of resources, and they say to let the market control everything, it will all work out.

Both are wrong. Resources are not infinite, and one of the first commodities that is showing this limitation is fossil fuel. There has indeed been a peak in the rate of production of oil, and that peak is reflected in the increased price for fuel. It will only get worse as there are more and more people in the world and more of them want to live like we do here in the USA. But to admit that peak oil exists means you must accept the fact that growth cannot continue for the whole world forever. That is why Learsley yells and screams and Yergin publishes his academic patter trying to convince everyone that everything is okay. The article referenced is pure, unadulterated propaganda, because if they do not beat down those who say there is a problem, someone may say something needs to be done about it, and the solutions are not nice.

Peak Oil ... YES, and that is only the beginning.

love, Dad

sam, the Prudent RVer

Archdruid comments on The Downside of Dependence

I have always enjoyed reading the words of John Michael Greer, aka the Archdruid. He writes about his views on the coming world, and for the most part, I find his views are close to mine.

His latest thoughts are found in his piece called The Downside of Dependence. He discusses the musings of Roger Kay in Forbes about the life of an intelligent beer yeast, and the writings of George Monbiot, often associated with The Guardian, about the choice between getting in a lifeboat of a sinking ship or going to the bar for a martini.

Greer uses the analogies presented by Kay and Monbiot to present his case for living a life that is less dependent upon the things around us. He talks about

"...the kinds of steps that leave people in possession of a home, a garden, a career doing something people need or want badly enough to pay for even in a depression, and other desiderata of hard economic times. These are also the kinds of steps that make it easier for people to offer help to their families, friends, and neighbors, to teach vital skills to those who are willing to learn them, and preserve precious cultural legacies through the crises of the present to they can be handed on to the future. That’s the payoff for living with less; it’s a lot easier to avoid getting trapped by the downside of dependence on a society moving steadily deeper into systems failure."

This is one of the calmer discussions of the whys for learning to live sustainably. It is worth your read.

Sam Penny

More On Predictions for Oil Exports and Consumption

One of my favorite blogger check-spots is Crash-Watcher. He searches in much the same subject area as I, but he has taken the time to build on concepts and theories presented for future scenarios and thus make some firm statements about how he thinks the world will look in the next 20 or so years. I believe his thoughts and conclusions are worth considering.

Most recently he has done a 5 part series looking at regional petroleum consumption patterns following Peak Oil, which he concludes happened about 2007 for the world. He has incorporated the concept of the Export Land Model into his analysis, and from my reveiws, he is closer to what may really transpire than most.

Of course, there are still those that swear that Peak Oil is fantasy and we will always have a supply -- though they are agreeing it may cost more than we can afford. My experience and scientific education just do not lead me to that conclusion. So I vote that CW is correct in assuming that Peak Oil is happening, and we need to look at its effects early rather than wait.

I suggest this as your afternoon reading plan.

First learn how he approaches the problem. Take a look at Estimating the End of Global Petroleum Exports Part 1 Introduction and Method

Next CW looks at production in the major supply areas of ME, AF and AP (Middle East, Africa, and Asia-Pacific) in his article Estimating the End of Global Petroleum Exports Part 2 Regional production, consumption and export trends for ME, AF and AP.  In particular, he is concerned with their rising internal needs for the petroleum they are producing. This reduces their exports at a faster rate than expected (the ELM).

He next considers the other areas of the world where consumption is king, but there may also be some production. These are EU, FS, SA, and NA (Europe, Former Soviet Union, South America, and North America). Read Estimating the End of Global Petroleum Exports Part 3 Regional production, consumption and export trends for EU, FS, SA and NA.

At this point in his series he has shown that though these last four areas produce some petroleum, they are are truly dependent upon imports from the first three for survival.

His fourth article considers how and when the exporting of petroleum from the producers to the consumers ends. One of his first conclusions is that President Obama's goal as stated in his March 30 speech will be a slam dunk. Obama said, "So today, I'm setting a new goal: one that is reasonable, achievable, and necessary.  When I was elected to this office, America imported 11 million barrels of oil a day.  By a little more than a decade from now, we will have cut that by one-third." If the trend for declining exports continues, President Obama may get his wish of cutting exports by one-third without having to do anything at all. You can read that article at Estimating the End of Global Petroleum Exports Part 4 future global net export trends. 

In Part 5 Predicting regional petroleum consumption in a post-export world CW puts down some dates for us in the more advanced parts of the world to watch. He predicts that consumption of petroleum (imports and local production) in Europe will go to zero in 2030. Africa will experience much the same fate. North America will be down 50% from today's consumption levels and falling to only 10% by 2080.That does not mean those areas have no energy supplies, they will just not be petroleum.

So learn how the future may unfold. Happy reading.

Sam Penny, the Prudent RVer

 

Another Analysis of the Export Land Model

Jeff Brown (aka WestTexas at TheOilDrum) and others developed a model they called the Export Land Model a couple of years ago to point out that the impacts of "peak oil exports" might be more abrupt than expected by most of the people who studied Peak Oil. The effect of domestic use by the oil producers could have a very significant impact on the availability of oil for export, and the timing of no exports from key producers could come sooner than expected.

The interest in ELM peaked and then dropped off as other events took the attention of many. Then Crash_Watcher published a series of three reports on ELM, starting with "An Export Land Model Analysis for the USA-Part 1" and continuing to Part 3. In the first Part, CW reviewed the basis and analysis for the ELM, especially as applied to the USA. In the second Part he discussed some of the more obvious scenarios that were possible, and predicted that some of the key exporters of oil to the USA could be out of product to ship within the next 20 years.

In the most recent Part 3 CW gets into the effect of EROIE (Energy Returned on Invested Energy) on this situation and concludes

Rather, the sum of exports from the top ten, as a group, are on a steady -6%/yr decline until hitting zero net exports in 2027.  At this point, I assume that the USA is on its own and now is forced to live within it own means of producing petroleum.  But by then, the ERoEI is headed toward 2:1 and by 2030, the USA’s predicted effective consumption is predicted to equal about 1 bbs/yr.  That’s about half of the USA’s production rate of 2 bbs/yr—at a ratio of 2:1, the other half is expended on production.  Thereafter, if the ERoEI stabilized at 2:1, and if the USA didn’t export any petroleum, then US consumption would also stabilize at about 1 bbs/yr.

Since today the USA is using about 6.3 bbs/yr, this is a sizeable drop in the next 16 years. CW says he will "give a summary of the results of this analysis and discuss what implications this has for the USA and globally" in Part 4, yet to be published.

I suggest you go read the first three Parts and comment to CW about what you see of his analysis. And be there to see his final conclusions.

Recommended Reading for 2011

As the new year progresses, a few of those who worry and wonder where our world will go -- a few who engage in what I call futures study. But I have the feeling that not enough people are worrying, and wondering. They are somehow assured that "why worry, everything will be just fine."

I stand accused of being a nasty doomer by some, in part because I believe more people should join the ranks of those who worry and wonder. To help in that recruitment, I suggest my reading list on the Internet.

Take a look at CalculatedRisk for a good daily blog showing a graphical summary of the world of finance and economics. CR avoids the standard set of crap that comes from the MSM (Main Stream Media) and presents the pertinent information of the day in a standardized set of graphs that shows history as well as trends. He is refreshing in his candor and common sense.

Ilargi and Stoneleigh of the AutomaticEarth provide an near-doomer news summary about the financial state of our country and the rest of the world. At times their blog is hard to take because it is so down, but they do bring together a fine collection of the current news stories that reflects their concerns about the near future of our economy. On the right side of the page is a listing of their most recent posts. It is worthwhile going back over the more recent issues to catch up on what is happening.

I am concerned with Peak Resources, and the Peak Oil blog provides a good selection of the latest discussions of the associated issues. One of the more recent references is to an article by Peter Russell entitled "Is Sustainable Development Compatible with Western Civilization?" that I found to be very much to the point of where do we go from here.

For a summary of the latest thoughts on Oil and Energy in general, I recommend a daily scan of the DrumBeat by Leannan at The Oil Drum. This is intermixed with technical analyses of various subjects concerning the oil patch written by working geologists and petroleum engineers.

While I have been receiving some good reports from Agora, I have tired of having so many attempts to sell subscriptions to their newsletters that I do not include them in my recommendations. Besides, I am not in the business of buying and selling stocks and bonds right now. Check them out on Google if you can take the sales chatter.

I do suggest you sign up for John Mauldin's free newsletter. His thoughts on a variety of subjects are clear and well written. While I do not always agree with his conclusions, I do enjoy his analyses.

For those of you who enjoy the more technical side of meteorology, I recommend Jeff Masters' blog at the Weather Underground. It is especially useful during the hurricane season.

So, make a habit of perusing each of these sources at least once a week. Drop me a comment if you want to talk about any of them. And try to recruit others to worry and wonder about just where we are going, and how we will get there. We need more people who study the future.

sam

On Trusting Economic 'Experts' on the Future of Energy Supplies

I have a dilemma. My intellectual background is rooted in the American educational system. I learned early to listen to what the experts had to say and to believe. Since my own field of expertise became physics and engineering and computer science, I have developed a strong bias to believing the world is what the other engineers and physicists and computer scientists say it is. The educational level and experience of the 'experts' in those physical sciences matter.

My dilemma is that when I try to apply the rules of intellectual expertise to other disciplines, too many times I cannot trust those other experts. Take for instance, economics, where self-proclaimed experts in that field comment on the physical world of which I have long-time experience. Too much of the time their background and education levels in economics does not seem to be correlated with an understanding of the real world. So, after 70-plus years of trying to bridge the gap between soft-science experts and physical-science experts, I have concluded that the majority of economists in particular believe in a web of pseudo-science that allows them to ignore the fundamentals of the physical world. They are too often following the teachings of someone from long ago who did not have the oppportunity to consider the limits of the world we now live in.

My dilemma really hurts when I discuss issues of energy supplies with other physical scientist/engineers who apparently have complete faith in the conclusions of the economic experts.

Most of the current economic theory is based upon an assumption of limitless resources. Therefore, they can forecast limitless growth. But in the physical science of medicine, we know that when the bacteria in a petri dish consume all the food there is, they all die. The explosive growth of the colony of bacteria ensures its demise.

There are a few mavericks in the economic arena who are working on theories of how an economy survives when there are limits on growth, and their studies will soon become most important. Until then, I don't trust most of the economic experts who tell the world there is nothing to worry about on the future of energy supplies.

It goes by several labels, but the one I learned about a few years ago was Peak Oil. Now it is upon us.

 

A Warning About Networked Resources

I draw your attention to a post by aeldric in The Oil Drum: Australia/New Zealand entitled

The Networking of Resource Production: Do the Networks Give us Warnings when They are About to Fail?

This is an excellent post discussing how different resources are networked. For instance, it requires oil to mine coal or aluminum. The inter-relationships between the different resources make it extremely difficult to recognize when shortages are about to become critical. And when they do become critical, they can seriously alter the functioning of the world's economy.

The post provides a simple explanation for the networking that exists and how this can lead to problems in the future. I found the comments to also be engaging and helpful.

I recommend you read this article and consider what it is saying about our future, and when that future may happen.

Sam Penny, the Prudent RVer