Overshoot

[Mountaineer]

It seems to me that nuclear is the only option going forward.  Hopefully safely!

+1

... M

[Cortopassi]

Nuclear in some form.  I believe we'll figure out fusion in our lifetimes.

[Pointedstick]

Nuclear is another option Catton totally dismisses, citing safety concerns. Those concerns are real, but if the alternative is industrial civilization falling apart due to lack of fossil fuels, doesn't he or any other sane person think that those concerns might be worth accepting?

[MediumTex]

Nuclear is another option Catton totally dismisses, citing safety concerns. Those concerns are real, but if the alternative is industrial civilization falling apart due to lack of fossil fuels, doesn't he or any other sane person think that those concerns might be worth accepting?

I think that what Catton was saying was that if your only real option to maintain the status quo is nuclear energy, then you've already lost and you just don't realize it.

Through the nuclear power era to date, it seems like there has been a serious incident of some kind every 10-20 years.  When you extrapolate that going forward in a world with many more nuclear power facilities than we have today, you see a world with large areas that cannot be inhabited for hundreds of years or longer because of the periodic nuclear power-related accidents that are virtually certain to occur.

Then you have the problem of disposing of the nuclear waste.

And the problem of maintaining decommissioned power plants.

Nuclear is one solution, but it's a messy one.  Nuclear is the solution that Hubbert probably put the most faith in.

[Cortopassi]

Coincidentally, today:

http://www.sciencealert.com/china-s-nuc ... sma-record

and last week:

http://www.sciencealert.com/germany-s-m ... gen-plasma

Just like self driving cars, I think we'll see a lot of this tech sooner than we think.

[MediumTex]

If I could paraphrase, MT, it seems as if you buy into Catton's general thesis, even if maybe some of his individual arguments aren't perfect, while I reject it, as evidenced by those individual arguments not holding water to me.

All of the visual aids you introduced are pretty interesting, and they tell us a variety of stories, for sure. It's undeniable that fossil fuels are limited and that their exploitation has propelled human population and technology forward very quickly. But here's my general belief: as sources of those resources become scarce, their rising price and falling availability will automatically force a switch to solar and wind, principally, and others where appropriate (hydro, geothermal, biomass, etc). To me, this is self-evident: in every market, once prices rise, alternatives become more attractive and themselves develop to be better and cheaper as more people commit to them.

Can you explain to me why you don't think this will happen with energy, if I've understood you correctly? I don't understand why energy would be an exception to this general pattern.

Throughout human history, there has been this tension between the way God or the gods are projected out of the human mind as a kind of idealized and immortal version of ourselves, and the wink and nod most people feel deep down about the nature of God or the gods and how they can't really be that much better than us because we invented them after all.

Whether God or the gods are real or just projections of our own idealized version of ourselves, however, Mother Nature is real, and she does things that are truly beyond our comprehension and humble us in ways that God probably wouldn't think to do.

For example, Mother Nature has given us our organic form.  God may have helped, but that's speculative.  We know, however, that Mother Nature had a hand in it because we are part of an ecosystem and we can easily see where we originally fit into the food chain and how our organic form compares to other animals and the rest of our ecosystem.

Mother Nature gave us a special gift in the form of fossil fuel deposits.  Our raw intelligence, combined with such a versatile form of energy, allowed us to easily think of ourselves as more godlike than ever.  Look at all that we did with the cheap energy we discovered!!!  We went to the freakin' moon...several times.  We drove a car on the moon!!!  If that's not godlike I don't know what is.

Against that backdrop, someone starts saying that maybe the fossil fuels won't last forever, and maybe some alternative plan should be developed.  Most people just scoff at the person who doesn't understand how awesome humans have become, but finally the scientists say "Okay, fine, you want us to show that we could have done all of this without fossil fuels?  Fine.  We'll show you.  We're going to make a shitload of windmills, solar panels, hydroelectric dams, nuclear power plants, magic batteries, and ultracapacitors, but once we do you've got to sit down and STFU, okay?"

So the scientists got to work on their renewable energy/non-fossil fuel energy plans, and in some cases they did some really neat work.  What everyone came to notice over time, though, was that all of the scientists' energy creations had the vague appearance of a prosthetic device used to replace a missing human appendage.  None of the scientists' creations came remotely close to matching the elegance and versatility of the original appendage supplied by Mother Nature.  People came to think of fossil fuels as the hands of industrial humanity, and each attempt by the scientists to create a replacement hand seemed more macabre than the effort before it.  In time, of course, it became painfully obvious that the mind of humanity could not create a source of energy remotely resembling fossil fuels, but their pride kept them from admitting defeat and revising their cultural, religious, economic and financial beliefs, and that was probably what made it the worst for them.

Imagine Icarus receiving a call from the tower informing him that the wax on his wings was melting when he had plenty of time to turn back and think of a better plan.  Rather than turning back, though, his last transmission to the tower was: "Icarus to tower.  Got your message.  Melting wax no problem.  Will come up with solution en route before it endangers the mission."  That's hubris, and it's hubris even if Icarus didn't think of it as hubris.

I think that between our modern religious beliefs which include a God who is concerned about the behavior and fate of every single person, and our modern secular beliefs in technology as a potential savior for any predicament humanity may find itself in, we have turned into a species with a remarkably high and unrealistic opinion of itself and its place in the universe.  It's exactly the state of mind one tends to see right before a major "humility event."

There is something akin to a cultural membrane that covers us all.  It's very tough, and its translucence only allows ideas to enter that are more or less coherent within a certain predefined conception of who we are and what our place is in the world.  Most of the time, this covering is protective, and it's almost never outright destructive because, after all, it evolved as a survival aid.  Sometimes, though, it blinds us to long term risks to our own survival that the existence of the membrane allowed to develop in the first place. 

I think that Catton's analysis is just an attempt to see through that cultural membrane and clearly see what is on the other side of it.  What I think there is to be seen isn't so much death and destruction and an end to a way of life, but more the basic lesson that we are not God or gods, nor are we even on par with Mother Nature.  We are weekend guests in a hotel that has been there for centuries, and we somehow got the idea that we owned the place and could improve upon it any time we wanted to.  The real cognitive dissonance comes in trying to shake off that delusion and accept that, yes, we are a special life form.  We are very very smart, and we like to tinker, but we are relatively new on the scene in geological time, and one of the very first things we did with our allotment of fossil fuel fairy dust was to build weapons stockpiles for the purpose of killing each other that, if used, would also make much of the world uninhabitable for any life for potentially hundreds or thousands of years.

However special the species that does those things may be, it also sounds like a species with an inflated opinion of its own long term survival prospects.  Simply internalizing this concept and developing a healthy skepticism to accompany our optimism about technology would go a long way toward improving our species.

One of the most interesting manifestations of the hubris I am describing above is the belief that artificial intelligence is a serious threat to human survival.  I'm sure that most people don't think of this as a religious belief, but if you swap out "The Big Supercomputer" for "God", you will find that the concerns over artificial intelligence basically track the ancient tendency of humanity to worry about whether it meets the approval of a higher power (even if deep down it knows that it created the higher power at some point in its past), and whether falling short of that approval might lead to our destruction.  It's a really fascinating thing to see people be seriously concerned about, even as most of the same people scoff at the primitiveness of traditional religious beliefs.  That's Cargoism--the belief that technology will always deliver a solution, but also worrying that technology might become prescient and somehow find us lacking...and stop delivering that precious technological cargo. 

[Pointedstick]

So the scientists got to work on their renewable energy/non-fossil fuel energy plans, and in some cases they did some really neat work.  What everyone came to notice over time, though, was that all of the scientists' energy creations had the vague appearance of a prosthetic device used to replace a missing human appendage.  None of the scientists' creations came remotely close to matching the elegance and versatility of the original appendage supplied by Mother Nature.  People came to think of fossil fuels as the hands of industrial humanity, and each attempt by the scientists to create a replacement hand seemed more macabre than the effort before it.  In time, of course, it became painfully obvious that the mind of humanity could not create a source of energy remotely resembling fossil fuels, but their pride kept them from admitting defeat and revising their cultural, religious, economic and financial beliefs, and that was probably what made it the worst for them.

What?

Fossil fuels are not "the original appendage supplied by Mother Nature." That would be the human arms and legs! Fossil fuels are not especially elegant or impressive. They are simply combustible hydrocarbons you can burn to produce heat or rotational velocity, and with them, all kinds of other cool effects. Their only major feature is a high energy density which allows vehicles to have a high power-to-weight ratio. But that only really matters for vehicles that can't be connected to the grid while in motion (like trains can). For electricity generation, it's largely irrelevant, and once you neutralize the advantage of an especially high energy density, you don't really need fossil fuels as long as the economics of alternatives are sound.

Non-fossil-fuel alternatives are just fine. If you have a heat pump, you already have a non-fossil-fuel version of a furnace. Electric cars are awesome to drive and have far superior performance and handling in most respects, range being their only drawback. All gas-powered home appliances have electric versions that can be just as "elegant and versatile"--in fact more so since they don't have complicated venting and make-up air requirements and can't poison you in your own home. And so on.

Whether or not electrically-powered machines supplies with electric power generated from renewable sources are as elegant as fossil fuel burners does not strike me as especially relevant or even true. If they work, what's the problem? Replacing my gas burning water heater with an electric or solar heater does not strike me as "admitting defeat." I'll admit your position here doesn't make much sense to me. It's very spiritual and not very practical, but the matter at hand is entirely a practical one.

[jafs]

What I get from MT is that he thinks we have a mind-set problem as well as a practical one, and that they're connected.

And I completely agree with that.

[MediumTex]

What?

Fossil fuels are not "the original appendage supplied by Mother Nature."

But for modern humans with their expectations concerning progress and consumption, they are.

As I recall, Catton used the term homo colossus to describe the modern techno-centric human who is fascinated with ever-higher levels of production.

That would be the human arms and legs! Fossil fuels are not especially elegant or impressive. They are simply combustible hydrocarbons you can burn to produce heat or rotational velocity, and with them, all kinds of other cool effects. Their only major feature is a high energy density which allows vehicles to have a high power-to-weight ratio. But that only really matters for vehicles that can't be connected to the grid while in motion (like trains can). For electricity generation, it's largely irrelevant, and once you neutralize the advantage of an especially high energy density, you don't really need fossil fuels as long as the economics of alternatives are sound.

Fossil fuels provide about 65% of our electricity.  That's not irrelevant.

Non-fossil-fuel alternatives are just fine. If you have a heat pump, you already have a non-fossil-fuel version of a furnace. Electric cars are awesome to drive and have far superior performance and handling in most respects, range being their only drawback. All gas-powered home appliances have electric versions that can be just as "elegant and versatile"--in fact more so since they don't have complicated venting and make-up air requirements and can't poison you in your own home. And so on.

What your saying is the premise that we will be testing in coming decades.  I'm not as sure as you are.

Whether or not electrically-powered machines supplies with electric power generated from renewable sources are as elegant as fossil fuel burners does not strike me as especially relevant or even true. If they work, what's the problem? Replacing my gas burning water heater with an electric or solar heater does not strike me as "admitting defeat."

The problem is that renewables generate vastly less surplus energy once you factor in their cost of construction and maintenance.  Surplus energy, like surplus food, is what we use to create our culture and belief systems.  With less surplus energy, reality and cultural beliefs begin to rub against each other.

I'll admit your position here doesn't make much sense to me. It's very spiritual and not very practical, but the matter at hand is entirely a practical one.

If it made sense to you, you wouldn't be you.  Cargoism isn't a joke.  It's a very real worldview and it informs people's decisions in many ways.  Challenging it often creates the same sort of arguments and irreconcilable positions that religious discussions create.

I'm not saying you're wrong.  The cargoist paradigm is a common belief system that can grip entire societies as a response to natural resource constraints.  The problem is that it rarely represents a complete solution to the problem of a society that has simply outgrown its habitat, or its habitat has shifted in a way that the population didn't anticipate or plan for.

I'm taking what you call a spiritual approach to the problem because I am trying to demonstrate the blind spots embedded in a cargoist belief structure.  I've had this discussion many times, and when you don't include the human psychology and human sociology elements, it turns into a technology expo as a counterpoint to cargoist critiques, as if to say: "Oh yeah, if cargoism is so shorsighted, would we have all of this awesome cargo?"  The problem is not today's cargo.  Today's cargo is awesome.  I enjoy technology as much as anyone.  The problem is the future beliefs that are shaped by today's cargo, especially when much of the last century of cargo came from fossil fuels and the tremendous energy surpluses they provided us with.

[MediumTex]

What I get from MT is that he thinks we have a mind-set problem as well as a practical one, and that they're connected.

And I completely agree with that.

Yes. 

IMHO, the self-image of modern human societies is like a lottery winner who imagines that his riches come from his innate number picking ability, as opposed to just being lucky enough to be living through a truly remarkable period in human history.

The former self-image is hubris.  The latter self-image is humility.  I believe that the humility approach equips us much better for the future.  It can also lead to far more interesting insights about who we are and what we're about.  The ability to see ourselves as another intelligent life form (like whales or maybe aliens) might see us is an exercise that is well worth the effort.

Remember, too, that humans also have a strong tendency toward self-loathing, so we are talking about a life form that can be delusional in both its optimism and its pessimism about itself.  When it comes to cargoism and humanity, I imagine a group of nerds in a porn theater watching a techno snuff film featuring a robot committing auto-erotic asphyxiation using a wiring harness.  They might seem to be repulsed, but the theater would still be full for every show.  They would like it because it represented all of their hopes and fears about the future, while also giving them a good titillating scare in the now.

For those who might want to avoid the hardcore stuff, there would also be films with titles like Simple Mac, which would feature a dim-witted farm boy who thought he was a laptop computer containing secret code representing the missing link needed for the Singularity to arrive. 

[MediumTex]

When trying to put together a useful mental model for how energy sources affect human culture and society, cheap fossil fuels stand in contrast to all other forms of energy, including expensive fossil fuels.

Once fossil fuels begin to get expensive compared to earlier price levels due to increasing scarcity, they begin to soil the nest of industrial capitalism in the same way that renewables do.

Cheap fossil fuels are what we need for business as usual.  Natural gas will be filling that role for the next 10-20 years, but I don't know what comes after that.  There is also a lot of cheap coal still to be dug up, but coal isn't a transportation fuel.

[Mountaineer]

When trying to put together a useful mental model for how energy sources affect human culture and society, cheap fossil fuels stand in contrast to all other forms of energy, including expensive fossil fuels.

Once fossil fuels begin to get expensive compared to earlier price levels due to increasing scarcity, they begin to soil the nest of industrial capitalism in the same way that renewables do.

Cheap fossil fuels are what we need for business as usual.  Natural gas will be filling that role for the next 10-20 years, but I don't know what comes after that.  There is also a lot of cheap coal still to be dug up, but coal isn't a transportation fuel.

MT,

Just out of curiosity, what got you so fired up (pun intended) about this subject? 

I'm asking because from my area of expertise, there is not much I can do about it one way or the other; maybe that is not true for you.  Sure, I have opinions on the subject, but not to the point of obsession, and it almost appears you are heading toward obsession.  I'm only saying this to explain my question, not to judge you.  I have plenty of my own obsessions. 

... M

[MediumTex]

When trying to put together a useful mental model for how energy sources affect human culture and society, cheap fossil fuels stand in contrast to all other forms of energy, including expensive fossil fuels.

Once fossil fuels begin to get expensive compared to earlier price levels due to increasing scarcity, they begin to soil the nest of industrial capitalism in the same way that renewables do.

Cheap fossil fuels are what we need for business as usual.  Natural gas will be filling that role for the next 10-20 years, but I don't know what comes after that.  There is also a lot of cheap coal still to be dug up, but coal isn't a transportation fuel.

MT,

Just out of curiosity, what got you so fired up (pun intended) about this subject? 

I'm asking because from my area of expertise, there is not much I can do about it one way or the other; maybe that is not true for you.  Sure, I have opinions on the subject, but not to the point of obsession, and it almost appears you are heading toward obsession.  I'm only saying this to explain my question, not to judge you.  I have plenty of my own obsessions. 

... M

I'm actually accessing a lot of pretty old memories in this discussion.  I was pretty deep into studying peak oil-related topics in the 2004-2008 period and I covered everything very exhaustively. 

Once the effects on the world economy became clear in 2008 from even moderately expensive oil (i.e., $150 per barrel), I shifted away from thinking too much about peak oil because it became clear to me that our financial system would break long before fossil fuels would actually become truly scarce, and that's when I started seriously studying out financial system as a set of philosophical beliefs, only one facet of which relates to our beliefs about how natural resources fit into our financial system.

So I've got deep grooves in my mind when it comes to resource constraints and reconciling them with unconstrained human belief systems, but if it was ever an obsession it would have been in the 2005-2006 period.  Once I learned about Harry Browne and his position on the inscrutability of the future, I chilled out a lot.

But I still like discussing it any time I can find someone who is willing to get up to speed and has a different position than mine.

To get the hooks in Pointedstick on this topic is like winning a prize in an Awesome Discussions contest.  The fact that I can see mental space in his own head that he hasn't uncovered yet (but which I know he will) only adds to the excitement of getting him engaged in the discussion.  He thinks he wants it to be simple, but what he really wants is to sink his teeth into the biggest mental challenge he can find with no promise that he will ever be able to digest what he bites off.  His only real fear is being disappointed that what he bites off is easier to digest than he imagined, and even bores him as it passes through his system.

But I've always thought that the peak oil/overshoot/sustainable habitat discussion was much better as a tool to learn more about ourselves and our societies than about the natural resource constraints that have been the downfall of so many civilizations before ours.

[Mountaineer]

When trying to put together a useful mental model for how energy sources affect human culture and society, cheap fossil fuels stand in contrast to all other forms of energy, including expensive fossil fuels.

Once fossil fuels begin to get expensive compared to earlier price levels due to increasing scarcity, they begin to soil the nest of industrial capitalism in the same way that renewables do.

Cheap fossil fuels are what we need for business as usual.  Natural gas will be filling that role for the next 10-20 years, but I don't know what comes after that.  There is also a lot of cheap coal still to be dug up, but coal isn't a transportation fuel.

MT,

Just out of curiosity, what got you so fired up (pun intended) about this subject? 

I'm asking because from my area of expertise, there is not much I can do about it one way or the other; maybe that is not true for you.  Sure, I have opinions on the subject, but not to the point of obsession, and it almost appears you are heading toward obsession.  I'm only saying this to explain my question, not to judge you.  I have plenty of my own obsessions. 

... M

I'm actually accessing a lot of pretty old memories in this discussion.  I was pretty deep into studying peak oil-related topics in the 2004-2008 period and I covered everything very exhaustively. 

Once the effects on the world economy became clear in 2008 from even moderately expensive oil (i.e., $150 per barrel), I shifted away from thinking too much about peak oil because it became clear to me that our financial system would break long before fossil fuels would actually become truly scarce, and that's when I started seriously studying out financial system as a set of philosophical beliefs, only one facet of which relates to our beliefs about how natural resources fit into our financial system.

So I've got deep grooves in my mind when it comes to resource constraints and reconciling them with unconstrained human belief systems, but if it was ever an obsession it would have been in the 2005-2006 period.  Once I learned about Harry Browne and his position on the inscrutability of the future, I chilled out a lot.

But I still like discussing it any time I can find someone who is willing to get up to speed and has a different position than mine.

To get the hooks in Pointedstick on this topic is like winning a prize in an Awesome Discussions contest.  The fact that I can see mental space in his own head that he hasn't uncovered yet (but which I know he will) only adds to the excitement of getting him engaged in the discussion.  He thinks he wants it to be simple, but what he really wants is to sink his teeth into the biggest mental challenge he can find with no promise that he will ever be able to digest what he bites off.  His only real fear is being disappointed that what he bites off is easier to digest than he imagined, and even bores him as it passes through his system.

But I've always thought that the peak oil/overshoot/sustainable habitat discussion was much better as a tool to learn more about ourselves and our societies than about the natural resource constraints that have been the downfall of so many civilizations before ours.

I get it!  Thanks.  I think you know what scratches my itch.  Just think of the parallels: "Me = you.  You (and others) = PS."  Resistance is futile.  And, I can hear you saying "likewise". 

... M

[Libertarian666]

So the scientists got to work on their renewable energy/non-fossil fuel energy plans, and in some cases they did some really neat work.  What everyone came to notice over time, though, was that all of the scientists' energy creations had the vague appearance of a prosthetic device used to replace a missing human appendage.  None of the scientists' creations came remotely close to matching the elegance and versatility of the original appendage supplied by Mother Nature.  People came to think of fossil fuels as the hands of industrial humanity, and each attempt by the scientists to create a replacement hand seemed more macabre than the effort before it.  In time, of course, it became painfully obvious that the mind of humanity could not create a source of energy remotely resembling fossil fuels, but their pride kept them from admitting defeat and revising their cultural, religious, economic and financial beliefs, and that was probably what made it the worst for them.

What?

Fossil fuels are not "the original appendage supplied by Mother Nature." That would be the human arms and legs! Fossil fuels are not especially elegant or impressive. They are simply combustible hydrocarbons you can burn to produce heat or rotational velocity, and with them, all kinds of other cool effects. Their only major feature is a high energy density which allows vehicles to have a high power-to-weight ratio. But that only really matters for vehicles that can't be connected to the grid while in motion (like trains can). For electricity generation, it's largely irrelevant, and once you neutralize the advantage of an especially high energy density, you don't really need fossil fuels as long as the economics of alternatives are sound.

Non-fossil-fuel alternatives are just fine. If you have a heat pump, you already have a non-fossil-fuel version of a furnace. Electric cars are awesome to drive and have far superior performance and handling in most respects, range being their only drawback. All gas-powered home appliances have electric versions that can be just as "elegant and versatile"--in fact more so since they don't have complicated venting and make-up air requirements and can't poison you in your own home. And so on.

Whether or not electrically-powered machines supplies with electric power generated from renewable sources are as elegant as fossil fuel burners does not strike me as especially relevant or even true. If they work, what's the problem? Replacing my gas burning water heater with an electric or solar heater does not strike me as "admitting defeat." I'll admit your position here doesn't make much sense to me. It's very spiritual and not very practical, but the matter at hand is entirely a practical one.

As soon as I see a practical way to store the energy from renewables, I'm sold.

Maybe Heinlein was right in Friday that whoever figures that out will end up owning the entire solar system.

[Mountaineer]

So the scientists got to work on their renewable energy/non-fossil fuel energy plans, and in some cases they did some really neat work.  What everyone came to notice over time, though, was that all of the scientists' energy creations had the vague appearance of a prosthetic device used to replace a missing human appendage.  None of the scientists' creations came remotely close to matching the elegance and versatility of the original appendage supplied by Mother Nature.  People came to think of fossil fuels as the hands of industrial humanity, and each attempt by the scientists to create a replacement hand seemed more macabre than the effort before it.  In time, of course, it became painfully obvious that the mind of humanity could not create a source of energy remotely resembling fossil fuels, but their pride kept them from admitting defeat and revising their cultural, religious, economic and financial beliefs, and that was probably what made it the worst for them.

What?

Fossil fuels are not "the original appendage supplied by Mother Nature." That would be the human arms and legs! Fossil fuels are not especially elegant or impressive. They are simply combustible hydrocarbons you can burn to produce heat or rotational velocity, and with them, all kinds of other cool effects. Their only major feature is a high energy density which allows vehicles to have a high power-to-weight ratio. But that only really matters for vehicles that can't be connected to the grid while in motion (like trains can). For electricity generation, it's largely irrelevant, and once you neutralize the advantage of an especially high energy density, you don't really need fossil fuels as long as the economics of alternatives are sound.

Non-fossil-fuel alternatives are just fine. If you have a heat pump, you already have a non-fossil-fuel version of a furnace. Electric cars are awesome to drive and have far superior performance and handling in most respects, range being their only drawback. All gas-powered home appliances have electric versions that can be just as "elegant and versatile"--in fact more so since they don't have complicated venting and make-up air requirements and can't poison you in your own home. And so on.

Whether or not electrically-powered machines supplies with electric power generated from renewable sources are as elegant as fossil fuel burners does not strike me as especially relevant or even true. If they work, what's the problem? Replacing my gas burning water heater with an electric or solar heater does not strike me as "admitting defeat." I'll admit your position here doesn't make much sense to me. It's very spiritual and not very practical, but the matter at hand is entirely a practical one.

As soon as I see a practical way to store the energy from renewables, I'm sold.

Maybe Heinlein was right in Friday that whoever figures that out will end up owning the entire solar system.

I think you have the answer to the problem.  We just need infinitesimally small "batteries" that store infinitely large quantities of energy.  Or infinitesimally small power generating sources to carry around in our pockets.  Beam me up, Scotty. 

... M

[MediumTex]

What?

Fossil fuels are not "the original appendage supplied by Mother Nature." That would be the human arms and legs! Fossil fuels are not especially elegant or impressive. They are simply combustible hydrocarbons you can burn to produce heat or rotational velocity, and with them, all kinds of other cool effects. Their only major feature is a high energy density which allows vehicles to have a high power-to-weight ratio. But that only really matters for vehicles that can't be connected to the grid while in motion (like trains can). For electricity generation, it's largely irrelevant, and once you neutralize the advantage of an especially high energy density, you don't really need fossil fuels as long as the economics of alternatives are sound.

Non-fossil-fuel alternatives are just fine. If you have a heat pump, you already have a non-fossil-fuel version of a furnace. Electric cars are awesome to drive and have far superior performance and handling in most respects, range being their only drawback. All gas-powered home appliances have electric versions that can be just as "elegant and versatile"--in fact more so since they don't have complicated venting and make-up air requirements and can't poison you in your own home. And so on.

Whether or not electrically-powered machines supplies with electric power generated from renewable sources are as elegant as fossil fuel burners does not strike me as especially relevant or even true. If they work, what's the problem? Replacing my gas burning water heater with an electric or solar heater does not strike me as "admitting defeat." I'll admit your position here doesn't make much sense to me. It's very spiritual and not very practical, but the matter at hand is entirely a practical one.

As soon as I see a practical way to store the energy from renewables, I'm sold.

Maybe Heinlein was right in Friday that whoever figures that out will end up owning the entire solar system.

I think you have the answer to the problem.  We just need infinitesimally small "batteries" that store infinitely large quantities of energy.  Or infinitesimally small power generating sources to carry around in our pockets.  Beam me up, Scotty. 

... M

I think that every human being should be given a bank of batteries to maintain with a couple of different forms of energy coming in such as solar and wind that need to be stored.

When you realize just how inefficient those systems are, how bulky batteries in general are, and just how narrow the band of useful voltage is in a typical 12 volt system, it can provide a whole new appreciation for what a gallon of gasoline can do.

[I Shrugged]

With less subtlety than my prior post, I'm suggesting you all might enjoy a different take on this, in the book The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley.

[MediumTex]

With less subtlety than my prior post, I'm suggesting you all might enjoy a different take on this, in the book The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley.

Can you share a little more about why or how this book might expand our understanding?

As I recall, the book focuses on "cultural evolution" as a path to future prosperity.  I've always reacted to that sort of argument by asking what resource inputs will be necessary for certain types of cultural evolution to occur.  Invariably, the answer it that cultural evolution works best with cheap and portable sources of energy available. 

The ecosystem is the hardware.  The culture is the software.  The software can only run as well as the hardware will let it.

[I Shrugged]

I don't recall the term cultural evolution being used in the book.  He discusses how humans, left to their own devices, have used specialization and trade to enhance their lives and solve each new problem that presented itself.  He says world population growth is slowing, and that this comes from prosperity and better health.  Crop yields keep increasing.  Energy is just another Malthusian non-problem that will be handled just fine.  Global warming probably won't be as big a deal as feared.

Another way to review the book would be to say there have always been doom and gloom predictions.  He reviews the history of them, and how and why they did not come to pass.  And, why he feels the same will hold in the future.

Lastly, it made me feel better.

[MediumTex]

I don't recall the term cultural evolution being used in the book.  He discusses how humans, left to their own devices, have used specialization and trade to enhance their lives and solve each new problem that presented itself.  He says world population growth is slowing, and that this comes from prosperity and better health.  Crop yields keep increasing.  Energy is just another Malthusian non-problem that will be handled just fine.  Global warming probably won't be as big a deal as feared.

Another way to review the book would be to say there have always been doom and gloom predictions.  He reviews the history of them, and how and why they did not come to pass.  And, why he feels the same will hold in the future.

Lastly, it made me feel better.

I wonder how it would have made the dinosaurs feel.  Hopefully it would have comforted them.

[Pointedstick]

To get the hooks in Pointedstick on this topic is like winning a prize in an Awesome Discussions contest.  The fact that I can see mental space in his own head that he hasn't uncovered yet (but which I know he will) only adds to the excitement of getting him engaged in the discussion.  He thinks he wants it to be simple, but what he really wants is to sink his teeth into the biggest mental challenge he can find with no promise that he will ever be able to digest what he bites off.  His only real fear is being disappointed that what he bites off is easier to digest than he imagined, and even bores him as it passes through his system.

By how well you described it (to say nothing of your posting habits), I must assume that you too suffer from a near-debilitating need to consume intellectually challenging puzzles to stave off boredom. I would love to learn how you deal with it without resorting to simple hedonic intellectually-challenging-puzzle-seeking behavior, since you are a much more centered and zen-like person that I am.

Back on the subject of the thread, I'll resume soon. It's been busy around the house lately with the new baby!

[Mountaineer]

To get the hooks in Pointedstick on this topic is like winning a prize in an Awesome Discussions contest.  The fact that I can see mental space in his own head that he hasn't uncovered yet (but which I know he will) only adds to the excitement of getting him engaged in the discussion.  He thinks he wants it to be simple, but what he really wants is to sink his teeth into the biggest mental challenge he can find with no promise that he will ever be able to digest what he bites off.  His only real fear is being disappointed that what he bites off is easier to digest than he imagined, and even bores him as it passes through his system.

By how well you described it (to say nothing of your posting habits), I must assume that you too suffer from a near-debilitating need to consume intellectually challenging puzzles to stave off boredom. I would love to learn how you deal with it without resorting to simple hedonic intellectually-challenging-puzzle-seeking behavior, since you are a much more centered and zen-like person that I am.

Back on the subject of the thread, I'll resume soon. It's been busy around the house lately with the new baby!

LOL.  Excuses, excuses, excuses.      [From my perspective, your priorities are spot on.  Enjoy the baby, help your wife, but don't you dare forgo this forum.  You have too much to contribute to the rest of us peons.]

... M

[Xan]

It's been busy around the house lately with the new baby!

Congratulations!!!

[Pointedstick]

It's a girl! Now we have the classic older boy younger girl thing going on, and can officially refer to "the kids." So far she's a pretty easy baby, much easier than #1 was at her age. Hopefully there's enough oil left for them when they're 50.