Peak Oil, Resource Depletion, deminishing EROEI and the long term implications for the continued development of China...

[solarz]

Not going so strong considering the pending disasters relating to water, energy, material, food, pollution, waste, and the politics + warfare that are a consequence of these things.

You're saying that as if there weren't wars and natural disasters back when the human population was much lower.

In fact, contrary to what treehuggers believe, it's fair to say that, historically, the lower the global human population, the worse the living standards of individual human beings were.

There is zero scientific basis to claim that the Earth is overpopulated right now.

 

[ougoah]

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This morning I saw an article on RT talking about how all the digital cryptocurrencies in existence today if added up amount to about 2 trillion dollars market cap.

While blockchain is indeed a novel technology, bitcoin and all other cryptocurrencies are all at their core nothing more than distributed peer to peer digital general ledgers. They are nothing more than merely glorified bookkeeping entries in the digital age, where the verification of transactions is distributed and stored amongst nodes (multiple independent CPU/process/computers) and the communication/transfer of that money is done by leveraging the Internet for transport of information.

The invention of bitcoin and all other digital cryptocurrencies does absolutely nothing to increase the energy/resources on earth, and the digital "mining" of more of these new cryptocurrency coins does not produce nor unlock any additional energy/resources for our use. Unlike mining for coal or mining for uranium in which we expend real energy in order to get a positive return on that energy (when we use coal to power electricity plants or uranium/etc to power nuclear plants etc) the mining of bitcoin also expends real energy (worldwide more than the energy consumed by some small nations in fact) but whilst producing absolutely ZERO energy in return!

In fact bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are pure net energy sinks in that they consume lots of real energy (in fact the hash difficulty increases exponentially!) without producing any useable energy in return! Even the ethanol scam of basically converting oil to corn and then reconverting that corn back to fuel produces some energy in return although it is a net energy sink, but bitcoin is a pure scam in the sense that it uses up lots of real energy and produces absolutely zero energy /resources in return!

In fact all bitcoin serves to do is dilute the supply of all the already existing total monies already in circulation and thus thereby devaluing the purchasing power of all other currencies...

In this regard bitcoin is exactly like the Tulip mania of the 1600's in which at the peak a single tulip (or rather even a tulip future/contract) could fetch an entire house! Obviously the tulip didn't make society wealthier, it was just a speculation/hype instrument used in the pyramid scheme and that is what we are doing right now with bitcoin... Bitcoin will never make society wealthier and all it ever does is a reallocation/transfer of wealth from future suckers aka bag holders to those who got in earlier than them, a classic multilevel pyramid scheme...

But bitcoin also serves to mask the symptoms of the infinite printing of fiat currency and it is meant to forestall the impeding implosion of the US dollar... as more and more suckers become digital millionaires or even cryptobillionaries via the rise of bitcoin and other alt coins, like all pyramid schemes it encourages the latecomers, the average everyday joe six packs to forego spending their dollars and "invest" them into bitcoin, having the net effect in society of discouraging real consumption and encouraging holding phantom wealth that will disappear once the elites have converted all their dollars into other real assets like gold, silver, land, buying up other real commodities and real assets while the average joe is "HOLDDING" a bunch of worthless digital coins that can be bubble popped at moment’s notice by something as simple as NSA releasing a long held zero-day or secret vulnerability in the blockchain security cipher...

Gold was created in the belly of a dying star during its supernova.... we cannot create gold. (we can in very tiny amounts using particle accelerators but that’s like saying sending trash into space is a way to solve the landfill problem here on earth) however those that say bitcoin is capped at 21 million total bitcoins and thus this is what defines its "value" do not realize that bitcoin has NO intrinsic value whatsoever as a digital distributed bookkeeping entry and that in fact right now its speculative value is only propped up by the "social networking effect" and in reality there is no limit to the infinite number of other alt coins that can be created based on the same underlining blockchain protocol....

Bitcoin is just the newest kid on the block and I believe its purpose is to be a absorber of excess USD and to create a culture of "investing" into this intrinsically worthless scheme in order to mask the USD QE infinity problem of hyperinflation and to suck up the excess dollars whereby creating the sort of lock-in effect of artificially encouraging the common everyday sheeple to voluntarily and unwittingly forego purchasing/consumption of real goods/products and thus hiding the peak oil / supply chain problems by via global "demand destruction" as the bitcoin ponzi grows ever more exponentially larger...

Rich people "invest" most of their money and only consume a tiny fraction of their income as the 99.99% of it is disposable money they will never spend/convert to actual resources... the problem is but as we slide down the slope of Olduvia Gorge and fall off the EROEI energy cliff it will also require and also take the masses to also reduce their real consumption in order to adjust to this new world order of scarcity for all... and what better way to have vaccine passports and COVID shutdown as the reset/circuit breakers in a post-PeakOil world, after all when push comes to shove would you rather use oil to grow food or use oil for overseas trips and cruise vacations? The elites of the world cannot just openly admit to this new reality so they have to take advantage of the 'crisis' in order to reshape the postPeakOil world and I believe bitcoin is another fabrication for the purpose of cleverly getting the masses/sheeple to willingly defer consumption and to "invest" in this new scheme thereby masking (for now) the collapse in real standards of living and the reduction in worldwide CONsumption...

Isn't printing fiat also consuming energy? Okay sure if the hyperinflation hits and the RMB and Euro take over the full slice of the pie, you'll need to add a few zeros to those notes or print 100 more of them, but surely bitcoin mining is no more a net energy sink than alternatives.

 

[ougoah]

You're saying that as if there weren't wars and natural disasters back when the human population was much lower.

In fact, contrary to what treehuggers believe, it's fair to say that, historically, the lower the global human population, the worse the living standards of individual human beings were.

There is zero scientific basis to claim that the Earth is overpopulated right now.

I never denied that. I'm saying more population contribute to more wars and natural disaster among other issues.

Yeah but that's strawmanning isn't it? I'm not advocating for a TINY human population. Only saying that exponential growth is unsustainable and compounding the problems that were already around.

Depends what we mean and define as overpopulated. I'd say we are if we're going to bring the other 6 billion or so out of poverty and lift their standards to western ones.

 

[solarz]

I never denied that. I'm saying more population contribute to more wars and natural disaster among other issues.

Yeah but that's strawmanning isn't it? I'm not advocating for a TINY human population. Only saying that exponential growth is unsustainable and compounding the problems that were already around.

Depends what we mean and define as overpopulated. I'd say we are if we're going to bring the other 6 billion or so out of poverty and lift their standards to western ones.

What exponential growth? As we've seen clearly over the past century, when a society reaches a certain economic level, fertility rate naturally declines. You could, in fact, say that fertility is inversely proportional to life expectancy.

Why do you believe having 8 billion people all living at the equivalent of current first world standards will result in overpopulation? Do you have any data to support that contention?

Why not ask yourself who benefits from this kind of doomsday scenario and so-called "environmentalism"?

 

[ougoah]

What exponential growth? As we've seen clearly over the past century, when a society reaches a certain economic level, fertility rate naturally declines. You could, in fact, say that fertility is inversely proportional to life expectancy.

Why do you believe having 8 billion people all living at the equivalent of current first world standards will result in overpopulation? Do you have any data to support that contention?

Why not ask yourself who benefits from this kind of doomsday scenario and so-called "environmentalism"?

How much of the global population has reached that certain point? China's recently done it and that's a lot of people under that umbrella sure but the rest are exponential rise. Fertility is inversely proportional to life expectancy in the developed world and China (not calling it developed yet). In the rest, it isn't. Fertility is still as it has always been but life expectancy has steadily improved throughout the 20th century everywhere (not counting effect of wars).

Because I believe just the 2 billion or so contribute enough at the current moment to factors that undermine future ability to sustain this many people. These include but not limited to climate change, increased consumption of energy and material resources, increased pollution (because plastic accumulates rather than magically disappear) and I'm too tired to present the data but they are abundant and most are self evident and obvious like pollution. I'd challenge you to present data that even suggests technologies like coal plant scrubbers, carbon collectors, floating plastic waste collectors and all that stuff is enough to offset the living standard costs created by the 2 billion. My definition of overpopulation is a level at which whatever current global status quo creates unsustainable damage to future wellbeing. It's broad but again it's already clear that we fight over resources. With only such a fraction of people at these living standards, the rest want the same. Can you prove that it can be had for everyone? How will we dispose of rubbish? How will we work out the politics that govern energy and resource distribution?

Fighting over resources isn't only done through warfare. I think you already understand this well by being on this forum. It's constantly being done from wallstreet to city (london's forbidden city) to washington.

I don't consider the present status quo to be satisfactory to those who are the have nots and don't think even keeping it like the way it is will be "okay". I don't believe these things are conspiracy theories or hyped up. While it's not clear the exact consequences and the exact timelines, ignoring the unknowns and dealing only with the knowns, we have finite energy reserves and unless Australia shares Uranium and everyone starts building reactors like mad, there isn't enough to go around. Same thing with water, arable land, and increased waste that's leaching back onto our plates.

I'm curious who you think "benefits" from this environmentalism stuff. It's not a zero sum game. China is proving it isn't. China is proving it is not an empty conspiracy theory. Why else would it actually have that much state sanctioned action on these things? Growing entire forests, renewables, EV. There's economic benefit but it also recognises the real threats. Trying and successfully reversing its own environmental damage while the Indian government does close to nothing to reverse the reason for people to burn rubbish to stay warm.

You think the western elites are behind this? Presumably so they can force the "lower" classes to accept changes in living standards and behaviour? Reason it out for me, I can't see it.

 

[quantumlight]

You're saying that as if there weren't wars and natural disasters back when the human population was much lower.

In fact, contrary to what treehuggers believe, it's fair to say that, historically, the lower the global human population, the worse the living standards of individual human beings were.

There is zero scientific basis to claim that the Earth is overpopulated right now.

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Here is a nice picture illustrating what a kilowatthour really means. In the US you can buy 1 kwh from the grid for say 10 dollar cent. In Europe it is something like 20 euro cent (26 dollar cent). Now imagine what it would cost you to hire a worker to pull a car of 1200 kg, using a pulley with a factor of 1:40, from the ground to the top of the Eiffel tower (321 m). Or like pulling a backpack of 30 kg up the mount Everest without a pulley. That’s at least a day’s of hard work or 200-300$ in money terms. This perfectly illustrates the huge subsidy modern industrial society enjoys while the oil age will last, which is not too long anymore.


Monetary inflation (aka diluting purchasing power) is a function of global energy sources falling EROEI... its the energy multipier that had provided society most of the "wealth", so as this multiplier advantage starts ever shrinking, so will our collective output/productivity and this shall be reflected in ever inflated prices for everything...

Even our food is heavily oil subsidized, for every calorie of food you eat, nine more calories of energy in the form of fossil fuels went into growing it! Modern food is essentially grown and subsidized by oil... how many mouths do you imagine earth can feed if we went back to nomadic hunter and gatherer society? Sure not 8 billion unless you jest me

Ever heard the concept of fractional reserve banking? For each dollar you save into a bank account your bank can create nine more dollars out of thin air, lend it to other folks and charge an interest on those phantom dollars. Only in an ever growing society dependant upon cheap and plentiful energy dense power sources could this continue to be sustained. As cheap energy becomes more scarse the entire modern economy model and system will implode, and we are already past the point of inflection...

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No need for false equivalency... the reason historically standard of living increased is because weve been able so far to climb up the energy density ladder, (wood to coal, whale oil to crude oil, etc etc) however we couldnt climb out of fossil fuel powered civilization and almost all the high density oil are gone

Population increase helped in terms of specialization of skill and economics of scale etc but that was all predicated upon not having reached limits of exhuastion of raw resources and energy sources... back then we never globally hit peak energy availability... like bacteria that hadnt yet outgrown its petridish

 

[solarz]

How much of the global population has reached that certain point? China's recently done it and that's a lot of people under that umbrella sure but the rest are exponential rise. Fertility is inversely proportional to life expectancy in the developed world and China (not calling it developed yet). In the rest, it isn't. Fertility is still as it has always been but life expectancy has steadily improved throughout the 20th century everywhere (not counting effect of wars).

Because I believe just the 2 billion or so contribute enough at the current moment to factors that undermine future ability to sustain this many people. These include but not limited to climate change, increased consumption of energy and material resources, increased pollution (because plastic accumulates rather than magically disappear) and I'm too tired to present the data but they are abundant and most are self evident and obvious like pollution. I'd challenge you to present data that even suggests technologies like coal plant scrubbers, carbon collectors, floating plastic waste collectors and all that stuff is enough to offset the living standard costs created by the 2 billion. My definition of overpopulation is a level at which whatever current global status quo creates unsustainable damage to future wellbeing. It's broad but again it's already clear that we fight over resources. With only such a fraction of people at these living standards, the rest want the same. Can you prove that it can be had for everyone? How will we dispose of rubbish? How will we work out the politics that govern energy and resource distribution?

Fighting over resources isn't only done through warfare. I think you already understand this well by being on this forum. It's constantly being done from wallstreet to city (london's forbidden city) to washington.

I don't consider the present status quo to be satisfactory to those who are the have nots and don't think even keeping it like the way it is will be "okay". I don't believe these things are conspiracy theories or hyped up. While it's not clear the exact consequences and the exact timelines, ignoring the unknowns and dealing only with the knowns, we have finite energy reserves and unless Australia shares Uranium and everyone starts building reactors like mad, there isn't enough to go around. Same thing with water, arable land, and increased waste that's leaching back onto our plates.

I'm curious who you think "benefits" from this environmentalism stuff. It's not a zero sum game. China is proving it isn't. China is proving it is not an empty conspiracy theory. Why else would it actually have that much state sanctioned action on these things? Growing entire forests, renewables, EV. There's economic benefit but it also recognises the real threats. Trying and successfully reversing its own environmental damage while the Indian government does close to nothing to reverse the reason for people to burn rubbish to stay warm.

You think the western elites are behind this? Presumably so they can force the "lower" classes to accept changes in living standards and behaviour? Reason it out for me, I can't see it.

Climate change: the biggest emitters of GHG, aside from China who is effectively the world's factory, are all developed nations. If you look at per capita emissions, the countries where you will find the highest fertility rates will have some of the lowest per capita emissions.

So it should be clear that it's not population growth that causes pollution. That is simply a lie.

Those who believe this lie also believe the corollary lie, which is that the Earth "cannot afford" to have everyone live on the level of developed nations.

Well ask yourself, what is the natural consequence of that lie? Are the people of developed nations going to downgrade their living standards to those of the third world? No? Then the only other possible interpretation is that developing nations need to remain poor and underdeveloped. It's like that time Western media, without any sense of irony, claims that Chinese people eating meat is causing global warming.

The fact of the matter is, China has shown in the last 20 years that you can tackle pollution and climate change with existing technology and the right policies. Air quality over major cities like Beijing and Shanghai have improved dramatically in the last 5 years alone. Desertification, long a ticking time bomb, has been halted and even reversed in some places.

So with the right approach and continued technological advancement, it is clear to me that the Earth can support far more people, living in a healthy and dignified manner, than the current world population.

 

[quantumlight]

Climate change: the biggest emitters of GHG, aside from China who is effectively the world's factory, are all developed nations. If you look at per capita emissions, the countries where you will find the highest fertility rates will have some of the lowest per capita emissions.

So it should be clear that it's not population growth that causes pollution. That is simply a lie.

Those who believe this lie also believe the corollary lie, which is that the Earth "cannot afford" to have everyone live on the level of developed nations.

Well ask yourself, what is the natural consequence of that lie? Are the people of developed nations going to downgrade their living standards to those of the third world? No? Then the only other possible interpretation is that developing nations need to remain poor and underdeveloped. It's like that time Western media, without any sense of irony, claims that Chinese people eating meat is causing global warming.

The fact of the matter is, China has shown in the last 20 years that you can tackle pollution and climate change with existing technology and the right policies. Air quality over major cities like Beijing and Shanghai have improved dramatically in the last 5 years alone. Desertification, long a ticking time bomb, has been halted and even reversed in some places.

So with the right approach and continued technological advancement, it is clear to me that the Earth can support far more people, living in a healthy and dignified manner, than the current world population.

Even if we solved fusion tomorrow and scaled up in a week, hypothetically....

There is still an upperbound to the energy cap that earth can sustain...

The issue isnt that fusion energy isnt possible, its we will never make the transition in time... big difference between what the earth can theortically sustain and whether or not we can ever get there in the first place before dieoff/collapse

Look at all the damage humans have wreaked ecologically to planet earth just in last 50 years and you think there is no scientific evidence of overpopulation? This is akin to climate change denial

 

[solarz]

No need for false equivalency... the reason historically standard of living increased is because weve been able so far to climb up the energy density ladder, (wood to coal, whale oil to crude oil, etc etc) however we couldnt climb out of fossil fuel powered civilization and almost all the high density oil are gone

As you rightly noted previously, it all comes down to energy.

The thing is, it is no coincidence that human technological advancement is directly proportional to human population size.

Because human beings are capable of exchanging information, we act more like a gestalt intelligence than a simple herd of ruminants. More people means more productivity. More productivity means more resources to devote into arts and sciences. More resources into arts and sciences means faster technological advancement.

Fossil fuel is by no means a bottleneck for human civilization. We already have alternative sources is energy in place, is just the fact that fossil fuel is still the cheapest option in many areas. This is just a question of economics, not one of scarcity. If society could transition from 20 cents/L of gas 50 years ago to 120 cents/L of gas today, there's no reason why we can't transition into alternative sources is energy.

 

[quantumlight]

As you rightly noted previously, it all comes down to energy.

The thing is, it is no coincidence that human technological advancement is directly proportional to human population size.

Because human beings are capable of exchanging information, we act more like a gestalt intelligence than a simple herd of ruminants. More people means more productivity. More productivity means more resources to devote into arts and sciences. More resources into arts and sciences means faster technological advancement.

Fossil fuel is by no means a bottleneck for human civilization. We already have alternative sources is energy in place, is just the fact that fossil fuel is still the cheapest option in many areas. This is just a question of economics, not one of scarcity. If society could transition from 20 cents/L of gas 50 years ago to 120 cents/L of gas today, there's no reason why we can't transition into alternative sources is energy.

It is not about price or just money economics. Current renewables are economically subsidized by governments and energy subsidized by the existing cheap oil infrastructure... once we try to ramp up in alternatives and renrwables we will hit the insurmountable scalability wall as it becomes more and more expsensive to continue the transition away from fossil fuels

Its not about just price but rather energy density and EROEI threshold... modern civilization requires a threshold of 15 to thrive...