Peak Everthing

silverharp

http://www.netcastdaily.com/broadcast/fsn2007-0922-2.mp3

One for the ipod, a 50 min or so interview where Richard Heinberg highlights potential peaks in other resources as well as oil




Richard Heinberg is a journalist, lecturer, and the author of seven books, including The Party's Over, Powerdown, and The Oil Depletion Protocol. He is one of the world's foremost Peak Oil educators.


About the Author
Richard Heinberg is widely acknowledged as one of the world's foremost Peak Oil educators. A journalist, educator, editor, lecturer, and a Core Faculty member of New College of California where he teaches a program on "Culture, Ecology and Sustainable Community," he is the author of six previous books including The Party's Over and Powerdown.

is_that_so

An interesting and very long piece . Although I wouldn't agree with him extending the idea of peaks to absolutely everything he makes some very sober, sensible points and something to at least think about. Lord Oxburgh made some similar comments this week.

silverharp

Ron Oxburgh seems to have done a complete about-turn on this subject. he was asked a year or so ago whether he was concerned about peak oil, and he dismissively sneered that it was "the most profoundly uninteresting question". He then proceeded to trot out the usual oil industry guff about deep water fields filling the gap, and how economics would save the day.
just noticed the bit saying "Lord Oxburgh is currently chairman of D1 Oils, a biodiesel company listed on the AIM market". That'll explain the about-turn then

Capt'n Midnight

what other things are running out ?

maniac101

Good interview. Interesting to hear someone address the issue of population growth in the context of peak oil (and peak everything). The demand for resources that an exploding world population will create, will force us to reduce our consumption, regardless of when peak oil occurs.

silverharp wrote:

just noticed the bit saying "Lord Oxburgh is currently chairman of D1 Oils, a biodiesel company listed on the AIM market". That'll explain the about-turn then

Yes, that does explain it. I was at the international Peak Oil conference in Cork a few days ago where Lord Oxburgh was one of the guest speakers. (Heinberg was also invited I think). Oxburgh's message was that we'll need all forms of energy available to us if we're to avoid or postone the crisis that peak oil will cause, i.e. nuclear, continuous and discontinuous renewables, and fossil fuels. In contrast to some of the speakers there, he didn't suggest that we should attempt to reduce our consumption or try to conserve the fossil fuels that we have.

silverharp

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

what other things are running out ?

I don’t think running out is the issue, it’s the effect of not being able to increase production of a particular material, for instance some of the rare earth elements used in solar panels. But who knows I believe there are developments in solar cells that use much less of the rarer metals.
One other one mentioned was coal where the standard line is that there is 200 years left, I think the sum done is divide the reserve by current consumption to get the number, but the peak in coal could be in the next 20-25 years and like any kind of mining the last 50% gets progressively harder to mine.

piraka

I don’t think running out is the issue, it’s the effect of not being able to increase production of a particular material, for instance some of the rare earth elements used in solar panels. But who knows I believe there are developments in solar cells that use much less of the rarer metals.

http://pubs.acs.org/cen/coverstory/85/8535cover.html

is_that_so

silverharp wrote:

I don’t think running out is the issue, it’s the effect of not being able to increase production of a particular material, for instance some of the rare earth elements used in solar panels. But who knows I believe there are developments in solar cells that use much less of the rarer metals.
One other one mentioned was coal where the standard line is that there is 200 years left, I think the sum done is divide the reserve by current consumption to get the number, but the peak in coal could be in the next 20-25 years and like any kind of mining the last 50% gets progressively harder to mine.

He also mentions a "peak in inventions" which I have to say I find very odd indeed. Considering he sees us as being very adaptable that is a strange comment to make.

silverharp

is_that_so wrote:

He also mentions a "peak in inventions" which I have to say I find very odd indeed. Considering he sees us as being very adaptable that is a strange comment to make.

I’d forgotten that one but if you look at it from dollars in and inventions out then over a 200 hundred year period he maybe correct. Again it’s not going backwards it’s just that each incremental improvement requires more time and money. He made the point that we are still driving cars that run on an internal combustion engine which is essentially 50/100 year old technology.
In general terms people like Heinberg and Kunstler are not scientists, they basically have a vision and build a case around it. Other writers talk about Hyper growth is possible and again build a case around this. What is certain is that there is a big dislocation coming as dealing with peak oil depends on how quickly it is anticipated, there is good evidence that we may have past peak or are very close to it

Capt'n Midnight

silverharp wrote:

He made the point that we are still driving cars that run on an internal combustion engine which is essentially 50/100 year old technology.

We are still driving cars with petrol engines that are far less efficient than 100 year old diesel technology. Even steam turbines back then were more than petrol engines are now.

Energy is the key to resources. If you have enough you can extract poorer ores. Iron and Aluminium are extremely common, it's just some ores are easier to extract. With enough energy dumps are mines.