Scary environmentalism

[BOD]

Can you give some examples? I am not querying the validity of your point, but I have come across few ancient civilisations in my academic life, and would be interested to hear of some that failed because of their environmental impact. Was it things like depletion of local resources?

I should have said communities and cities in addition since as well as the reasons for a civilisations decline are more complex. Secondly, I put environmental change as well as environmental impact togther as the response to either requires a change in behaviour from the community/city/civilisation.

Easter Island has been mentioned already. Some of the pre-Inca peoples are believed to have depleted or mismanaged their resources as were some of the central Asian peoples. The pre-Inca names escape me but the central Asia examples are Loulan (water) . North Africa is another wasteland caused by deforestation.Leptis Magna a large Romn city declined partly due to silting and a change in the course of a river. I beiveve that Zinbabwe deckined to overpopulation and disease.

I hail from a country Australia that has mismanaged its water resources and large parts of Australian agricultural land are affected by salinity caused by irresponsible over use of the subterranean aquifers and rivers. Not being able to cope is a problem now as welkl as in the past.

Of course there are examples of places that survived encvironmental change deforestation. England for example. Of course the technological cahnges altered that society

 

[jerv]

England is an interesting case. There is a revisionist environmental view of European history. In this view the massive social and economic stresses (also lot's and lot's of war) of Europe in the late rennaisance was caused in part by the fact that mediaeval population had reached the capacity of mediaeval agriculture.
The new world offered an opportunity for this large population to spread (the agricultural revolution happened in the 18th century).
Highland Scotland also gives us an interesting picture. In the Clan subsitence economy the population in the 18th century was as it is now roughly. I always think of the highlands being on the limit of agriculture and in fact the highland economy was concerned mostly with cattle and fishing (clever!). We can imagine 200 thousand people trying to wrest a living from the land there being quite a strain. After the '45 and the destruction of the clan system. land use turned to more profitable ventures such as kelp (for gunpowder).
Populations rose beyond the limit of the land and when the technology changed money ran out the potato failed we had massive famines in the highlands which contributed to the widespread depopulation of the area. If you live out of sympathy with your environment then bad things will happen. the mountains could support a smalll warrior society but not a large industrial one (even with the potato).
There are environmental lessons to be learnt from the past. the reasons why civilisations collapse may be very similar across cultures and time. What, we may ask, will happen to the middle east when the oil runs out?
The government want thousands more houses in the south east where water is already in short supply and there really insn't the infrastructure to support them. the technology (service industry) may be able to support the population financialy even though basic needs may be in short supply.

 

[torjusg]

Why would we need oil? For fuel? If so, modified diesels running on SVO (Straight Vegetable Oil) this is actually the original idea that Herr Diesel had anyway, the engine was designed to run on peanut oil so that rural farmers would always have access to a fuel source.

Full scale production of biofuels is harmful for the environment, because it takes nutrients out of the soil without the possibility of returning it. Natural gas is used for fertilizers today, without fertilizers you would need to either compost the pressed plants or just deplete the topsoil. Composting and returning it would more than likely be unprofitable and make for a negative energy return.

It is viable in small scale, where you can compost it and return it to the fields, but not in full scale.

Another point is that much of this land is needed to feed the growing population instead.

 

[Heathenpeddler]

What, we may ask, will happen to the middle east when the oil runs out?

I think we can basically write the end of life-as-we-know-it (not life per se - unless we manage to strip the atmosphere!) at that point. Does anyone here think that it won't be the 'western world' ie Europe and the USA who will be blamed when their societies(dependant on oil for decades) suddenly become impoverished?

America and her allies (ie us) are already hated and feared by many in the middle east and for good reason in some instances. With that background it will be easy to convince a people who have just lost everything that it was 'us' who caused it and the worlds biggest jihad will follow. And is anyone silly enough as to think they won't use nukes, chemical & biological weapons?

But the world will turn, even radiation fades. This world was once a raging inferno of molten rock and noxios gasses yet it is now our green and pleasant land. This too, shall pass.

 

[Simon E]

Full scale production of biofuels is harmful for the environment, because it takes nutrients out of the soil without the possibility of returning it.

OK how about this, genetically modified palm oil trees that thrive in salt water. Use solar powered pumps to irrigate the Sahara desert and use the crops from this otherwise unproductive land to fuel the remaining ICE vehicles, including diesel rotary engines for aircraft.

There is always a solution, there isnt always the political will to do it. Look at the costs in Iraq, imagine the leaps forward humankind could make with that budget.

 

[gregorach]

And where would the necessary nutrients come from?

 

[Simon E]

The sea water

Well, what do you guys suggest?

We know we are getting more numerous, that supplies are limited, lets have a little less pessimism and more workable solutions

 

[gregorach]

Not nearly enough N, P or K. By several orders of magnitude.

 

[torjusg]

OK how about this, genetically modified palm oil trees that thrive in salt water. Use solar powered pumps to irrigate the Sahara desert and use the crops from this otherwise unproductive land to fuel the remaining ICE vehicles, including diesel rotary engines for aircraft.

There is always a solution, there isnt always the political will to do it. Look at the costs in Iraq, imagine the leaps forward humankind could make with that budget.

The Iraq war is part of that scheme. Replacing oil with biofuels except perhaps 10% is impossible. Irrigation require a lot of effort too.

And philosophically, when we have outgrown this supply there, what will we use then? Anyway, there is the limit set to us by the amount of sunlight that hits ground.

There is no solution to this problem. As long as we serve the evil master of growth, we are headed towards collapse.

 

[Simon E]

Not nearly enough N, P or K. By several orders of magnitude.

Yeah, jsut checking up on N, seems the southern med is particularly low in nutrients, bummer! Back to the drawing board!

 

[gregorach]

Algal biodiesel might be a goer in that scenario, but it's a heck of an engineering challange just in terms of scale, and the overall energy return on energy investment (EROEI) is not nearly as good as fossil oil.

EROEI is the real kicker. Sure, you can use the Fischer-Tropsch process to cook up oil out of just about anything, but you don't get enough net energy gain. We're used to running our economy on an EROEI of about 100-1, and all the alternatives are worse than 10-1.

 

[Simon E]

Algal biodiesel might be a goer in that scenario, but it's a heck of an engineering challange just in terms of scale, and the overall energy return on energy investment (EROEI) is not nearly as good as fossil oil.

EROEI is the real kicker. Sure, you can use the Fischer-Tropsch process to cook up oil out of just about anything, but you don't get enough net energy gain. We're used to running our economy on an EROEI of about 100-1, and all the alternatives are worse than 10-1.

What is the return on Nuke? That has to be the solution, get the battery technology better and run everything on electricity.

 

[torjusg]

What is the return on Nuke? That has to be the solution, get the battery technology better and run everything on electricity.

I think the return is pretty good, but it is impossible to run everything on electricity.

http://anthropik.com/2007/01/the-worlds-biggest-machine-is-breaking-down/

 

[Simon E]

I think the return is pretty good, but it is impossible to run everything on electricity.

http://anthropik.com/2007/01/the-worlds-biggest-machine-is-breaking-down/

Yes, I think so, ICE only does the same as an electric motor or hydraulic motor. Does anyone know what % of oil is used for burning, either in a power station or ICE's? Besides, prospecting, building rigs, supertankers and refineries AND then having to truck it all over the place is hardly the model of efficiency.

I dont have a problem with oil companies, I'm not on the 'Its the evil oil companies fault' band wagon. I would be happy to see private money invested in Nuke and power grid upgrades than all of us breathing in poison all the time. The think about Nuke its a 'what if there is an accident' issue, with petrochemicals we are already breathing it.

There may be some infrastructure problems initially but its only a matter of having the will to do it.

 

[silvergirl]

Put it on a rocket that has a proven record for reliability (like the ones the Russkies are using) Aim it into the sun and forget about it. .

So having used up all the 'availible' landfill space on Earth. Why don't we then just jettison all our unwanted junk into space, as well, where it will never be a problem for anyone...... And here was me thinking that some of the junk sent up in the '70's and 80's was now a risk to space flights.

I'm sorry but I think we need to look seriously at how we live and treat this planet we inhabit. without causing further damage that we can't know the consequences of.

Scary Environmentalism?

That is I guess why things like carbon trading bother me. We can all still fly every weekend if we want and drive hugh gas guzzling cars, just so long as we pay some money to re-plant some trees somewhere in the world. Government, local and National and big buisness all seem to be jumping on this particular bandwagon and as far as I can see it is just a way of salving your consience about further using up depleated resources.

Re-cycling is given huge priority but the quantity of waste generated is still going up, packaging etc. This is largly ignored as it's OK we'll re-cycle. I think this is totally missing the point.

I'm no angel, I have a car and would be stuck without it. I don't always buy locally (food miles) I have a largeish garden and grew almost no vegtables last year. I tried one of the carbon footprint thingys you get and if everyone lived like me we'd need 1.8 planets. But world population has increased four fold in a hundred years and its not sustainable. Pandemics may check this temporarilly, but who wants to be the one to die? I don't want to go back to pre medicinal times when infant mortality was hugh. Battles over land and resources have always happened and they will keep happening.

There aren't any easy answers and as always we'll just wait and see what happens.

I'm going to have to go for a walk again, the sun is shinning and we've just had a dusting of snow, the first of the year so at least were not baking yet .

 

[gregorach]

What is the return on Nuke? That has to be the solution, get the battery technology better and run everything on electricity.

That's a remarkably difficult question to answer. As far as I know, no-one has ever done a proper full-lifecycle analysis on a modern nuclear power plant (mainly because modern plants haven't reached the end of the life yet). The nuclear industry claims a pretty good EROEI, but then they've lied / been mistaken about nearly every single other aspect of operation at some time or another and I simply can't take them seriously. At the other extreme, I've seen studies that claim an EROEI of less than 1 (i.e. it takes more energy to construct, run, and decomission than you ever generate) but they seem to be based on some rather questionable or outdated assumptions.

So I guess the short answer is "no-one really knows".

As for running everything on electricity... That's an astounding amount of electricity you're talking about. Even with a massive nuke building program I'm not convinced it could be done. I'm not even sure that we can produce enough steel and concrete to build that many nukes. As for how long it would take and how much it would cost...

The problem with all these sorts of discussions is that it's difficult to get an idea of the scale of the problem without actually running the numbers. I used to be a big biodiesel proponent, until I did the numbers and realised that there just isn't enough available space on the planet to produce anything like the quantity of oil we currently use. I've seen estimates that place the amount of energy we currently use every year as equivalent to 400 years worth of global net primary productivity...

 

[Simon E]

Silvergirl, I was talking about nuke waste, not old yogurt pots and the Radio Times.


It wouldnt be a problem if you aim it at the sun, once it gets close enough it wont be anything.

Greg, its an astounding amount now, but with increases in efficency, line loss, friction and sheer size of vehicles. What if all cars had to be made from Aluminium and all had to be 100% recyclable. At some point you would start to win. Compare an old Woolsley at around 2 tonnes to an all alu 4-5 seater. Ceramic bearings that are good for hundreds of thousands of miles.

How many workers in offices could do the same thing from home via telecommuting. How many vehicles are on the road each morning just to transport one person to work, where they sit at a desk and email the guy next to them?

Landfills are the embarassing relative of the UK isnt more rubbish put in land fill in the UK than anywhere else in Europe?

I know here in Japan a lot of stuff is incinerated (which irritates me, as a lot of it is just paper packaging) but we religiously recycle PET, Glass, milk/juice cartons and all other stuff.

 

[gregorach]

[...]What if all cars had to be made from Aluminium[...]

Then you'd need an even more appalling amount of power - it takes so much electricity to produce aluminium that alu smelters need to have dedicated power plants.

[...]its an astounding amount now[...]

Yes, indeed it is. And replacing just our current electricity generation with nuke is pushing the bounds of practicality. Doubling or trebling that to replace the use of liquid fuels is simply ridiculous.

As for firing nuclear waste into the Sun... Even the most reliable rocket technology available isn't 100% reliable, so once you start doing the thousands of launches necessary to get rid of even our existing waste stockpiles, your chances of a serious accident rapidly approach unity. Nuclear waste (the high level stuff anyway) is extremely dense, which means you need a lot of rockets to get rid of it (since weight is the key factor when trying to get stuff up the gravity well). And again, you're not asking how much energy that would take and where it would come from. Rocket fuel doesn't grow on trees.

Man, I was trying to stay out of this debate... Guess I'm not doing very well on that.

I'm not saying there aren't any solutions. But I'm convinced that the vast bulk of them lie on the demand side of the equation, rather than the supply side.

 

[Bisamratte]

Don't forget that we use oil for more than just burning, we make plastic out of it and when I look around me at all the "new technology" even the "greener" energy saving products have some plastic in them. What will we do when we don't have enough oil for this super green technology?

Wooden computers to control the machines with the wooden circuit boards to make plastic free save the world products? I really cant see technology improving our situation for long.

Just a thought

Andy

 

[Simon E]

What an utterly depressing topic, it seems to me now, that we might as well just join the rank and file consumer and just selfishly consume and destroy what we feel like.

I too hadnt really wanted to get drawn into this as topics of this nature rarely stay calm for long. I have said my piece and I will have to digest gregs energy info.I can say though that it has given me a much more pessimistic outlook and I am starting to question a lot of the things that it now seems that I have wasted my time on.