The Three Chinas

I have been travelling to China/Hong Kong for more than 24 years and the changes have been simply astounding. This development keeps the masses under control, but the coming energy price spike to come as growing Asian/Bric demand depletes the small cushion we currently enjoy will imperil stability in many , if not all parts of the world. I’m off to HK for two years in Dec, good luck to me I say! I will be watching developments with great interest.

Technical developments are just as hard to predict as anything else, nobody predicted The Internet, universal ownership of mobile phones, Television etc.
But from what I see I can easily envisage human tools that use only a small fraction of the Energy that powers our current devices.
Also if everything we built, our cities, houses, roads, captured energy from the sun then there is no energy problem, we just need the technology to do it and I can already see that this is going to be possible.

So the answer for both sides is do not buy a thing from China, India, Mexico and save the planet, they cannot expand at that rate without our custom (and it would reduce unemployment in the west)

To provide balance the post should have mentioned that global technological developments will make burning coal for energy a thing of the past.

The website http://www.world-nuclear.org shows China with 2800 nuclear plants by the year 2100.
China has built a new city whose entire productive labor force will be engaged in building modular nuclear plants.
The times, they are a changing.

Hi Thomas,
I would agree that if our current sources of energy remain as they are, that in short order we will have what you call an energy crisis; would entail unavoidable impact on our environment, whether it be climate change, increased pollution levels or having natural habitats decimated. However I’m not one of those that trust the answers will be found in simply depending on existing technologies as through conservation, increased efficiencies and converting to other known energy sources.
What I feel as being required is a total breakthrough in terms of science in fostering new technologies, such as in nuclear fusion, electrical storage, bio technology, long distance power transmission efficiency and sensible global plans for the reduction of urban sprawl. So the way to deal with the future is in first being confident that we have the ability to look forward to one, as to support a dramatic increase in relevant scientific research and technology, as to have us able to successfully meet these challenges. However the bottom line being the developed nations can’t just sit back and point their fingers at the rest of the world, yet rather understand they must lead the way in having it all to be realized.
Regards,
Phil

Going green is not going to provide the energy the future needs. Nuclear power is the only really reliable, plentiful source currently available. The safety concerns are primarily related to who has the material as most problems with earlier reactors were design flaws. The US Navy operates vast numbers of mobile reactors that are on and under the ocean that are mostly run by 19-22 year olds. They have done that for decades without safety issues.
The current generation of reactors is impressive and developing them will only make them more so. It should even be possible for many countries to develop large energy industries and export their energy to countries that don’t want reactors. France (yes France) is already doing that. They will make a fortune in the future with that model. We should be all over it and ship energy to Canada and Mexico.
John Kehr

Thomas, you are a gifted writer to be sure but please don’t give energy consumption in quadrillions of BTUs. It is a bit annoying I believe for most of your readers and for the rest it is relatively meaningless, like saying a whole bunch. Probably tons of coal equivalent would be suitable if your intent is to tell us how mind boggling the numbers are. You have avoided measuring sealevel rise in olympic-sized swimming pools, calving glaciers is cubic Oxburghs and sea ice loss in numbers of Manngavins and the like, I’ll give you that. In all such cases there is a bit of intellectual dishonesty. We are talking about inappropriate differences in magnitude – measuring the sea in swimming pools, etc. A pound of coal is 8,000 to 13,000 BTUs. There 7000 grains in a pound so one grain is 1-2 BTUs. This practice is equivalent to measuring the rice crop in numbers of grains!!!

Mr. Fuller,
I do not believe there is any need for a population or energy crisis. I do see that some would like to inflate problems in these areas for the same agendas that were behind the failed AGW crisis. We will only have a crisis if we manufacture one by intentionally ignoring effective responses to population and energy issues that are within our present economic and technological capabilities.
For population it is very obvious that the solution is wealth. Higher living standards lead to lower birth rates. This effect is seen globally. Many developed nations are now having trouble sustaining their populations without immigration. The solution to improved living standards is cheap energy. The developing world need all the cheap energy it can get ASAP.
For energy the solution is truth. The planet has plenty of hydrocarbon fuel reserves, and seems to be abioticaly producing more all the time. We also have plenty of nuclear fuel in the form of thorium. The only way we are going to have an energy crisis is if we manufacture reasons to restrict the use of these fuel sources.
The question is not “are we going to have an energy crisis?” but rather “do we want to manufacture an energy crisis?”. I do not believe we are going to have an energy crisis even though many people are working to manufacture one. My reasoning is that those who would seek to create an energy crisis are the same fellow travellers involved the AGW scam. As the global warming scam disappears, so will their reputations and influence.

By the way China nuclear plants…
See the pictures: http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/06/worlds-first-commercial-high.html
And search the Next Big Future blog for “China” and “nuclear plants”. Very revealing.
For example:
1. China has 21.9 Gigawatts of Nuclear Power Under Construction and More Nuclear Plant Uprates
http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/01/china-has-219-gigawatts-of-nuclear.html
2. Japan Steel Work Increases Forecast of China Nuclear Plant Construction
http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/09/japan-steel-work-increases-forecast-of.html
The country may build about 22 reactors in the five years ending 2010 and 132 units thereafter (…)
World Nuclear news has coverage of the Japan Steel boosted estimate and it relates to the prior target of 40 GW by 2020 by China which is now likely to be up to 86 GW or more.
Regards

Our technological advancements will completely change the game. Nanotechnologies will see a massive surge by the end of this decade making solar power one of the cheaper (and later the cheapest) sources of energy. Also the projected rise of the per capita GDP pretty much tells the rest of the story.

I would guess that you are correct in the growth of energy use. But I disagree with the concern you have.
For example, people say we are short of water. What BS, 70% of the planet is covered with water. It may not be in the condition or location you want, but those are just engineering problems.
We can produce all the energy we need without killing ourselves with pollution. we just have to get rid of this mindset that only sees problems and start building the solutions.
As a friend of mine says, “You have opposable thumbs, deal with it”

Oh Mr Fuller.
Crisis? what crisis? The whole essence of a crisis is that it occurs suddenly and was not foreseen although with hindsight it should have been. Was it Pam or was it Gladstone? I can never remember, who said all crises are the same.
Since you you are trying to peer into the future let me remind you according to Yogi Berra very wise people avoid making predictions, especially about the future. Less wise prophets are usually clever enough to specify either what will happen or when it will happen but never both at the same time.
Thus they like to say things like ‘I predict in the future a great bridge, ziggurat or some such will be built here’ but sagaciously forget to say by when. Others prefer to suggest that some great disaster will occur at some defined date in the future but equally carefully avoid specifying quite what this catastrophe will be.
In this respect you are as guilty of hubris and extrapolating meaningless numbers as the climate modellers. It is not possible to peer into the future thirty years hence with any certainty at all beyond some very simple and largely meaningless statements. Fifty years ago they tried setting up think tanks to supposedly do that, was it the Hudson Institute? and see just how wrong they got it.
For all the attempts of politicians to slow it down and divert the rents into their own pockets both the technology and the flow of information is now moving too fast to be controlled by the mass population manipulation techniques that have served them so well in the past.
What do you imagine will happen when the communist party loses its grip on China and when will it happen? The stresses are all too clear.
I do not understand your reference to Manchester or London assuming these are the English cities, as for Ohio I know nothing of it. Please expound.
Otherwise I do not comprehend your obsession with fossil fuel consumption, there is no shortage of the stuff: it has served humanity well for the last three hundred years and there is plenty more for many hundreds of years yet: and who knows where our technology will have taken us by then.
Kindest Regards

The population growth in China will likely reverse so they have a declining population in coming years. This is due to their one-child policy, lack of marriageable women for the number of young men, massive environmental damages from pollution/toxins and water and food contamination, among other reasons. Like real estate values, population does not always goes up. History shows that even the most advanced societies (for their times) have suffered calamitous events that reduced their populations by half or more in months or a few years. We are not immune from this.
As world population grows, so does competition for resources. As resources grow more scarce, wars will be fought over them. See: Iraq and Afghanistan, among others. Regardless of the other reasons for fighting in the ME, one of them is surely for the purpose of securing energy resources. Foolish, when you consider the reserves present under US soil (see: USGS for estimates in trillions of barrels/cubic feet), but I digress.
As resource wars ramp up, it is likely that hundreds of millions will die in the chaos, either as direct casualties or due to peripheral causes (starvation, disease, etc). With the weapons so many countries have today (plus the ones we don’t know about), WWIII will kill people more efficiently and in greater number than your worst nightmare of war could envision, using nuclear, biological and chemical means. There may be new weapons that employ even worse. I expect, when it is over, world population will have been reduced by at least half. Add in the potential for climate disasters affecting the food supply (already happening and it could start WWIII) and our near-future (next 20 years) problem is not likely to be overpopulation or scarce energy. It will be digging graves fast enough to bury the dead.

These growth figures presume that the industrialized Nations continue to be a consumer market to power development.
A bankrupt First World will surely severely hinder this.

America and indeed, the current industrialized world, achieved their prosperity on the back of one key ingredient – cheap energy. While I have no argument with the premise that Chinas one, two and three will achieve middle-class status, it occurs to me that they will need this one key ingredient as well and the basic premise of the article is that cheap energy will be no more. Or at least that what I would naturally deduce from what I know about our current ability to produce crude oil, our #1 source of cheap energy.
So I wonder if the timing of the article’s projections (2035) take into account that oil could well be multiples of current prices if demand were to out-pace production for a couple or three years running. Clearly, America et-al, (the developed nations of the world) would not be where they are today if crude oil was $100/bbl through the 1950’s.

Nick Stokes says:
October 17, 2010 at 4:57 pm
“Tom,
Yes, indeed. That’s why there is a worry about AGW. People say, it’s only been a fraction of a degree. But there’s plenty more to come, whatever the sensitivity”
Like, another fraction of a degree for the next 40% in Co2 concentration rise? I think i’ll crawl under a rock.

I know this a tired saying, but at the turn of the last century NYC was worrying about being over run in horse **it.
Perhaps global warming will so absurd in a decade or so.

Your posts always make me feel uneasy, Tom. They have right from the first I read; and I do not mean they make me uneasy because they provide uncomfortable insight, but uneasy because they promote a disguised back door kind of justification for accepting that mankind really is seriously altering our climate whilst on the surface feigning to be riding with those of us who are adopting a healthy scepticism of this.
Dropping back for a moment to your “The Wisdom of Three Dog Night” (Oct. 16, 2010) I note this part of one sentence: “There are things we can do to protect against further climate change…”
Isn’t this saying that mankind certainly does affect the climate (and by implication, in major ways)? I believe it does say that, and therefore puts you firmly in the AGW camp ─ but you protest openness of opinion, and make-believe that you are really just a regular guy way above petty agendas.
I do not believe that is so.
In this particular essay I endorse what P Walker says above: “Sorry , Thomas , but I can see no connection to coal use and burning rivers . Dead lakes maybe , but even that’s a stretch…”
And I would then continue: Sorry, Tom, but, but, but…

Much of the industrial production that used to take place in the West is now being carried out by China. Let’s stop the simple finger pointing as the many of those very goods produced by China are being shipped and flown to the USA and EU.
Mr. Fuller,
I get where you are coming from but you sound just like the pessimists of the late 19th century who thought that London would drown in horse manure in 2000. :o) We keep underestimating man’s ingenuity. If you told anyone back in 1900 about home PCs they would not have a clue what you were talking about.

HR says:
October 17, 2010 at 3:42 pm

You said it much better than I just did.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/17/the-three-chinas/#comment-509892

Energy is a resource. It is one of many.

azcIII – October 17, 2010 at 4:53 pm:
“The population growth in China will likely reverse so they have a declining population in coming years. This is due to their one-child policy, lack of marriageable women for the number of young men, massive environmental damages from pollution/toxins and water and food contamination, among other reasons.”
I think it’s very unlikely that China’s population will begin to decline any time soon – say in the next fifty years or so. Your environmental reason is not something I’d considered greatly, but seems a slim possibility. The kind of pollution necessary to put a real brake on China’s population growth would be inconceivable, even in Ohio – note that at the worst times for industrial pollution in the US, there was negligible effect on the population.
A quick look at the Chinese age pyramid should show the fallacy of your demographic arguments. The one-child policy has effected a great reduction in the rate of growth of China’s population, but not the the extent that it has become negative – China’s still growing, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

Tom, the projections of energy use don’t scare me. There certainly is not an energy crisis now. At most, you have shown that energy usage is likely to grow significantly in the coming decades. And if it grows at such a rate, and if all other things remain equal, and if there are not significant new stores of fossil fuel energy discovered, and if other sources of energy do not rise to take the place of some of the current fossil fuel energy, and if this results in scarcity of energy, and if such scarcity is not mitigated by rising prices (supply/demand), and if the scarcity results in disruption of necessary services, and if we are unable to find other ways to re-allocate the available energy and otherwise deal with such disruption, then, yes, perhaps there will be a crisis.
It is a pretty far logical path to tread, with lots of questionable links from point A to point B. So, no, I don’t think there is a current energy crisis and I don’t think there is much need to worry about a possible energy crisis decades in the future.
Should we be cognizant of growing energy demand? Sure. Is there value in freeing innovation and opening up avenues to deal with the anticipated demand? Absolutely. Can it be done in a calm and thoughtful manner without alarmism or language of crisis? I hope so.

It is awesome to get some fresh perspectives.
Thanks for a well written opinion piece Thomas.
I don’t need to agree with it to know there is truth in every thought.
I am more on the pessimistic side. Population will be restrained by wars and disease, the bigger the populations, the bigger the disasters (squared).

My final words to Thomas Fuller,
I get the feeling that you are making the same mistake as the AGWers – making projections and ignoring other factors. What factors you might ask. Human ingenuity, inventions, accidental discoveries, 1 brilliant mind, change in public policy focus (e.g. CHP, compulsory soot filters in coal fired power plants), global pandemic etc. I just get the funny feeling that you might be seeing things like the climate computer models.
Be optimistic Mr. Fuller, that’s what America used to be about and it sent men to the Moon.

Although the energy predictions may not be far off, and with peak oil a certainty, competition for scarce resources will be fierce, don’t for that several BILLION people will die off during the 2020’2 and 2030’s due to crop failure from global cooling.
This works two ways. Crop conditions are expected to be similar to the bottom of the little ice age, and cooling, as we denialists understand it, will lead to less atmospheric humidity, and widespread drought.
In any case I am afraid that mankind, alone, is not smart enough to make a preventative adjustment.

Roger Carr – Exactly. I have been feeling the same way and I’m glad others have noticed. I got even more uneasy reading (or attempting to read) Ravetz’ essays quite some time ago. I feel we are subtly being nudged into a softer more ‘lukewarm’ stance on AGW.

Apparently there are still many people who reason the same way Paul Ehrlich did 40 years ago.
Limited resources spread over an ever increasing demand spells doom, but how limited are those resources?
Much like Paul didn’t foresee the incredible increase in food production Norman Borlaug brought about, so do todays doom sayer don’t grasp the through meaning of E=mc2.
http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=2469

FULLER: JUST WHAT IN THE HELL IS YOUR POINT IN THIS WEIRD POST?
My simple answer to all this is Jesus and the Bible. That is the only real answer to all these worries, as everyone will eventually discover. So, what do you think about that, Mr. Chicken Little?

Smokey>
“Either one accepts that rigorous skepticism is an essential part of the scientific method, or one is a CO2 alarmist. There is no middle ground.”
I disagree. Rigorous skepticism tells us that we don’t know much, if anything. As such, it’s possible, although entirely unproven at the moment, that CO2 is the cause of warming, and somewhat possible that any resultant warming will be detrimental overall.
Since it’s been raised as a possible risk, I’m perfectly happy to take any mitigating action that is beneficial in its own right for other reasons, and not being over-prioritised as a result of the hypothetical threat.
What’s important, though, is not to think that we know everything and must be correct. We leave that to the warmistas.

“So let’s talk about energy and why what is described above signals a crisis–or not.”
Please read (reread?) how ALL of the CRAP published by Malthusus, Erlich, Holdren and their moronic satanistic friends has not come to pass, even in a minor sense. That might help you “dig” reality. YOU, sir, are part of the problem!

We can use fusion ! hehe
Seriously though. There are only two possible answers :
1) Nuclear power everywhere
2) Bad times
It`s pretty simple

re Smokey: October 17, 2010 at 7:08 pm
Smokey is fundamentally right, and you all know it.
The alarmists have proved exactly nothing, and what little has been predicted has been found to be wrong.
The AGW game is now just a dead man walking, and all this mental masturbation serves no purpose other than to give those who bought into it a way to save face.
/dr.bill

Comments by several people have already touched on the solution to a number of serious real problems (both moderate-term and long-term (CAGW NOT included, of course (since it has not been proven to qualify under ”serious – real” heading) ):
Both large & small passively-safe Generation-III+ and (eventually, for reprocessing) Generation-IV fast-neutron power reactors. Maybe in 50 years the super-techies will solve the really tough problems that always seem to keep commerically viable fusion power 10-15 years out. . . . and maybe they won’t.
In the meantime:
We know how to build safe, efficient, and reliable Gen-III+ reactors RIGHT NOW.
See just for starters:
https://inlportal.inl.gov/portal/server.pt/community/nuclear_energy/277

Thomas,
I enjoy your writing because you cite the sources of your information, provide conclusions based on sound logic that flows from the facts, and though I frequently disagree with you, cannot quibble with the fact that you do not rely on misinformation or selective facts to make you case. You also generate comment which is as interesting as your article. In this case I shall quibble with your information as well as many of the comments it has generated.
The population estimates and projections of energy use in developing nations you cite are drawn from global studies sponsored in whole or in part by the United Nations. I have no more faith in their projections in this regard than I do in their pronouncements regarding the honesty with which the Iraq Oil for Food program was administered, the steady stream of condemnations eminating from a Human Rights Commission chaired by such luminaries as Lybia and Iran which ignore the most blatant examples the world has to offer, or their pronouncements in regard to the temperatur of the planet two decades hence.
Were their numbers correct however, it is too simplistic by far to look at the current patterns and wealth and consumption, project them into the future based on those trends alone, and then throw your hands up in despair, having concluded that there is no obvious path that gets us from “here” to “there” without some crisis along the way. Popycock. That is a problem in centrally planned economies that doesn’t exist when the driving factors are supply and demand.
Economies and populations grow incrementally, and they are channeled in their growth by the best options available at each step of the process. Should fossil fuel become too expensive to fuel economic growth in developing nations, then either they will not develop, or they will do so by adopting other means. If we in the first world cannot support our standard of living because of the same rise in cost of fossil fuels, our standard of living will drop, or we will find alternatives that work. The point is that there is no giant leap from where we are to your 8.5 billion with rising energy consumption assumed for the developing world arrived at by multiplying the population estimates by the energy consumption estimates and concluding that a crisis must ensue. Instead of a giant leap there are many tiny ones, and if energy becomes increasingly constrained, then it by default constrains economic growth and the end result is a world economy expanding within its available economic energy sources, hence arriving at a different answer. Should new efficiencies or new energy sources become available that change the limitations of energy we have today for the better, then we again will arrived via incremental steps at a different end point. In neither case does a crisis ensue. The crisis you foresee has its precident in the world of course, a precident established by those who built long term economic plans in defiance of the laws of supply and demand, and in fact precipitated the collapse of their own economy because neither the demand nor the supply were in concert with the so carefully planned central economy.
Turning to your commentors who seem locked into a view of the United Staes locked in some sort of death spiral, soon to be set aside by the rising power of China, do not rush to teach your children Chinese just yet. Empires do not simply rise and fall. They wax and wane along he way. It was not long ago that I read an article that echoed, often in similar language, the argument that the future belonged to Japan, and best that your children learn Japanese.
The Japanese corporations it seemed, produced superior quality for lower cost, but more importantly were driven by long range business plans that were decades long while the foolish Americans were locked in the quarterly results timelines. Today Japan is just emerging from a decades long recession, and has been eclipsed by South Korea, China, Mexico and Brazil in the production of many goods once seen as their exclusive domain.
Prior to that, general wisdom was that my chidlren should best learn Russion. The communist expansion seemed in enevitable. The Americans hands were tied by their own internal peace protestors, Europe was a vocal ally provided that they could just be vocal to retain the facade of being an ally, and in proxy conflicts it seemed that American strategy was predicated on achieving a tie. Who wins when the best their strategy can offer is a tie?
But the USSR collapsed of its own weight. Their central planning of everything which they believed would displace the laws of supply and demand precipitated the very type of crisis Thomas Fuller sees, but those of us who remained with supply and demand suffered no such predicament.
If we turn the fclock back further, it would be Spanish that our children should have learned, and it is more likely that Spanish will be the 2nd language of choice in North America in the future, not Chinese. The world forms trading blocks based on natural geographic alliances and on political levels as well. A North American/South American trading block to counter the European Union and the East Asian trading block seems more likely to me than any other.
And finaly, as I said before, empires wax and wane. China today is waxing, and the United States is waning. I cannot predict the future, it habitually takes twsists and turns unexpected by those who study it full time, let alone pundits like me who jump in when they time and an opinion to spout. But the fact is that the United States waned under the leadership of Jimmy Carter who governed on the assumption that his country had commited sins that must be apologized for. The world correctly sensed that this was an American government that you could kick sand in the fact of and they would beg forgiveness for having made you angry at them.
They were followed by Ronald Reagan, a man decried by his critics as having an IQ somewhere between a horse and a stump. True or not, he had one important quality in that he was willing to lay out his reaction to any given set of circumstances, and anyone kicking sand in his face was going to get a whole lot more than sand kicked straight back at them. He said he wasn’t bluffing, and everyone from international detractrors to internal unions making punitive demands found that our early enought that almost no one tangled with him for most of his tenure. American fortunes once against waxed.
In the current context, the crazies who would offer our throats up to sacrifice for the sins they seem convinced that the west has imposed on the rest of the world, they are enabled by a receptive ear in Washington. While Reagan broke matters down to black and white decisions, Obama holds a world view that all decision are grey and clings to that world view no matter how many times he fails. When he does make a strong statement on an issue, Americas enemies know it is mostly bluff, a mistake they would not have dared make if Regan were in power.
The juggernot of China’s economy is driven by massive central planning forced on a population that doesn’t want it, and driven in the backs of blatant currency manipulation, a complete disregard for intellectual property rights, and a disdain for the environment in general, not just global warming issues.
They may be waxing now, but their central planning system will eventually result in building massive infrastructure where it cannot be used and leave areas that need it unservices, which they will repackage as select facts proving their success. The United States will not be governed by Obama for ever. He will be replace sooner or later by someone more pragmatic. When they arrive, simple changes in regulation will move millions of energy jobs back to the US, decimate the economies of those who supply it now while funneling money to terrorists, and even simple matters such as requiring that foreign produced good be manufactured according to the same set of labour standards as those which are produced here will make a marked difference in the distribution of jobs and economic power. But the biggest change will come when the Unites States and their free market allies demand that China recognize intellectual property rights or be excluded from international trade.
I see no one in the current political spectrum in the US who has the charisma to shunt aside Obama and his loopy attempts to apologise to his enemies in order to recruit them as allies in a fit of grovelling that even Carter would be ashamed of, coupled with Reagan’s internal fortitude to say exactly what he meant and leave no impressionj in the minds of his detractors that bludding wasn’t part of his strategy.
On the other hand, I didn’t see Reagan coming either. Perhaps he will not appear this election or even next. But appear he will, and only a few levers will be required for him/her to pull, and it will once again be America the bully, America the aroggant, America the incarnation of the devil himself that the world will complain about, while hiding in their shadow and quitly cheering as they push back the likes of China simply be returning to the laws of pragmatic decisions and refusing to be bullied and manipulated by those who sense weakness today and take advantage of it.

thomaswfuller says: (October 17, 2010 at 9:02 pm) 2. Hey, up there–I’m a Lukewarmer, okay?
Uh, huh.

(n) lukewarmness, tepidity, tepidness (a warmness resembling the temperature of the skin)
(n) tepidness, lukewarmness (lack of passion, force or animation)
          From: wordnetweb.princeton.edu

Roger Carr says:
October 17, 2010 at 5:24 pm
“Your posts always make me feel uneasy, Tom. They have right from the first I read; and I do not mean they make me uneasy because they provide uncomfortable insight, but uneasy because they promote a disguised back door kind of justification for accepting that mankind really is seriously altering our climate whilst on the surface feigning to be riding with those of us who are adopting a healthy scepticism of this.”
Exactly.
Deep deep inside there is a Malthus (and a Lenin?) lurking.
Up front we see a happy Friedman talking about his mothers first years in the US.
Goddard, come back!

Don’t fear coal Thomas, it’s a blessing.
What you should fear is told by Lord Monckton.
Just watch this short video.

Kum Dollison says:
October 17, 2010 at 10:01 pm
What balderdash.
Oil pumping capacity has been increasing over the last decade: that people don’t want to buy it is another matter. Often this is due to environmental regulations which is why heavy sour crude such as from Saudi Arabia is so cheap. If the USA wants to be prissy so that they cannot refine or use it that is up to them. They can pay the price for their super clean fuel. And do. But there is the ample pumping capacity and tankers currently laid up and ready to carry it wherever it is wanted. Just give the word and be prepared to pay about half the dollar rate per barrel you do now.
That is the extra and outrageous price you pay and are still paying for environmental purity: as we are in the EU. Bless your cotton socks for that. But understand China and India are not so picky, at the moment they do not have the demand but be assured they soon will.
As for for liquified natural gas there are now more tankers and terminals available than anybody is likely to use in the foreseeable future. About half the LNG tanker fleet is idle and two thirds of the production capacity.
Local natural gas is increasingly abundant too, in the USA from shale here in the UK from undersea reserves, now the punitive tax regulations of the last decade have been relaxed, once again we have have a new bonanza of oil and gas building up and good for thirty years. And unlike the USA the UK has a full national gas grid that supplies everything from the mighty power station to the smallest domestic user: and that will do very well as it has done since it was built forty years ago.
Here energy is getting cheaper again and will do so faster as soon as the UK green politicians and their windmills have gone which should happen in the next couple of years.
Coal of course is plentiful, here the choke point is not mining or shipping capacity but port handling capability: chiefly in the receiving ports so it is still taking a month or more standing off to unload in China. Which costs of course. But notice the miners are opening new mines everywhere. Even in the USA new coal fired power plants are being built again, new mines are opening and above all else the railroads, as you call them, are laying new track to carry the coal.
Not what you might expect if you read the Green MSM, but it is happening just the same.
So where you get your ideas from I really don’t know.
Kindest Regards

thomaswfuller says:
October 17, 2010 at 9:02 pm

….Most people are more interested in facts than ideology, in any event–I’m trying to present facts.

It seems to me that you fail to do that. You do not present facts. You present speculations based on UN projections that are known to be persistently and habitually exaggerated. In doing so, you promote an ideology, the UN ideology of alarmist environmentalism.
Your doomsday speculations need to worry anyone only when the UN projections acquire the status of valid replacements for true and objective scientific findings.
Anyone worrying so much and wallowing in pessimism should at least spend a little bit of time browsing through “The Ultimate Resource II: People, Materials, and Environment”, by Julian L. Simon. http://www.juliansimon.org/writings/Ultimate_Resource/
More specifically, and relating to concerns about humanity suffering soon from a catastrophic energy shortage, it would be worth your while to read Chapter 3 of the Ultimate Resource, “Can The Supply Of Natural Resources – Especially Energy – Really Be Infinite? Yes! ” http://www.juliansimon.org/writings/Ultimate_Resource/TCHAR03A.txt
Here is a fact I know with absolute certainty: if we don’t try to get there, then we surely won’t.

I do not know if what Thomas describes in his oped is a crisis, and I don’t think anybody else knows either.

And the developing countries are exempt from Kyoto style CO2 emission targets. All the reductions are to come from the ‘developed’ countries. This article just drives how futile and out of date all this is. The majority of fossil fuels are now burnt in the ‘developing’ world and that fraction is rising fast.
But beware of predicting the future by extrapolation. A few years ago I got the stated coal reserves, consumption and growth projections for China from the Energy Information Agency’s web site. The conclusion was that China runs out of coal in 2038. The smaller developed countries may be feeling besieged now by the larger populations of the developing countries but their large populations are going to count against them in the future. Expect trouble ahead.

lowercasefred says:
October 17, 2010 at 3:38 pm

All the projections seem based on the assumption that there will not be a population-reducing war. IMO a very optimistic assumption.

A population-reducing pandemic is far more likely IMO. Of course a pandemic could be the result of a biological weapon used in an act of war.
Other unpredictable things could do the work too like a massive CME, supervolcano, or asteroid strike among other things. The bottom line seems to be that modern civilization is a fragile thing vulnerable to all sorts of catastrophes both manmade and natural and its fragility grows with the size of it. It’s only a matter of time.

Several people have mentioned China’s population and ‘one child policy’.
China’s true population is not known with any accuracy. It could well be as much as 1.7billion. The OCP only worked on the poor. If you could afford more children, you had them. If you were well connected in the Communist hierachy, you had more than one child. Back there next week for a while. I’ll do a quick head count and report back.
Bye.
regards

The UK has just established 10 sites for new nuclear power plants. Even the worst of the green politicians eventually realise that they have to provide the right quality of energy that the people need today and would require tomorrow.
There are two types of energy providers:
1. The reliable ones; Coal, oil, gas, nuclear, hydro
2. The unreliable ones: Wind turbines. (PV’s are still unreliable, but in my opinion may be able to reliably provide a measurable fraction of the total energy budget some fine day.
I can send this comment because we have reliable sources of energy. The future cannot be otherwise. The other option is to go back to the caves and hunt rabbit.

One proof that the eco-fascists don’t believe their scare stories is that almost none of them promote nuclear power. Nuclear can certainly produce enough power to satisfy all 9 billion people in a CO2 free manner. If somebody honestly believed CO2 was about to cause a catastrophe they would inevitably support the only practical way of avoiding it.

The original China long ago provided us with a saying along the lines of ‘no tree grows to the sky.’

When I read this article, I think back to Bruner’s “Stand on Zanszibar (sp?)”. Part of the premise was the zero population growth vs. rights to have as many children as desired. I don’t think it can be done due to too many human, religious and economic issues, but it would be a starting point for real conservation instead of using carbon as a bench mark. There is a movement to reduce but it’s allied with the Gaia group that wants to reduce the population. I would want a voluntary plan to stabilize the population, not reduce it.
Has anyone ever determined what the optimal population of the Earth for our known resources?

“Peak oil is a bottle neck on production and distribution bought about by regulation and carpet-baggary rather than actual reserves.”
No! Peak oil is about flow rates and ERoEI. Both of which are falling.

The analysis smacks of “post hoc ergo propter hoc” ie because China has expanded so will Turkey and India etc. There are deeper national psychological principles in operation here. China is very much aware that it “lost face” in the 15th century when the treasure ships of Admiral Zhe (?) were recalled and China turned in on itself. At that time it was technologically miles ahead of Europe. For centuries it suffered exploitation and humiliation at the hands of European capitalism and these memories really rankle. China should always have been a world power and now is determined to play catch up. Its people are remarkably talented and hard working and the centralised system of government means that things can be achieved quickly. Attitude is all especially to education. Laws are strictly upheld and applied.
The BP data shows that China trebled its consumption of fossil fuels since 2010 while India’s went up by 50%. India will never compete with China for so many reasons. It has very poor infrastructure which it seems incapable of improving, it has a peculiar climate which depends on the unpredictable monsoon which often causes considerable damage, and it has a caste system which holds millions in povery. An Einstein who is an untouchable has no chance. At the Commonwealth Games earth was being shifted by women with baskets on their head!
Brazil has enormous social problems and too many live in povery. The rule of law is not universally applied and the country seems on the brink of anarchy all the time. Lack of good education will hold the country back although GDP will rise because of sheer.
As for Turkey, oh dear. This is a backward country which shows no signs of advancement. Its only hope is to join the EU and that will not happen now for so many reasons. Turkey suffers from a collective depression. It was once a powerful force as the Ottoman Empire and held most of the world’s oil supplies in its hands. World War 1 and Versailles stopped all that and the Turks have never got over it. They just do not have their act together. They have no resources to launch a development programme. The UK is slowly turning into Turkey.
The only China you will see is China, along with Taiwan, which shows what China could be like. The 19th century was Britain’s, the 20th the USA’s and the 21st will be China’s. The modern world was not designed for a rich China but it will have to learn to live with it.

John Whitman,
I generally agree with your comments, but I thought that the use of “three China’s” was a reasonable literary device. While Mr. Fuller may have his own agenda, I don’t have an issue with him postulating on possible futures. Possible futures aren’t reality but a prompt for discussion.

John,
Love the quote!

Walter Schneider says:
October 18, 2010 at 11:40 am

——————–
Walter Schneider,
I appreciated your wonderful comment.
You mentioned Julian Simon’s work which I respect and agree with.
A week ago I just finished Indur Goklany’s great book, ‘The Improving State of the World: Why We’re Living Longer, Healthier, More Comfortable Lives on a Cleaner Planet’
It is a comprehensive work. Extremely solid with data and charts. It updates everything, magnificently.
John

I had to think of the Human Cube from Burt Rutan that fits the volume of 6.8 billion people. The size is 1700 x 1700 x 1700 feet
He also calculated a Biomass Box that contains the entire bio sphere of the planet
Biomass box: 450 miles by 450 miles 1700-ft tall
To supply the resources for 3 China’s I can only say that it will be a blessing for the economy. Regard it as an opportunity and a security instead of a threat.
http://rps3.com/Files/AGW/EngrCritique.AGW-Science.v4.pdf
We only have to re establish the connection because the warmist are holding us down (lol).
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/10/re-establish-connection.html

Good work Thomas. Excellent post. I’m optimistic that its not all bad news. Your energy and population numbers are in my opinion quite correct. While greenhouse is less of a problem than the Warmist’s make out we still have a long term energy problem. However I am trained in renewables and solar. While the current batch of technologies pushed by the IPCC and most greens are not able to meet the huge energy demands or provide non- intermittent base load; those of us who are both trained in the field yet sceptical of the current panic know of the technologies that could meet demands. There panic has led to superficial solutions rather than real integrated solution. Bureaucracy, subsidies and quick fixes have failed. Real solutions are often too heard to rush.
Several solutions will dominate.
Low efficiency but cheap solar power integrated into direct energy use such as tropical and desert cooling is one example. Using thermal mass of the structure as the storage from day to night. Solar hot water with bigger storage tanks.
Public places and buildings must be shaded from summers sun in the tropics and desert cities. This is being done cheaply now. These shade sources can be solar. So there’s plenty of space for solar where it works best.
Much of the celluloseic ethanol enzyme work will go open source very quickly after the greenhouse scare ends. Likewise the fall of subsidised big projects will result in smaller scale biofuels plants are being worked on by some. These will allow farm gate biofuel production. Fermentation and distillation does not destroy the protein in the feed stock so we can have food and fuel from the same crop.
Bio-Methane from farm waste and sewerage is the cheapest biofuel. Most new sewerage systems being built are anaerobic systems now not the aerobic system of the 20Th century. New CO2 filter system for CCS will be available cheaply to scrub CO2, the major impurity from bio-methane, making methane that is indistinguishable from natural gas.
Grid storage has been ignored. Grid storage required different pricing than cap and trade and the latter blocks the former. When it was first mooted pumped water to hight, compressed air down a hole and warehouses with big batteries wired up in them were viable and profitable. When superconductors came along the focus shifted to them. When superconductors failed to yield storage the powers that be seem to have shifted the problem into the too hard basket. This, to me, is the greatest proof that the IPCC and its sister organisations were not viable or seeking a real solution. To the storage list we now have Solar thermal with underground heat storage, bulk Hydrogen storage is 80%, efficient, and Ice based air-conditioning (of peak power makes ice). Some country will eventually.
Subsidised wind power will die with the IPCC but not the expertise. Wind farms with integral storage using compressed air or fly wheels are proposed. In both cases there is no electricity generated in the windmill. The current batch of people are taking the bigger is better line when in reality are ignoring and thus blocking the real wind systems. The wild mills may shrink to a more mass producible size.
Hydrogen is 80% efficient in production and new carbon based hydrides have been developed. Thus this technology is emerging as a solution particularly if the hydrogen car is also a light hybrid. The chicken/egg problem of cars and fuelling points can be solved at competitive prices with home hydrogen production.
There are several fusion technologies like Cold fusion, Focus Fusion, Muon fusion, and the perplexing Blacklight Power claims. All have been ignored by the mainstream as the world hits true energy limits we will see some country break from the chains and test them again.
Efficiency gains will remain available and new technology will emerge.
The current political battles, subsidised half solutions and red tape will be erased by the fall of the climate scammers and their schemes. Most of the technologies needed are in development. Some are competitive with coal if properly implemented. The catch is with governments trying to pick winners and overrule the market we are seeing far less progress and needed rationalisation in the energy sector than we are seeing in say communications. The real irony is that when the global warming scare ends only then will the energy the warmists demand emerge.

Is it just because I don’t think coal is the proper fuel for the future that you guys are yellin’ at me?
I do not think that anybody was yelling at you Mr Fuller.
As for me , I expressed an unbounded surprise at the observation that you can write about energy and economy over 3 pages and not to use the word price once .
You know why the “energy crisis” you write about is fabricated , made up , a hallucination ?
And it is not necessary to quote Julian Simon .
Because you implicitely suppose that demand can sustainably outpace supply .
IT-CAN-NOT !
As soon as the demand begins to outpace supply , the prices begin to increase .
And if it lasts , the prices explode . Like the traders say – “Sky is the limit” .
And what happens when prices increase ?
Well demand decreases again and adjusts to supply but generally at a higher level .
Of course it also works the other way round when supply is abundant and the demand low .
The existence of this well known self correcting mechanism that some call free market shows that naive extrapolations where people draw straight lines going to infinity are useless word games with no relation to reality .
On top like someone already mentionned , but this is just a detail , the assumption that specific energy consumption (Energy/GDP) is a constant is horribly wrong .

Is EPA killing the USA?
http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/2010/10/is-epa-trying-to-murder-usa.html

What’s that about Obama blocking nuclear power?
http://articles.cnn.com/2010-02-16/politics/obama.nuclear.power_1_nuclear-waste-nuclear-power-tons-of-radioactive-waste?_s=PM:POLITICS
What’s that about Obama blocking shale oil?
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2009/0102/p08s01-comv.html
I’m not a big fan of the Obama administration myself, but let’s keep the discussion in reality, shall we?
While we’re on the subject of the future of energy, how about Bill Gates’ nuclear initiative? This could have major implications for my home region, as there’s a great deal of “waste” sitting around here that stands to become a valuable commodity.
http://articles.cnn.com/2010-02-17/tech/bill.gates.nuclear_1_nuclear-reactors-nuclear-power-plant-nuclear-energy?_s=PM:TECH

Dave says:
October 17, 2010 at 5:58 pm
Hi Dave,
Sorry it took me a while to get back to you, and thank you for your thoughts. The environmental degradation of China is appalling. http://www.chinahush.com/2009/10/21/amazing-pictures-pollution-in-china/ If you look at the pop distribution, the rivers they are poisoning are the lifeblood of the majority of the population. Their disease rates are skyrocketing. What effect these toxins have on DNA and future fertility…
As for their age pyramid, there are a lot of folks reaching the end of their childbearing years. They also have an imbalance in their male:female ratio, so much so that the CCP banned selective abortion of female fetuses a few years ago and instituted incentives for having and keeping girls. If a young man cannot find a wife, there are few choices short of not marrying (not reproducing) or importing marriageable women. This also could destabilize China’s social order in that there are millions of young men with no wives.
My idle theory of China’s eventual population crash is not based solely on statistics, but also on thousands of years of history and human nature. I think China has a lot more problems than anyone outside the CCP knows. Law of Unintended Consequences. Also keep in mind that, although they have liberalized economically in recent years, China is still a closed Communist society and information from them should be viewed as likely CCP propaganda.
When examining population, regional or global, you must factor in that the world and human societies are not static; they are dynamic. The likelihood of war, new diseases, starvation, etc. do figure prominently. Conditions today can change in an instant and change everything. When in history has any nation seen perpetual population growth? If we don’t kill each other off, nature will find a way. SARS, avian flu and H1N1 are just a warning shot. Eventually, we will see another 1918 Spanish flu, the war of wars, widespread crop failures, a cosmic catastrophe (asteroid, solar events, magnetic reversals, etc) that eradicates entire hemispheres or worse. No one can predict the future, but viewing it as static is dangerously naive. Surprises are in store, always.
Cheers!

Steve says:
October 19, 2010 at 1:35 pm
“Julian Simon was a great mind, but he didn’t know jack about agriculture. In The Ultimate Resource 2 he completely blows over the fact that phosphorus supplies are already known to be limited”
Probably because they’re not. There is ~1e20 kg P in the Earth’s crust alone (~1000ppm). It is readily extractable even from bulk soil or seawater, and can easily be recovered from human, animal and plant waste (the best technique is probably wet oxidation, at elevated temperatures and pressures, which once started is self-maintaining, requires no external energy input and produces an effluent that is completely sterile and, with the addition of ammonia/nitric acid, ideal as the basis of a plant nutrient solution). We can never run out of phosphorus, because unless we burn it up in some nuclear process every atom we use is always available for reuse; and even then we could always make more of it from aluminium, say, by Al(alpha)->P.
The ignorance of Malthusians concerning already known techniques is astounding.

Steve says:
October 20, 2010 at 7:40 am
“Right, 1,000 ppm estimated as the general composition of the Earth’s crust. So to get 1 kg of nice 0-0-10 NPK fertilizer, we would have to mine how many kg of the Earth’s crust? Answer = 100 kg. Assuming that the 1,000 ppm figure is a statement about a homogenous composition of Earth’s crust. ”
Actually, answer = 4kg for the zero phosphorus mix specified (read what you wrote). But of course the real answer is that we would only “have” to mine 100kg of crust to get 100g of phosphorus if we needed ~1e20 kg of it. For any lesser amount we have the option of mining more concentrated deposits. For the scenario being discussed the total amount of phosphorus required is only ~1e12 kg; even the silly peak phosphorus theory claims reserves of three times that figure.
“… human population reaches even 100 billion (1/5 of Simon’s complete guess)?”
Not a “guess”, in the sense of a prediction, merely a convenient example for explanatory purposes. With known technology the Earth could support at least a hundred times higher population than this. How high the terrestrial population actually goes will depend on personal choices driving a trade off between centrality and dispersion (like the choice between city centre, suburbs or country, or Hong Kong and Boulder), and that is impossible to predict with any confidence at this time. Though it will almost certainly be only a tiny fraction of the solar system and interstellar populations.
“Cite please regarding the “readily” portion of this comment. If it is so readily extractable, surely a fertilizer supply company is already using this technique.”
Seaweed has been harvested for fertiliser for centuries, concentrating various nutrients (including phosphorus) from seawater. Fish also contribute considerable quantities of phosphorus as human and animal foodstocks (~0.2kg P/person/yr, enough to reach the required total in ~10 yr). The major fertiliser companies do not currently rely on such essentially unlimited background sources for the obvious reason that there are huge reserves of more concentrated ores, which can be extracted even more cheaply.
““and can easily be recovered from human, animal and plant waste”
Again, cite please regarding the “easily”. And no, dropping manure on the crops does not count as “recovered phosphorus”. ”
In fact, dropping manure on crops is recovering and recycling phosphorus. However, I had already addressed that point in the rest of the sentence you quoted from: “the best technique is probably wet oxidation, at elevated temperatures and pressures, which once started is self-maintaining, requires no external energy input and produces an effluent that is completely sterile and, with the addition of ammonia/nitric acid, ideal as the basis of a plant nutrient solution”. It is described in some detail in NASA SP-428 (along with other options such as dry oxidation). Biological methods (composting, aerobic and anaerobic decomposition) are also available, and already in common use for waste treatment.
“What about my comment made you think that I’m a Malthusian”
Possibly the recrudescent Malthusian sophistries you and Tom Fuller come up with. Limits to Growth nonsense like peak phosphorus.

Steve says:
October 21, 2010 at 6:08 pm
“Paul Birch says: “Actually, answer = 4kg for the zero phosphorus mix specified (read what you wrote). But of course the real answer is that we would only “have” to mine 100kg of crust to get 100g of phosphorus if we needed ~1e20 kg of it. For any lesser amount we have the option of mining more concentrated deposits. For the scenario being discussed the total amount of phosphorus required is only ~1e12 kg; even the silly peak phosphorus theory claims reserves of three times that figure.”
Well I did make a typo and a conversion error, but your 4 kg answer is complete nonsense – care to show your math? ”
10% potassium (K) at 2.5% crustal abundance w/w requires 10%/2.5% kg/kg = 4. Or a bit less if you go by K2O.
“And yes, I understand that more concentrated sources reduces the amount of crust that needs to be mined. They are called phosphate rock mines”
No, those are only some of the most concentrated sources. There are much larger amounts in somewhat less concentrated deposits (for example ~40 GT in peat, at ~1%, which is a ten-fold concentration factor over the crustal average). You might look up Lasky’s Law, particularly in its generalised or extended form.
“Which is why I asked if your 1,000 ppm figure includes those phosphate rock sources that we are already depleting (mines being considered part of the Earth’s crust). Because once those are gone, the amount of crust mined elsewhere will require much more than 83.3 kg per 1 kg of 0-10-0 fertilizer.”
It’s irrelevant. 3e9kg versus 1e20kg. Even if the extracted phosphorus were lost to the Earth – which of course it isn’t – it would amount to less than a billionth of the total. The 1000 ppm crustal average would be reduced to 999.999 9997 ppm. The difference is negligible.
“And what do you mean by “for the scenario being discussed, the total amount of phosphorus is only ~~1e12 kg?” What scenario, and where is your math? ”
The Julian Simon scenario you were attacking; 500 billion people supported by phytoculture.. Allowing a conservative 2kg P/person that’s 1e12kg. There’s ~0.6-1.0kg P in the human body, the fast-breeding cells of phytoculture require an additional biomass considerably less than that of the animal it is feeding, and the wet oxidative recyling of waste to nutrient would take rather less than a day, so the 2kg inventory assumed is more than adequate.
“A “convenient example for explanatory purposes” with absolutely no calculations to back it up is called a “guess” in polite circles. ”
No, it’s an expository example. An existence proof. And there are calculations aplenty throughout Simon’s work, and the extensive references he cites therein.
“Do you really think that the United States imports phosphorus from Morocco but it has a massive pile of unused, cheap detritus that it could be using instead?”
Of course it has. Equivalent to several hundred thousand tonnes of phosphorus a year. But mined and imported phosphorus is so cheap that it is not currently considered worth the capital investment needed to recycle it.
“Even Julian Simon’s philosophy states that peaks exist!”
No, it doesn’t. It states that they are economic nonsense. You cannot equate the economic good with the rate of physical extraction. In a free market the latter will be whatever maximises the economic efficiency overall. It might rise and fall, displaying an apparent “peak”, but if so it will be for economic and political reasons, not physical ones.
“Simon’s optimistic philosophy trusts that between the hordes of the ignorant individuals who cannot solve the oncoming problem, either because they can’t see it, they don’t want to see it or they don’t have the knowledge to overcome it, there will always be enough shining minds who see the problem and solve it before it becomes a Malthusian catastrophe.”
There is no need to “solve” these non-problems, because numerous technological solutions are already known, and more solutions froth up continuously. It is Malthusians like you who worry about these things, and promote alarm and despondancy, because you don’t understand economics and are ignorant of the huge and ever-expanding range of options we already have in reserve, already sufficient for many, many, many orders of magnitude increase in human consumption. The only major problems are political – the propensity of politicians to wreck the economy for the sake of their socialist ideologies. Unfortunately, they can all to easily create shortages where none exist (and that’s about all they can create). You may deny it, but it is plain to see that your underlying world view is an essentially Malthusian one. Remember, Malthus had “solutions” too, and they too involved the use of force to keep the immiserated peasants under control, or war to trim their numbers.