Guest post by David Archibald
In May, WUWT kindly hosted a post with slides from a presentation I gave to the Institute of World Politics in Washington. Following are some further slides from a presentation I gave during the week to the triennial Nuffield Conference in Perth, Australia.
Figure 1: US Wheat and Corn prices 1916 – 2011 in 2011 constant dollars
Grain prices fell 70% in constant dollar terms from the Korean War to the end of the 20th century. In 2008, energy-related inputs relative to total operating expenses were about 60% for both wheat and corn. A $200 per barrel oil price will raise operating costs by 60% from the 2008 level. A similar price response was experienced during the First Oil Shock of 1973. This time the price increase will be permanent.
Figure 2: Tunisian Wheat Consumption 1960 – 2010
The Arab Spring began with a vegetable vendor, but what they mainly eat is wheat. Figure 2 shows Tunisian wheat consumption per capita from 1960. A 2,500 calorie per day diet is 267 kg per annum of wheat and that is shown as the red line in the graph. The population of Tunisia is 10.4 million growing at 1% per annum. On that basis, Tunisian wheat demand is ratcheting up at 28,000 tonnes per annum.
Figure 3: Yemeni Grain Consumption 1968 – 2010
Yemeni agricultural production falls well short of what is required to feed them. While the average per capita consumption of wheat is half that of Tunisia, the median age is also about half that of Tunisia at 18 years. Tunisia’s is 30 years. Similarly, 43% of Yemenis are under 14 years old while the figure for Tunisia is 23%. Therefore Yemen’s biggest wheat-eating years are ahead of it. Note the big jump in grain imports in 1988.
Figure 4: Yemen Oil Production 1982 – 2015
The big jump in grain imports in 1988 is explained by the fact that 1988 was the year that Yemeni oil exports took off. Production peaked a decade ago and is now in steep decline. With or without a civil war, by the end of the decade there will be very little oil production to pay for wheat imports. The population of Yemen is 24 million growing at 2.6% per annum. Population is currently increasing at 630,000 per annum. If we assume that they all make it to adulthood and eat 267 kg of wheat per annum for a 2,500 calorie per day diet, wheat imports are ratcheting up at 170,000 tonnes per annum.
Figure 5: Afghanistan Wheat Consumption 1960 – 2010
As unpleasant as Yemen is, there is a place that is yet more execrable. To paraphrase Mark Steyn, Afghanistan is a pestilential nation of pederasts, the chief exports of which are terrorism and heroin. As Figure 5 shows, the modern history of that country is written in its wheat consumption. Wheat imports started in the mid-1970s when Afghanistan was no longer able to feed itself from its own efforts. Imports keep rising during the early years of the Russian invasion and then collapsed along with domestic production. Population growth didn’t fall below 2% per annum during this period of restricted supply. Wheat imports rose dramatically after the US started its turn at running the country. Afghanistan is very similar to Yemen in having a median age of 18 years and population growth rate of 2.4% per annum. At that rate, the current population of 29.8 million is growing by 715,000 per annum. Thus wheat demand is ratcheting up at about 190,000 tonnes per annum.
Figure 6: Population of Afghanistan from 1960 with a projection to 2025
Heroin is 25% of Afghanistan’s GDP. One day the world may stop paying for that heroin and the Danegeld for its terrorism. So where will the wheat come from then? Another alternative is that there may be a will to send Afghanistan some grain but there will be a physical lack of grain due to a climatic event. Figure 6 shows a possible future for Afghanistan’s population in the event of a sudden cessation of grain imports. Population can be expected to collapse below the natural carrying capacity of the country of about 12 million.
Figure 7: Pakistan Wheat Production 1960 – 2011
Wheat imports into Afghanistan would have to come through Pakistan which would have first call on them. Figure 7 shows that Pakistan’s wheat production profile is quite impressive with a five-fold increase from 1960 to nearly 25 million tonnes per annum.
Figure 8: Pakistan Wheat Production per Capita 1960 – 2032
Figure 8 shows that Pakistan’s per capita wheat production from 1980 has been static in the range of 120 to 140 kg per annum. If population keeps growing at its established trend rate, by 2030 Pakistan will be needing another 8 million tonnes of wheat per annum.
Figure 9: Wheat yields in developing countries 1950 – 2005
The biggest driver of higher wheat yields over the last 60 years has been the development of dwarf strains, pioneered by Norman Borlaug. In a sense, that put off the problem for a generation and made it twice as bad. Wheat yields have plateaued from 1996.
Figure 10: Egyptian wheat and corn consumption by source
Two hundred years ago, Egypt’s population is estimated to have been about 4 million. It is now 82 million and growing at 2% per annum – another 1.6 million Egyptian souls are created each year. As adults, their temporal bodies will want to consume an extra 440,000 tonnes of grain per annum. Figure 10 shows that on established trends, Egypt will be needing to import two thirds of its grain consumption. The projected import requirement matches the current level of US wheat exports.
Figure 11: Egyptian oil production and consumption 1965 – 2020
Food and fuel are subsidised in Egypt. What has helped fund that is Egypt’s oil production. That peaked in the 90s and Egypt’s oil consumption is now higher than its production. Oil and grain imports are now rising in tandem. Whoever controls Egypt from here, either the Muslim Brotherhood or the Army, will have a hard time balancing the budget.
Figure 12: US production of major grains and soybeans 1960 – 2010
The biggest increases in agricultural production in recent years have been from the US and Brazil. The mandated ethanol requirement has increased US corn production by 100 million tonnes per annum. That quantum could feed some 300 million people. In fact total US grain and soybean production could feed some 1,500 million people on a vegetarian diet, with the soybeans offsetting corn’s deficiency in lysine and tryptophan.
Figure 13: Mexican major food imports 1960 – 2010
South of the border, the situation isn’t as rosy. As Figure 13 shows, Mexico imports about half of its food requirement. With a population of 113 million growing at 1.1% per annum, there are another 1.2 million Mexicans created each year who, as adults, will need another 370,000 tonnes of imported grain to feed them.
Figure 14: Mexican oil production and consumption 1965 – 2021
Mexican oil production has peaked and is now falling rapidly towards the level of domestic Mexican consumption. That line will be reached in 2016, beyond which Mexico will have to pay for oil imports as well as increasing food imports, or do without something.
Figure 15: Brazilian sugar and soybean exports 1960 – 2010
Demand pull from China, importing 50 million tonnes of soybeans per annum, has created a supply response in other places. Figure 15, showing a dramatic increase in Brazilian soybean and sugar exports starting in the mid-1990s, begs the question of how much more land in Brazil could be put to the plough. With protein content of 38%, Brazil’s soybean exports equate to 100 million tonnes per annum of wheat in terms of protein content.
Figure 16: Russian wheat production and consumption 1987 – 2010
In accordance with good economic theory, Russian wheat production rose as a consequence of the end of communism in 1990, though it was a very lagged response. The drought in 2010 reduced production by 20 million tonnes and the Russian Government banned exports as a consequence.
Figure 17: World production of major grains in 2009
The World produces about equal quantities of wheat, rice and corn for a total of 2,200 million tonnes. This equates to 311 kg per capita for the seven billion people on the planet. The recent increase of US corn production by 100 million tonnes per annum in response to the price signal from the mandated ethanol requirement suggests that production of grains in the US could increase as the price signal increases. On that basis, there may be the ability to return more land to cropping in the US and increase production by a further 100 million tonnes per annum.
It has been estimated that Brazil has 190 million hectares of currently uncropped land that could be brought into production. Assuming 2 tonnes per hectare, Brazil’s production could rise by a further 380 million tonnes per annum. Similarly, Russia has 40 million hectares of cleared land that could be used for agriculture but currently isn’t. That might provide a further 80 million tonnes of grain per annum. The total is 670 million tonnes per annum of potential further production from the US, Brazil and Russia, which might feed 1,675 million people at 400 kg per capita.
Figure 18: World population growth rates 1950 – 2050
Figure 18 shows the World’s population growth rate from 1950 with a projection in blue to 2050. China’s Great Leap Forward shows up clearly in the chart. 30 million Chinese died as a result of a Government requirement to meet grain quotas while not allowing the peasants to retain enough to live on. This was 5% of China’s population at the time. Assuming that the World could produce a further 670 mtpa of grain and that would feed a further 1,675 million humans, that limit would be reached about two decades from now. There are likely to be some bumps along the way. At one stage in 1816, blocks of river ice from the Mississippi River were encountered by ships 100 kilometres out in the Gulf of Mexico. This was due to the Tambora eruption the year before. As the current de Vries cycle event progresses, the chance that a major volcanic eruption will have an agricultural impact continues to rise.
Cementafriend says:
October 8, 2011 at 4:08 am
I do not quite agree with David about the timing of peak oil -there is lots still to be found in Alaska and arctic waters and also in the southern ocean around the Falklands, southern Chile etc. However, I do agree with his early presentation where he wrote about coal to liquids which is now viable at present oil prices,
+++++++++++++++
Every prediction of peak oil in the last 100 years has been completely incorrect. Expect more of the same for centuries to come.
As for coal to liquids, SASOL is break-even at about $20 a barrel. That is a sort of industrial secret. Suppose it is $40. Hardly a losing propositon. Even by pointlessly ramping up the complexity and costs and overheads just to waste money to make it look more expensive, it is still a gigantic cash cow in today’s markets.
Letting people know how much oil and gas and coal there is simply drives down prices so expect the ‘shortage and looming peak’ meme to continue on all channels. Willem Nel’s analysis (PhD, U Jhb) talked about peak carbon as being more relevant than peak oil. Coal can be turned into oil products (plastics, chemicals) and oil itself at the drop of a hat. Once it is admitted that most or all oil is abiotic and manufactured in the Earth’s crust or upper mantle the ‘green game’ will be about ‘unsustainable abstraction’ not its ‘running out’. Lotsa CO2 then!
Look forward to better yields in the fields and maybe a slightly warmer planet, or at least one where the heat is spread farther north to increase the productive area. The future is still looking very good.
Where to start….
FOOD
The matter of food is a heck of a lot more complicated that those charts show.
From recent developments I get the nasty feeling that Food is seen by the world’s big players as the next big “Gold Rush” I mean investors like Goldman Sachs, and Soros and Rothschild. not to mention the Ag Cartel. They are of course interested in stacking the deck in their favor using trade treaties and national laws as well as market manipulation.
If you check the charts you will see that the food import spikes are starting at about 1995. This is directly related to the WTO and changes in US food policy and most important, deserting the practice of US (and EU) grain stores. (See August 2008 Letter to Bush from grain exporters link )
Clinton even admitted it. The 1995 WTO demanded the cutting of import tariffs, the 1996 US farm bill greatly increased the land US farmers put into production the result was very cheap grain and the bankrupting of US and foreign farmers. Then the Biofuel law was passed soaking up all the excess grain and prices (thanks to speculators) doubled.
Wiping out farmers:
MEXICO: http://www.ieim.uqam.ca/IMG/pdf/chro_MOHANTY_08_12.pdf
INDIA: http://www.chrgj.org/publications/docs/every30min.pdf
The EU: http://www.i-sis.org.uk/savePolishCountryside.php
AUSTRALIA: http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/national/maverick-mp-bob-katter-warns-major-parties-he-wants-action-if-he-holds-balance-of-power/story-fn5z3z83-1225901306928
In depth history
Recent: http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/william-engdahl/2011/06/29/getting-used-to-life-without-food-part-1
1942 to present (USA): http://www.opednews.com/articles/History-HACCP-and-the-Foo-by-Nicole-Johnson-090906-229.html
There is another fallacy that is “common knowledge” just as CAGW is. That is that modern farming methods produce more food per acre. The actual fact is modern farming methods produce more food per LABORER not per acre because Monoculture farming wastes land. The more traditional method of intercropping produces more food.
“…Small farmers, especially in the Third World, are much more likely to plant crop mixtures — intercropping — where the empty space between the rows is occupied by other crops. They usually combine or rotate crops and livestock, with manure serving to replenish soil fertility.
Such integrated farming systems produce far more per unit area than do monocultures. Though the yield per unit area of one crop — corn, for example — may be lower on a small farm than on a large monoculture farm, the total production per unit area, often composed of more than a dozen crops and various animal products, can be far higher….” http://www.foodfirst.org/pubs/policybs/pb4.html
Peak population:
Advanced Civilization depresses birth rates. The EU and several other countries are in NEGATIVE population growth.
Total Fertility Rate (TFR): “This entry gives a figure for the average number of children that would be born per woman if all women lived to the end of their childbearing years and bore children according to a given fertility rate at each age….Rates above two children indicate populations growing in size…
“ Note this is the birth rate and does not take into account deaths of women of child bearing age or the deaths of children before the age of one. For a measure of life expectancy, prior to decent medicine in the USA the life expectancy was about 35. A low life expectancy probably means women die young (complications from child birth)
COUNTRY…….. TFR……..(deaths/1,000 live births)……..Life expectancy at birth
………………………………………(infants under one year)
Niger………………..7.60…….112.22………………………………….53.40
Uganda……………..6.6…….62.47…………………………………….53.24
Mali ………………….6.44…….111.35………………………………….52.61
Somalia…………….6.35…….105.56………………………………….50.40
Afghanistan……….5.39…….149.20…………………………………45.02
Venezuela ………..2.42…….20.62…………………………………..73.93
Ecuador……………..2.42…….
U. Arab Emirates..2.40…….11.94………………………………….76.51
Peru…………………..2.32…….22.18………………………………….72.47
Argentina……………2.31…….
Saudi Arabia………2.31…….
South Africa……….2.30…….
Mexico………………2.29…….
Brazil…………………2.18…….
Turkey……………….2.15…….23.94………………………………….72.50
United States…….2.06…….6.06…………………………………….78.37
China………………..1.54…….16.06…………………………………..74.68
Russia……………….1.42…….10.08………………………………….66.29
Germany……………1.41…….
Japan………………..1.12…….2.78…………………………………….82.25
stats and quote from: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2127rank.html and https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2091rank.html and https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html?countryName=Mayotte&countryCode=mf®ionCode=af&rank=175
Peak Oil?
Simple – start using thorium mini-Nuclear power plants. Japan/Korea have a join project to produce nuclear powered ships.
THORIUM: http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/default.aspx?id=448&terms=thorium
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/30/anti-nuclear-power-hysteria-and-it%E2%80%99s-significant-contribution-to-global-warming/
RE:Brian H: (October 8, 2011 at 2:23 pm)
“Spector, you loon. Population will self-limit at under 8 bn by 2030 or so, per the always-accurate lowest bound of the UN’s Population projections.”
Perhaps I am, but I was only pointing out how ridiculous it was to assume things will continue on as they have gone in the last century. Hard population control is going to have consequences–I do not claim to know what those might be, nor do I claim to know any “path to safety”–there may be none, but mankind should survive. In the words of Dr. Albert Bartlett, “It is obvious; zero population growth is going to happen.”
He also says, “If any fraction of the observed Global Warming can be attributed to the action of humans, then this is clear proof the human population, living as we do, has exceeded the carrying capacity of the Earth. So as a consequence, it’s an ‘inconvenient truth’ that all proposals and efforts at the local, national, and global levels to slow global warming, to achieve sustainability that do not advocate reducing populations to sustainable levels are what Mark Twain called ‘silent lies.’”
I would modify the above to say “any significant fraction” and I see Government mandated population control to be an unworkable, utopian concept—potentially like those cases he points out where the cure was worse than the disease.
Here is a bracket-denatured link to the complete, 59-minute presentation by Dr. Bartlett presented at UBC on 5/19/2011
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0ghHia-M54]
As opposed to the eight segment video link to the same basic presentation referenced above:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/08/peak-oil-climate-change-and-the-threat-to-food-security/#comment-762366
Peter Dunford says:
October 8, 2011 at 6:24 am
Yemen’s population is still increasing at about as fast as human populations can increase. Why they don’t currently have a per capita consumption as high as that of Tunisia is because a much higher proportion of the Yemeni population is under 14 years old. Therefore their currently sub-adult bodies consume less wheat. But one day they will grow up and consume about 267 kg of wheat per annum each.
Kip Hansen says:
October 8, 2011 at 7:23 am
That is wheat yield per hectare in developing countries, not total quantum of wheat grown.
One further thing. I had not incorporated the fertilising effect of increased atmospheric CO2. Currently, plants use about 100 water molecules for each carbon atom they capture from the atmosphere. Studies on wheat show a 50% increase in yield for a doubling of the atmospheric CO2 concentration. At 2 ppm per annum and a 0.178% increase in yield for every ppm added to the atmosphere, the 40 ppm that might be added over the next 20 years will increase grain production by 7.1%, which equates to 157 million tonnes per annum on the 2,2000 million tonnes of current total grain production. That in turn would feed another 400 million people.
Is there no hopeful news at all in the world today?
Austin says:
October 8, 2011 at 11:03 am
“The Peak Oil argument is no different than the “hockey” stick argument made by warmists. Its a millenial cult like y2k or 2012 or any of the other doomsday arguments.
There are at least 3.5 trillion barrels of recoverable oil in oil shale. About half of which is in the US and Canada. ”
Austin, while we all know about such non-conventional sources of oil, how many have paused to consider the one absolutely critical factor? Flow-rate.
Current global demand is in the region of 85-87 million barrels a day. As conventional crude sources continue to decline the shortfall will be made up by non-conventional sources up to a point: however the processing of such sources is a relatively elaborate process compared to simply drilling a well and pumping its contents to a refinery. In other words they are rate-constrained. For example, three or four years ago the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers claimed that with the stops pulled out they could possibly get to almost 5 million barrels/day Syncrude production. That leaves us with the rather glaring question, in the absence of conventional Crude, “so where’s the other 80 million barrels gonna come from?”. I’m not saying it’s about to run out, far from it. The problem, instead, occurs when regular Crude starts depleting beyond the point where the non-conventional oil sources can make up the shortfall, and it manifests in price-spikes that drive down economic activity. The 2007 price-spike, when one might think that the oil companies would go hell for leather to get the stuff up, refined and sold was interesting in that it coincided with – in three of four quarters – oil demand actually outstripping supply by a little. The price-spike was IMO the pin that burst the already very fragile banking bubble. Just a year or two earlier in my first presentation on this subject I predicted that Western economies – and especially the U.S. – were going to take a very big hit from an oil price-spike in the near future. At the time, I didn’t realise how soon this would be.
WRT other sources of oil, Earth’s geology is pretty well understood these days especially in terms of where there exist the sedimentary basins in which crude oil has a) been formed and is b) still likely to be there. The low-hanging fruit was long ago picked and a lot of it was squandered. There exists some potential in areas that are slowly becoming accessible, thanks to that damned hockey-stick of temperature – hence the oil companies busily drawing up plans to go and start looking in earnest up in the Arctic. Odd in some ways that global warming might actually put off the real oil-shock, should any significant discoveries be made up there!
But yes, we need to start rolling out alternatives – a wide spectrum of them – as soon as possible, and among the alternatives will be the need for behavioural change in terms of energy use and diet. Many have already started on this transition, recognising that doing such things at a grassroots level gives us a better chance than waiting in vain for our useless governments/politicians to do anything smart!
Cheers – John
Ouch! Too much info w/too little meaningful content!
Can that sort of thing (pointing out ALL the worlds ills) be saved for the EOTW (end of the world) blogs instead? It’s difficult as it is decoding the wheat from the chaff without HUGE 3 1/2 scrolled pages of content in blog format …
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Yes, and we see more and more idled refinery capacity EVERY year … QED?
/sarc
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RE: Gail Combs: (October 8, 2011 at 5:30 pm)
“Peak population:
“Advanced Civilization depresses birth rates. The EU and several other countries are in NEGATIVE population growth.”
To me, this seems a little too pat, although having the technology to voluntarily limit reproduction is certainly a factor in modern population growth. The countervailing force, in my opinion, is that those who have a greater instinctive emotional need for large families will eventually become the more dominant population represented in the gene pool of succeeding generations. If only free choice were involved, it seems likely that the ‘Octo-moms’ would out-reproduce the ‘mono-moms.’
>>Ian H
>>I could feed my family from a garden in the backyard. At the moment
>>I prefer to work in a University and buy my food. But perhaps I should
>>haul out the cultivator, dig up the back lawn, and start planting.
Ahh, the pipe-dream fantasies of the liberal ‘intelligentsia’. Been watching too much ‘The Good Life’ obviously. Gentle hint – that was a comedy show, notnreal life.
You are describing the surf system of strip-farming popular in England in the Middle Ages. And it produced nothing but grinding poverty and insufficient production. That is why we had the Enclosures Act, to make farms larger and more efficient, plus mechanisation.
If we returned to strip farming, 95% of the population would die of starvation. Or perhaps that is what you want.
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Spector says:
October 8, 2011 at 10:03 pm
If only free choice were involved, it seems likely that the ‘Octo-moms’ would out-reproduce the ‘mono-moms.’
Your hypothesis presupposes that the desire to have a lot of children is an inherited thread.
If the desire to have many children is randomly distributed in the gene pool, and the octomom’s babies pull from that lottery, the desire to have a good life which exists for all living species will predominate and limit the number of children, if having many children means a worst life within the norms of the time.
>>Jim
>>Sorry Redneck, fossil fuels are a limited resource, and therefore
>>Peak Oil (a maximum peak in production) is a foregone conclusion
>>carved in stone.
>>Yes, and we see more and more idled refinery capacity EVERY year … QED?
Show me where demand for oil is reducing. Links? All I see is rampant demand in China, India and much of the developing world outstripping any slight moderation in the West.
And what I said is true. Fossil fuels are a limited resource, and therefore Peak Oil (a maximum peak in production) is a foregone conclusion carved in stone – even if you think it will take 500 year to get there. A limited resourse will eventually run out, and that is an undeniable fact.
As it happens, I think we are already about there. All the cheap and easy oil has already gone, or is in declining production. All the new fields are either small, expensive to extract, or expensive to process, like shale oil. Yes, Germany did manage to make oil from coal in 1944, but at a cost that was about 10 times that of normal refined oil products.
If you do not think that an oil cost at 10 times current levels will not effect our economy, you are in for a rude awakening. In other words, it matters not how much oil you think is recoverable, we need better and cheaper energy than this RIGHT NOW, otherwise our economies will take a plunge of epic proportions.
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I’m rather skeptical when I come across pessimistic articles writen on the subjects of ‘population growth’, ‘food security’ and ‘peak oil’, particularly when they are all lumped together… I’ve done my own detailed investigations into these topics over the last few years, and dug much deeper than this article, frankly I’m not concerned.
RE: anna v says: (October 9, 2011 at 12:02 am)
“Your hypothesis presupposes that the desire to have a lot of children is an inherited thread.”
Yes, I believe an instinctive desire to have a large family can become favored if people with that instinct tend to have an above average number of descendants in a world where optional birth control technology is generally available.
Yet more `we’re doomed’ apocalyptic scery stuff.
Ooooohh…
How will the Bear ever get to sleep, tonight?
In an epistemological beauty contest, the Bear rates Peal Oil right up there with CAGW and all other forms of Malthusian-Crunch-Crisis-Whatever.
Mike H. says:
October 8, 2011 at 12:47 pm
Afghani heroin causes about 30,000 deaths per annum in Russia. To paraphrase Bismarck, Afghanistan isn’t worth the bones of one Pommeranian grenadier.
I just sat through the full series from Dr. R. A. Bartlett from the Univ. of Colorado. I started out excited when he talked about exponential functions. But then he fell into the standard Malthusian error trap. He first argued that exponential functions can’t go on forever :-). Then he argued that growth strategies are doomed to fail because they make that assumption :-(.
The standard error is to confuse growth in wealth, consumption, and population. Wealth can grow forever because there is no law that requires it to be tied to resource consumption. Nor is it tied to population growth. The concepts that tie these together are explained by Adam Smith in his second book (Wealth of Nations – 1776).
As resources become scarce we find alternatives. The signaling mechanism is price. That’s why free markets are crucial to orderly transitions in resource consumption. We’ll stop using hydrocarbon energy when we need to.
Fertility rates started to decline in the early 1960s. Absolute population will soon peak and either stabilize or decline. Wealth will continue to grow because we will seek it out in free transactions among individuals. Assuming we can still do that.
My problem with this essay is its choice of nations (Afghanistan and Yemen) as a baseline for its thesis. I selected the following population numbers to illustrate that in the future it will not be over-population that will be our problem. The opposite, in fact, will be the problem (the UN population data I posted are measured in units of Total Fertility Rates or TFR):
Nation Period TFR
World 1965-1970 4.85 births per female
World 2005-2010 2.52
Brazil 1965-1970 5.38
Brazil 2005-2010 1.90
Canada 1965-1970 2.61
Canada 2005-2010 1.65
Egypt 1965-1970 6.20
Egypt 2005-2010 2.85
Indonesia 1965-1970 5.57
Indonesia 2005-2010 2.19
Mexico 1965-1970 6.75
Mexico 2005-2010 2.41
Everyone knows of Europe’s demographic problems. But, the rest of the world is under going similar population decay. In order to have a stable population (niether long term loss or gain), a nation must maintain a TFR of 2.1 children per female generation to generation. Since 1970, our TFR globally has been halved. Even in Muslim nations like Egypt and Indonesia TFRs are plunging. If current trends continue, the global TFR will slip below replacement levels around 2020. Yes, nations like Yemen, Afghanistan and Niger have “healthy” replacement levels. West Africa especially have the highest birthrates in the world. However, AIDS, famine, and war continue to decimate thier populations.
From a policiy point of view, there are some things to consider. Aging populations do not consume and produce as much as younger populations. Look at Japan; Japan is now losing population, and deflation (not inflation) is the reality. In the US, where our TFR’s have been more or less stable since 1990, we had to depend upon immigration (both legal and illegal) to grow our population. You subtract the Hispanic population, and our growth since 2000 would have been flat. The 2010 Census data indicated that even with immigration, the rate of growth in the US was the slowest since 1930. The TFR amongst Caucasions and Blacks in the US was 1.77 in 2010. Amongst Hispancis it was 3.66. However, as the UN data above showed, even Mexico has plunging brithrates. If current trends hold Mexico will go below replacement level TFRs during this decade. And as writer Jonathan Last points out, US immigrants adopt to thier host nation’s TFRs within a generation.
I think policiy makers and analysts need to radically change thier emphasis. As one writer once quipped, China will get old before it gets rich. The demand for finished goods, food, and other rescource will slowly but steadily decline. And we should also realize that with falling birthrates the pool of fertile females also falls. With fewer females available to each future generation it takes more births per female just to stop the trend.
@Ralph October 8, 2011 at 1:10 pm & October 9, 2011 at 12:09 am
Sorry Ralph but peak oil is a neo-malthusian construct to put the fear of an impending apocalypse into the heads of the naive and gullible. As someone pointed out the low hanging fruit has been picked, but it is a very big tree. Of course new sources of oil will be more expensive to produce but as the first graph in this post indicates, regarding the price of food, the price has gone down in real terms over the period of the graph, despite intermittent up swings. I suspect the same could be shown for oil. It was precisely this principle which Julian Simon used to win the first wager with Paul Erlich and his acolytes John Harte and John Holdren.
As someone else noted part of what determines a reserve is the price of production. Once demand is high enough uneconomical resources are converted into reserves as they have become economically viable. Furthermore advances in technology also help to convert non-viable resources into viable reserves, as has recently been shown with fracing. Another person pointed out that we have only looked for oil in a small part of the globe and there are many places yet to explore, provided governments allow it. I suggest you read up on Cretaceous Rudisted reefs offshore on the east coast of the continental US.
This may be a somewhat hard thing for you to believe but the formation of oil is occurring at present at the same rate as it has in the past, as implied by the principle of uniformitarianism. It matters not one bit whether it is of abiotic origin, of which I am doubtful, or conventional origin it is still being formed as you read this. Of course how much is formed on a daily basis I doubt anyone knows and therefore it is impossible to say if it keeps up with consumption.
Don’t forget around 70% of all oil in a reservoir remains in the ground when the wells go “dry”. But if the well is capped the reservoir over time will re-pressurize allowing for some limited future production. And there will always be the development of new technologies which will allow for additional production from formerly “dry” wells.
So maybe you are right we may run out of oil in as little as 500 years (sarc) but after that we have gas, coal, methane clathrates, uranium, possibly even thorium, something of which I remain doubtful. By the time that all runs out humankind may have already developed fusion, perfected solar or come up with an entirely new and unimagined technology to supply us with unlimited cheap energy.
Yes Ralph there is a future and it is bright indeed. The only thing standing in the way are the neo-malthusian luddites of the environmental movement who want everyone, excluding themselves of course, to don hair shirts, move back in to caves and sit around fires singing Kumbaya. I honestly hope Ralph that you are not one of those.
David Archibald I saw the term peak oil in the title of your post but did not take the time to read the post throughly. Peak oil is one of those terms which I really have no time for but now that I better understand what you were getting at I would like to apologise for my initial harsh comments.
Spector says:
October 8, 2011 at 10:03 pm
RE: Gail Combs: (October 8, 2011 at 5:30 pm)
“Peak population:
“Advanced Civilization depresses birth rates. The EU and several other countries are in NEGATIVE population growth.”
To me, this seems a little too pat, although having the technology to voluntarily limit reproduction is certainly a factor in modern population growth…….
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Actually it makes a lot of sense. In the US and EU farmers are about 1% of the population. Most people live in cities or the burbs. Therefore each child COSTS the family.
“…A middle-income family may spend $226,920 to raise a child born in 2010 to the age of 18, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said today in a report….” http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-09/u-s-child-born-in-2010-may-cost-226-920-to-raise-usda-says.html
In a farming family especially in the third world the child CONTRIBUTES to the families wealth by doing work often at ages as young as four and five. Heck my ex-husband was driving a tractor by age five, I have seen kids in that age range (with a dog) and free range livestock in both France and in Mexico. A friend of mine was grumbling because her farmer husband wanted a bunch of kids to help him on the farm.
Consider the cost analysis of hiring some one to do the work or producing a kid you can feed off your farm for “free” AND who is a tax break to boot.
_Jim says:
October 8, 2011 at 9:56 pm
Gail Combs says on October 8, 2011 at 5:30 pm
Where to start….
Ouch! Too much info w/too little meaningful content!
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Sigh
If I do not back what I say up then you complain. Now if I do back my statement up you complain.
I will be very blunt.
Over the long run we are headed towards high food prices/famine and it has to do with concentration in the control of the land/ grain trade and manipulation of the “Futures Markets” not the weather. It also has to do with the WTO and the “Harmonization” of law/regulations across the world. Independents do not stand a chance competing against the International corporations once the business is regulated AND the corporations control the bureaucracy.
I remember when pig farmers in the USA fed table scraps from the Armed Forces, restaurants and even homes to their pigs. (The scraps were cooked to sanitize them per USDA regs) Now pig farming is completely “Vertically integrated” by the big corporations who use tax payer subsidized grain instead. The large corporations got the use of table scraps outlawed so the independents could not compete.
Once a monopoly is gained food prices will rise. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure that out.
The drive for the monopoly is happening now. There is plenty of data available to show that is true and not a “Conspiracy” As usual the willfully blind will not acknowledge that until they are actually starving and even then they will likely blame it on CAGW and not the real cause.
Purdue University has several pdfs on the global ag cartels and price fixing: http://www.agecon.purdue.edu/staff/connor/papers/index.asp
Max_B says:
October 9, 2011 at 1:21 am
I’m rather skeptical when I come across pessimistic articles writen on the subjects of ‘population growth’, ‘food security’ and ‘peak oil’, particularly when they are all lumped together… I’ve done my own detailed investigations into these topics over the last few years, and dug much deeper than this article, frankly I’m not concerned.
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Have you read these?
http://www.tsl.uu.se/uhdsg/Publications/GOF_decline_Article.pdf
http://www.jfcom.mil/newslink/storyarchive/2010/JOE_2010_o.pdf
http://www.tsl.uu.se/uhdsg/Publications/PeakOilAge.pdf
http://www.tsl.uu.se/uhdsg/Publications/IPCC_article.pdf
http://www.ukerc.ac.uk/support/tiki-index.php?page=Global+Oil+Depletion
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/50234
https://www.msu.edu/~ralsto11/PeakOil.pdf
The German military did their own analysis and they are worried:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,715138,00.html
Redneck says:
October 9, 2011 at 8:01 am
@Ralph October 8, 2011 at 1:10 pm & October 9, 2011 at 12:09 am
Sorry Ralph but peak oil is a neo-malthusian construct to put the fear of an impending apocalypse into the heads of the naive and gullible. As someone pointed out the low hanging fruit has been picked, but it is a very big tree.
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Usual mistake of all who dispute peak oil. Peak oil is not about what’s in the ground, it never has been. It’s about how fast it can be extracted, the flow rate, and the energy it takes to extract it. Flow rates from unconvensional sources will be lower than convensional sources. Not only has the easy oil been extracted, but easy also in it’s ability to flow quickly. ERoEI is vital. Studies have shown that the min for society is 4:1. The Alberta tar sands is 6:1. Ghawar when it first started was 100:1. Today the world average is 20:1 and dropping. Soon as it hits 1:1 for any field, the field is spent, exhausted, regardless of the technology thrown at it.
Steve from Rockwood says:
October 8, 2011 at 10:17 am
jr, Mexican oil is not dead yet. Yes they have had problems and yes the Cantarell field (Mexico’s largest producer) is declining despite the injection of massive amounts of nitrogen.
But PEMEX is a state-run entity that can’t easily raise money to develop fields that require a longer term strategy. This is more a problem for the government. Massive amounts of infrastructure and technology are required to develop new fields and this will take time. But there is more oil and one day it will be extracted.
Yes oil production has peaked. It will peak again. And it is what’s in the ground that is important. If it isn’t in the ground, it can’t be extracted. Exploration 101.
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Cantarell was the world’s third largest oil field. There won’t be another (formed from the impact 65myo) found in Mexico. What’s in the ground is irrelevant, what counts is how fast you can extract it. Within 10 years Mexico wont produce enough oil for itself let alone export to the US.
http://www.aspousa.org/index.php/2010/01/mexican-oil-production-continues-to-dive/