Back in 1980, the great libertarian economist, Julian Simon, and the prepetually wrong Malthusian biologist, Paul Ehrlich, entered into a little wager regarding population growth and resource scarcity. They decided on using the inflation-adjusted prices of five metals to decide the bet. Simon allowed Erlich to pick the five metals. If the 1990 prices were higher, Erlich would win. If they were lower, Simon would win. With the help of a fellow perpetually wrong Malthusian, John P. Holdren, Ehrlich selected chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), Nickel (Ni), tin (Sn) and tungsten (W). Julian Simon won the bet. However, a couple of years ago, economist Paul Kedroski suggested that had the time period of the bet extended to 2010, Ehrlich would have been the winner every year since 1991…
Given its 30th anniversary, and with commodities in the news – especially oil – I thought it was an apropos time (and TED an appropriate venue) to revisit the bet’s context, outcome, controversies and implications.
Without getting into it too deeply, here are some things worth knowing. Given the above graph of the five commodities’ prices in inflation-adjusted terms, it will surprise no-one that the bet’s payoff was highly dependent on its start date. Simon famously offered to bet comers on any timeline longer than a year, and on any commodity, but the bet itself was over a decade, from 1980-1990. If you started the bet any year during the 1980s Simon won eight of the ten decadal start years. During the 1990s things changed, however, with Simon the decadal winners in four start years and Ehrlich winning six – 60% of the time. And if we extend the bet into the current decade, taking Simon at his word that he was happy to bet on any period from a year on up (we don’t have enough data to do a full 21st century decade), then Ehrlich won every start-year bet in the 2000s. He looks like he’ll be a perfect Simon/Ehrlich ten-for-ten.
In light of the fact that the world population clock recently crossed the 7 billion mark, I thought I’d see if there was a more accurate measure of the increasing scarcity (or lack thereof) of these metals over time.
Rather than “cherry-picking” particular decades, I took a look at the full historical price record (available from the USGS). The inflation adjusted prices of Chromium (Cr), Copper (Cu), Nickel (Ni), Tin (Sn) and Tungsten (W) exhibit no statistically meaningful inflation-adjusted price trend over the last 110 years…
Cu, Ni and W have slightly negative slopes; while Cr and Sn have slightly positive slopes… Only chromium’s (R^2 = 0.3187) and copper’s (R^2 = 0.1719) trend lines approach statistical significance.
While the inflation adjusted price of these metals is a good measure of affordability, it is not a complete measure. The price is only relevant if it is measured against the financial resources available. Relative to world real per capita GDP all five metals have become more affordable since 1969…
The GDP slope is positive and highly statistically significant (R^2 = 0.98). The GDP slope (81.354) is almost three times larger than the largest positive metal slope (Ni, 32.506).
More importantly, from a scarcity perspective, the production output of all five metals has been rising over time. Four are rising exponentially …
While the ratio of price to output has been declining exponentially…
If these metals were becoming more scarce, the price would be rising faster than the supply.
The USGS estimates that the current prover reserves of all five metals are sufficient to meet demand for the next 20 to 59 years. For “fun” I estimated the crustal mass of all five metals and estimated how long it would take to literally run out at the current production rate…
Debunking the Population Bomb Dud
The human popupation hit the seven billion mark last fall…
Published online 19 October 2011 | Nature 478, 300 (2011) | doi:10.1038/478300a
News
Seven billion and counting
A look behind this month’s global population landmark reveals a world in transition.
Jeff Tollefson
What’s in a number? This month, the world’s attention turns to a big one: 7 billion, the latest milestone in humanity’s remarkable and worrying rise in population.
[…]
On one level, a figure of 7 billion is incredible for the sheer momentum it represents: a full doubling of the planet’s population since 1967, with current growth adding 200,000 people each day, and a nation larger than the size of France each year. But although the 6-billion mark was reached about 13 years ago according to revised figures, it will take nearly 14 years to hit 8 billion (see ‘Snapshots of growth’). The comparison shows that population growth is decelerating; it is likely to level off at about 10 billion before the end of the century.
Between now and then, the fastest growth will be in Africa, where fertility levels remain higher than anywhere else in the world. Population levels among industrialized countries, by contrast, will remain relatively constant. Although Asia will remain the most populous continent, decreasing fertility rates there will add to the overall ‘greying’ of the planet.
The Nature article included the following graphic, indicating that the word population will most likely level off at ~10 billion ca. 2070…
Is that a problem? I don’t think so. The human race handled the rise from 3.5 to 7 billion rather well. The global per capita food supply has steadily increased since 1960…
Per capita real GDP has risen at the same rate as the population…
Per capita food supply has also risen with the population…
And… Amazingly… Per capita food supply and per capita GDP are highly correlated…
The percentage of the world’s population suffering from undernourishment has steadily declined over the last 40 years, despite a rising population…
Very few nations have failed to reach the MDG 1 target of reducing the percentage of their population suffering from undernourishment by 50%…
The world isn’t running out of water either. The UN FAO Aquastat data base showed that in the year 2000, the world’s total renewable water resource was 53,730 x 10^9 m3/yr. The total withdrawal was estimated to be 2,871 x 10^9 m3/yr. That’s a 5% utilization rate.
The far from perect human condition doesn’t negate the fact that clear progress has been made over the last half-century to reduce hunger, despite a growing population.
Almost all of the population growth over the next 60 years will be in Africa and Asia – the two largest land masses on Earth.
Assuming that the populations of Asia and Africa reach 5 billion and 3.6 billion respectively, their population densities will be 114 and 119 people per km^2. The population densities of the rest of the world will remain about the same or decline. Asia’s density is currently 95 per km^2. The greatest stress will be on Africa, which is currently underutilizing its resources more than any other continent.
Africa has plenty of potentially arable land, plenty of water and plenty of resources. Africa just lacks the economic and political infrastructure to realize its own potential.
Current and potential arable land use in Africa. Out of the total land area in Africa, only a fraction is used for arable land. Using soil, land cover and climatic characteristics a FAO study has estimated the potential land area for rainfed crops, excluding built up areas and forests – neither of which would be available for agriculture. According to the study, the potential – if realised – would mean an increase ranging from 150 – 700% percent per region, with a total potential for the whole of Africa in 300 million hectares. Note that the actual arable land in 2003 is higher than the potential in a few countries, like Egypt, due to irrigation…
The “world” isn’t running out of anything. Global proven oil reserves have doubled since 1980.
Most other commercial mineral resources have seen its proven reserves grow at least as fast as consumption has grown.
The world has plenty of food, water, space, mineral resources and the Earth’s environment is generally cleaner now than it was 35 years ago. Crop yields have continued to maintain an increasing upward trend for 40 years… And there is every reason to believe that crop yields will continue to improve (unless we really are on the verge of returning to Little Ice Age climate conditions).
But it will get worse in the future!!!
The “bear” is always just out of sight in the woods. For centuries, Malthusians have trotted out one invisible bogeyman after another (Malthusians pre-date Malthus by at least a few thousand years). The disaster is just over the horizon, just around the corner or lurking in the woods.
The Earth is finite; but humans have barely tapped its resources… We will still barely be tapping the Earth’s resources when we hit the 10 billion mark about 90 years down the road… And the Malthusians will still be warning us about the bear in the woods.
The only thing the world has a genuine shortage of is honest and competent people in gov’t. Almost all of our problems are due to political interference with market forces.
typo: “about when the sun goes red giant…”
Addendum: water desal, in virtually unlimited quantities, also follows from cheap power. Actually, the huge discontinuity, the step surge, in unconventional NG is relevant there, too, as it is a fine (interim, current technology) power generator fuel. See Israel for some fascinating developments (it is about to become a surplus gas producer and exporter) in its already booming desal cutting-edge tech industry.
Jean Parisot
January 25, 2012 1:12 pm
I believe the best thing we can do to mitigate this problem is double the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. That would lead to a calculated decrease in crop water needs of ~25%. But then I’m a heretic. Great idea, that works even better with a modest temperature rise. Shame we can’t seem to burn enough coal to make it happen.
John F. Hultquist
January 25, 2012 1:13 pm
jrwakefield says:
January 25, 2012 at 12:35 pm
. . .
So here are the problems going forward.”
It is said that predictions are difficult – especially about the future.
Consider the growing of corn. Early last century if one were to have made forward-looking estimates of labor and energy inputs for a bushel of corn they would have been wrong. Read the story of “check-rowing” at the link below and wonder about the things you don’t know and that you don’t know that you don’t know them. http://www.farmcollector.com/implements/check-row-planting-by-the-book.aspx
MarkW says: Multiple studies have shown that size of growth and size of govt are inversely proportional.
The US’s economy was growing much, much faster, decades ago, when govt was much, much smaller.
Would love to see some of those studies – do you have links to share?
Then, to power that and everything else till about the sun goes red giant, there’s this:
LPPhysics.com (at a capital cost and output price <<10% of best current retail market.)
Dreams and potential doesn’t mean anything. I’ll believe all this when it actually happens on a large scale. I hope it does happen, I really do, but I’m still waiting for my flying car I was promised in the 1960’s would be main stream today.
manicbeancounter
January 25, 2012 2:17 pm
An excellent post, filled with many statistics. One element worth emphasising is the availability of resources verses the economically viable reserves or output – whether of water, oil, gas, metals or agricultural output. The Malthusians, mistakenly, take the current physical constraints and extrapolate. The catastrophic consequences of climate change rely as much on this thinking, as the projected extreme changes in the weather.
Two small examples that illustrate the difference between the economic and physical constraints in agriculture. In the Soviet Union, around 30% of the agricultural output was from 1% of the land area. This 1% consisted of small private plots people could use to grow for their own use, and sell in the local markets. 100 years ago, Russia was the world’s biggest grain exporter. In 1920 it endured a famine where 5 million people died, despite huge foreign relief efforts.
In both cases the huge difference was not physical but economic structures. Africa has the biggest potential problems going forward, not because of its potential population explosion, but because it economic structures are almost non-existent.
pk
January 25, 2012 2:17 pm
Don K:
you are absolutely correct about auto bumpers not being chromed anymore. that is not because of a shortage of chrome but because of the gawd awful costs of running a chrome shop and the hazmat regulations…….
chrome and nickel are the alloying elements in the various “super alloys” that allow things to withstand extremely high working temperatures. things like power turbine blades in gas turbines, the piping and valves and pressure vessels in “serious” electric generation systems ….
the dip in price in the middle 80’s is interesting as during a certain period in those years the air force needed quite a bit of tungsten, chrome and nickel and had the state department talking nice with the russians as they had most of the commercial sources of it.
some of these prices are artificial. you can have a need for a large amount of these metals (tip off, when stuff is sold per pound and listed on the new york time semi precious metals market, there isn’t much of it around), say 6000# of tin and have to go through us govt. procuring procedures that single “buy” can push the price up by ~250% in a week. quite simply because the “buyer” has a “babbling problem”.
c
Curiousgeorge
January 25, 2012 2:44 pm
Sure are a lot of crystal balls on display in this thread. Is WalMart having a Crystal Ball sale?
The amount of ‘carbon based’ fuel available in the earth’s crust can be reasonably estimated from how much oxygen there is currently unattached to carbon: primarily that attached to iron in iron ore or free in the atmosphere (iron ore contain 10^4 more oxygen as it happens).
As nearly all the earth’s oxygen came from the splitting of original CO2 in the early atmosphere into carbon and oxygen via photosynthetic bacteria over 2-3 billion years, then it’s not difficult to show that there must be of the order of 10^18 tonne of carbon available to burn – around ten million times current estimated reserves of ‘fossil fuel’. See me out anyway!
Hugh Pepper
January 25, 2012 3:10 pm
Since you seem intent on slandering Professor Ehrlich, you could at least spell his name correctly. Starting a post describing this highly acclaimed scientist as “perpetually wrong” is over the ethical line.
Mark N
January 25, 2012 3:15 pm
What a wonderful up-date. Thank you
ROM
January 25, 2012 3:18 pm
Mankind needs four basic items to survive;
Water
Food
Shelter
Energy
With cheap and readily available energy he can create and supply all his basic needs as above. The deliberate use of and control of energy is the defining difference between mankind and the animal world.
Even the use of the lowest form of energy, a cow pat fire, defines a human being from an animal.
George E. Smith; says:
January 25, 2012 at 11:34 am
“The overall result was that regardless of technology, world food production increased linearly with energy input .”
Back in the 1980’s a couple of universities, one here in Australia and another in the USA did the energy sums on food production from the mining the ores for the farm machinery and the oil and gas for the farm chemicals right through the industrial and farming processes and systems until the farm grown food product finally rolled out through the farm gate.
They found that energy available in a food product ie; grain etc, was about equal to the total amount of energy required to grow that food.
The unbelievable stupidity of greens and their climate alarmists running dogs in trying to force the price of energy up and to limit energy production is beyond stupidity to the point of future criminality if the world runs short of cheap, readily available energy as that will also imply that the world will also run short of food at prices that a large part of humanity can afford to pay.
.
The British Industrial Revolution, the basis upon which our entire modern technologically based civilisation has been created which has done so much to feed and clothe mankind’s ever increasing numbers, was founded entirely on cheap energy from British coal.
And our whole industrial and technological society is still based entirely on the supply of absolutely reliable, stable and cheap energy.
For world population data; Source; CIA World Fact Book; http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?v=24&c=xx&l=en
As world population growth ceases around 2060 or so and the global population stabilises around the 8.5 to 9.5 billions and then starts a slow, long term falling trend, the real problem will be the type of economy existing.
Our current global economic system is based on growth and more growth. The system relies on an ever increasing number of people to buy and consume of every type of product both hardware, software and intellectual software.
As the global population stabilises and with an aging population sometime past 2060, global economic growth will no longer come from an increasing population but will only come from increasing the living standards of the stable population and even those increases in living standards start to slow down once energy consumption reaches about 6000 kgs oil equivalent energy per annum per person.
A situation that will likely be reached sometime in the 22 nd century.
After all, an individual will only acquire a certain amount of the goods and intellectual products during their lives before becoming sated and as an individual ages those demands become less and less.
As the global population stabilises an entire new economic system much different to our present economic system will have to be created otherwise mankind and his civilisation will just fall into a long term period of economic decline and stagnation with all that entails for the future advancement of the race.
hstad6
January 25, 2012 3:36 pm
jrwakefield says:
January 25, 2012 at 2:11 pm
Be patient! You got your Dick Tracy watch now – it’s called an IPhone!
Septic Matthew
January 25, 2012 3:42 pm
If they had started in a different year, and specified a different duration, Erlich and Holdren would have most likely picked different commodities.
Septic Matthew
January 25, 2012 3:47 pm
While the inflation adjusted price of these metals is a good measure of affordability, it is not a complete measure. The price is only relevant if it is measured against the financial resources available. Relative to world real per capita GDP all five metals have become more affordable since 1969…
An important point. There probably isn’t a “complete” measure of affordability.
Philip Foster said @ur momisugly January 25, 2012 at 2:47 pm
The amount of ‘carbon based’ fuel available in the earth’s crust can be reasonably estimated from how much oxygen there is currently unattached to carbon: primarily that attached to iron in iron ore or free in the atmosphere (iron ore contain 10^4 more oxygen as it happens).
As nearly all the earth’s oxygen came from the splitting of original CO2 in the early atmosphere into carbon and oxygen via photosynthetic bacteria over 2-3 billion years, then it’s not difficult to show that there must be of the order of 10^18 tonne of carbon available to burn – around ten million times current estimated reserves of ‘fossil fuel’. See me out anyway!
Mankind needs four basic items to survive;
Water
Food
Shelter
Energy
With cheap and readily available energy he can create and supply all his basic needs as above. The deliberate use of and control of energy is the defining difference between mankind and the animal world.
Even the use of the lowest form of energy, a cow pat fire, defines a human being from an animal.
George E. Smith; says:
January 25, 2012 at 11:34 am
“The overall result was that regardless of technology, world food production increased linearly with energy input .”
Back in the 1980′s a couple of universities, one here in Australia and another in the USA did the energy sums on food production from the mining the ores for the farm machinery and the oil and gas for the farm chemicals right through the industrial and farming processes and systems until the farm grown food product finally rolled out through the farm gate.
They found that energy available in a food product ie; grain etc, was about equal to the total amount of energy required to grow that food.
The unbelievable stupidity of greens and their climate alarmists running dogs in trying to force the price of energy up and to limit energy production is beyond stupidity to the point of future criminality if the world runs short of cheap, readily available energy as that will also imply that the world will also run short of food at prices that a large part of humanity can afford to pay.
.
The British Industrial Revolution, the basis upon which our entire modern technologically based civilisation has been created which has done so much to feed and clothe mankind’s ever increasing numbers, was founded entirely on cheap energy from British coal.
And our whole industrial and technological society is still based entirely on the supply of absolutely reliable, stable and cheap energy.
For world population data; Source; CIA World Fact Book; http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?v=24&c=xx&l=en
As world population growth ceases around 2060 or so and the global population stabilises around the 8.5 to 9.5 billions and then starts a slow, long term falling trend, the real problem will be the type of economy existing.
Our current global economic system is based on growth and more growth. The system relies on an ever increasing number of people to buy and consume of every type of product both hardware, software and intellectual software.
As the global population stabilises and with an aging population sometime past 2060, global economic growth will no longer come from an increasing population but will only come from increasing the living standards of the stable population and even those increases in living standards start to slow down once energy consumption reaches about 6000 kgs oil equivalent energy per annum per person.
A situation that will likely be reached sometime in the 22 nd century.
After all, an individual will only acquire a certain amount of the goods and intellectual products during their lives before becoming sated and as an individual ages those demands become less and less.
As the global population stabilises an entire new economic system much different to our present economic system will have to be created otherwise mankind and his civilisation will just fall into a long term period of economic decline and stagnation with all that entails for the future advancement of the race.
All assuming no new sources of energy. And no, I’m not referring to the stupidities of PV, wind etc.
John F. Hultquist
January 25, 2012 5:18 pm
Hugh Pepper says:
January 25, 2012 at 3:10 pm
Since you seem intent on slandering Professor Ehrlich, you could at least spell his name correctly. Starting a post describing this highly acclaimed scientist as “perpetually wrong” is over the ethical line.
Paul Ehrlich became “highly acclaimed” following the 1961 publication of How to Know the Butterflies – still available from amazon.com for $4.99 plus $3.99 shipping.
Doug Badgero
January 25, 2012 6:13 pm
A point too often missed that I don’t think was ever brought up on the thread:
“Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.”
Dr Milton Freidman
The highest average annual inflation adjusted price of crude oil occurred in 1980. We all understand supply and demand, but we forget the effects on price levels of the supply and demand of money. This effect is usually amplified with commodity prices as people seek out alternative hard assets to counter the declining value of the paper currency in their wallet.
Brian H
January 25, 2012 6:19 pm
Hugh Pepper
Since you seem intent on slandering exposing Professor Ehrlich, you could at least spell his name correctly. Starting a post describing revealing this highly acclaimed shamed scientist as “perpetually wrong” is over the ethical line.fair dinkum.
Fixed.
He and his lunatic supporters have done more harm than the last several wars. Hansen is emulating him, but has some way to go to catch up.
SteveSadlov
January 25, 2012 6:59 pm
RE: “How many investors are willing to risk thier capital with markets that will be shrinking? Only throught consolidation and mergers will corporations be able to maintain economies of scale. And despite the demand for food and resoucrce coming out of Africa, there will be net decreases in demand for energy, food, and consumer goods over-all. ”
I think many markets (especially in the real of quant and program trading) are already pricing this in. The destruction of wealth is already underway.
SteveSadlov
January 25, 2012 6:59 pm
Typo: Real ->Realm.
SteveSadlov
January 25, 2012 7:10 pm
RE: “As the global population stabilises an entire new economic system much different to our present economic system will have to be created otherwise mankind and his civilisation will just fall into a long term period of economic decline and stagnation with all that entails for the future advancement of the race.”
I have a dark view. I suspect such decline and stagnation will be our destiny. We will never reach the stars, let alone colonize our own star system. We will perish, a fallen, barbaric shadow of what we once were, in a slowly dying world.
Richard G
January 25, 2012 7:14 pm
@William Howard Abbott says:
Natural resources are of no value unless they are coupled with human ingenuity.
Value is in the beholder’s mind.
An interesting short video on *economic value*: http://youtu.be/T1I5n2-ro_Q
typo: “about when the sun goes red giant…”
Addendum: water desal, in virtually unlimited quantities, also follows from cheap power. Actually, the huge discontinuity, the step surge, in unconventional NG is relevant there, too, as it is a fine (interim, current technology) power generator fuel. See Israel for some fascinating developments (it is about to become a surplus gas producer and exporter) in its already booming desal cutting-edge tech industry.
I believe the best thing we can do to mitigate this problem is double the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. That would lead to a calculated decrease in crop water needs of ~25%. But then I’m a heretic. Great idea, that works even better with a modest temperature rise. Shame we can’t seem to burn enough coal to make it happen.
jrwakefield says:
January 25, 2012 at 12:35 pm
. . .
So here are the problems going forward.”
It is said that predictions are difficult – especially about the future.
Consider the growing of corn. Early last century if one were to have made forward-looking estimates of labor and energy inputs for a bushel of corn they would have been wrong. Read the story of “check-rowing” at the link below and wonder about the things you don’t know and that you don’t know that you don’t know them.
http://www.farmcollector.com/implements/check-row-planting-by-the-book.aspx
MarkW says:
Multiple studies have shown that size of growth and size of govt are inversely proportional.
The US’s economy was growing much, much faster, decades ago, when govt was much, much smaller.
Would love to see some of those studies – do you have links to share?
Then, to power that and everything else till about the sun goes red giant, there’s this:
LPPhysics.com (at a capital cost and output price <<10% of best current retail market.)
Dreams and potential doesn’t mean anything. I’ll believe all this when it actually happens on a large scale. I hope it does happen, I really do, but I’m still waiting for my flying car I was promised in the 1960’s would be main stream today.
An excellent post, filled with many statistics. One element worth emphasising is the availability of resources verses the economically viable reserves or output – whether of water, oil, gas, metals or agricultural output. The Malthusians, mistakenly, take the current physical constraints and extrapolate. The catastrophic consequences of climate change rely as much on this thinking, as the projected extreme changes in the weather.
Two small examples that illustrate the difference between the economic and physical constraints in agriculture. In the Soviet Union, around 30% of the agricultural output was from 1% of the land area. This 1% consisted of small private plots people could use to grow for their own use, and sell in the local markets. 100 years ago, Russia was the world’s biggest grain exporter. In 1920 it endured a famine where 5 million people died, despite huge foreign relief efforts.
In both cases the huge difference was not physical but economic structures. Africa has the biggest potential problems going forward, not because of its potential population explosion, but because it economic structures are almost non-existent.
Don K:
you are absolutely correct about auto bumpers not being chromed anymore. that is not because of a shortage of chrome but because of the gawd awful costs of running a chrome shop and the hazmat regulations…….
chrome and nickel are the alloying elements in the various “super alloys” that allow things to withstand extremely high working temperatures. things like power turbine blades in gas turbines, the piping and valves and pressure vessels in “serious” electric generation systems ….
the dip in price in the middle 80’s is interesting as during a certain period in those years the air force needed quite a bit of tungsten, chrome and nickel and had the state department talking nice with the russians as they had most of the commercial sources of it.
some of these prices are artificial. you can have a need for a large amount of these metals (tip off, when stuff is sold per pound and listed on the new york time semi precious metals market, there isn’t much of it around), say 6000# of tin and have to go through us govt. procuring procedures that single “buy” can push the price up by ~250% in a week. quite simply because the “buyer” has a “babbling problem”.
c
Sure are a lot of crystal balls on display in this thread. Is WalMart having a Crystal Ball sale?
The amount of ‘carbon based’ fuel available in the earth’s crust can be reasonably estimated from how much oxygen there is currently unattached to carbon: primarily that attached to iron in iron ore or free in the atmosphere (iron ore contain 10^4 more oxygen as it happens).
As nearly all the earth’s oxygen came from the splitting of original CO2 in the early atmosphere into carbon and oxygen via photosynthetic bacteria over 2-3 billion years, then it’s not difficult to show that there must be of the order of 10^18 tonne of carbon available to burn – around ten million times current estimated reserves of ‘fossil fuel’. See me out anyway!
Since you seem intent on slandering Professor Ehrlich, you could at least spell his name correctly. Starting a post describing this highly acclaimed scientist as “perpetually wrong” is over the ethical line.
What a wonderful up-date. Thank you
Mankind needs four basic items to survive;
Water
Food
Shelter
Energy
With cheap and readily available energy he can create and supply all his basic needs as above. The deliberate use of and control of energy is the defining difference between mankind and the animal world.
Even the use of the lowest form of energy, a cow pat fire, defines a human being from an animal.
George E. Smith; says:
January 25, 2012 at 11:34 am
“The overall result was that regardless of technology, world food production increased linearly with energy input .”
Back in the 1980’s a couple of universities, one here in Australia and another in the USA did the energy sums on food production from the mining the ores for the farm machinery and the oil and gas for the farm chemicals right through the industrial and farming processes and systems until the farm grown food product finally rolled out through the farm gate.
They found that energy available in a food product ie; grain etc, was about equal to the total amount of energy required to grow that food.
The unbelievable stupidity of greens and their climate alarmists running dogs in trying to force the price of energy up and to limit energy production is beyond stupidity to the point of future criminality if the world runs short of cheap, readily available energy as that will also imply that the world will also run short of food at prices that a large part of humanity can afford to pay.
.
The British Industrial Revolution, the basis upon which our entire modern technologically based civilisation has been created which has done so much to feed and clothe mankind’s ever increasing numbers, was founded entirely on cheap energy from British coal.
And our whole industrial and technological society is still based entirely on the supply of absolutely reliable, stable and cheap energy.
For world population data; Source; CIA World Fact Book;
http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?v=24&c=xx&l=en
As world population growth ceases around 2060 or so and the global population stabilises around the 8.5 to 9.5 billions and then starts a slow, long term falling trend, the real problem will be the type of economy existing.
Our current global economic system is based on growth and more growth. The system relies on an ever increasing number of people to buy and consume of every type of product both hardware, software and intellectual software.
As the global population stabilises and with an aging population sometime past 2060, global economic growth will no longer come from an increasing population but will only come from increasing the living standards of the stable population and even those increases in living standards start to slow down once energy consumption reaches about 6000 kgs oil equivalent energy per annum per person.
A situation that will likely be reached sometime in the 22 nd century.
After all, an individual will only acquire a certain amount of the goods and intellectual products during their lives before becoming sated and as an individual ages those demands become less and less.
As the global population stabilises an entire new economic system much different to our present economic system will have to be created otherwise mankind and his civilisation will just fall into a long term period of economic decline and stagnation with all that entails for the future advancement of the race.
jrwakefield says:
January 25, 2012 at 2:11 pm
Be patient! You got your Dick Tracy watch now – it’s called an IPhone!
If they had started in a different year, and specified a different duration, Erlich and Holdren would have most likely picked different commodities.
While the inflation adjusted price of these metals is a good measure of affordability, it is not a complete measure. The price is only relevant if it is measured against the financial resources available. Relative to world real per capita GDP all five metals have become more affordable since 1969…
An important point. There probably isn’t a “complete” measure of affordability.
Philip Foster said @ur momisugly January 25, 2012 at 2:47 pm
Wowsers! Go, go gadget… energy! Or something 🙂
ROM said @ur momisugly January 25, 2012 at 3:18 pm
All assuming no new sources of energy. And no, I’m not referring to the stupidities of PV, wind etc.
Hugh Pepper says:
January 25, 2012 at 3:10 pm
Since you seem intent on slandering Professor Ehrlich, you could at least spell his name correctly. Starting a post describing this highly acclaimed scientist as “perpetually wrong” is over the ethical line.
Paul Ehrlich became “highly acclaimed” following the 1961 publication of How to Know the Butterflies – still available from amazon.com for $4.99 plus $3.99 shipping.
A point too often missed that I don’t think was ever brought up on the thread:
“Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.”
Dr Milton Freidman
The highest average annual inflation adjusted price of crude oil occurred in 1980. We all understand supply and demand, but we forget the effects on price levels of the supply and demand of money. This effect is usually amplified with commodity prices as people seek out alternative hard assets to counter the declining value of the paper currency in their wallet.
Fixed.
He and his lunatic supporters have done more harm than the last several wars. Hansen is emulating him, but has some way to go to catch up.
RE: “How many investors are willing to risk thier capital with markets that will be shrinking? Only throught consolidation and mergers will corporations be able to maintain economies of scale. And despite the demand for food and resoucrce coming out of Africa, there will be net decreases in demand for energy, food, and consumer goods over-all. ”
I think many markets (especially in the real of quant and program trading) are already pricing this in. The destruction of wealth is already underway.
Typo: Real ->Realm.
RE: “As the global population stabilises an entire new economic system much different to our present economic system will have to be created otherwise mankind and his civilisation will just fall into a long term period of economic decline and stagnation with all that entails for the future advancement of the race.”
I have a dark view. I suspect such decline and stagnation will be our destiny. We will never reach the stars, let alone colonize our own star system. We will perish, a fallen, barbaric shadow of what we once were, in a slowly dying world.
@William Howard Abbott says:
Natural resources are of no value unless they are coupled with human ingenuity.
Value is in the beholder’s mind.
An interesting short video on *economic value*:
http://youtu.be/T1I5n2-ro_Q
If anyone is interested in trends in the affordability of food (from 1900 onward) and various metals (from 1800 onward) in terms of prices-to-GDP-per-capita or prices-to-wages, check out this post of mine at MasterResource from Earth Day, 2010 at http://www.masterresource.org/2010/04/population-consumption-carbon-emissions-and-human-well-being-in-the-age-of-industrialization-part-i-revisiting-the-julian-simon-paul-ehrlich-bet/ . It also addresses the Simon-Ehrlich bet.