In the Wall Street Journal, Matt Ridley has an interesting article about the the claims that we will run out of “X”, except that human ingenuity always seems to grasp this and then “Y” comes along.
The World’s Resources Aren’t Running Out
Ecologists worry that the world’s resources come in fixed amounts that will run out, but we have broken through such limits again and again
How many times have you heard that we humans are “using up” the world’s resources, “running out” of oil, “reaching the limits” of the atmosphere’s capacity to cope with pollution or “approaching the carrying capacity” of the land’s ability to support a greater population? The assumption behind all such statements is that there is a fixed amount of stuff—metals, oil, clean air, land—and that we risk exhausting it through our consumption.
“We are using 50% more resources than the Earth can sustainably produce, and unless we change course, that number will grow fast—by 2030, even two planets will not be enough,” says Jim Leape, director general of the World Wide Fund for Nature International (formerly the World Wildlife Fund).
But here’s a peculiar feature of human history: We burst through such limits again and again. After all, as a Saudi oil minister once said, the Stone Age didn’t end for lack of stone. Ecologists call this “niche construction”—that people (and indeed some other animals) can create new opportunities for themselves by making their habitats more productive in some way.
Agriculture is the classic example of niche construction: We stopped relying on nature’s bounty and substituted an artificial and much larger bounty.Economists call the same phenomenon innovation. What frustrates them about ecologists is the latter’s tendency to think in terms of static limits. Ecologists can’t seem to see that when whale oil starts to run out, petroleum is discovered, or that when farm yields flatten, fertilizer comes along, or that when glass fiber is invented, demand for copper falls.
Full story here: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304279904579517862612287156?mg=reno64-wsj
The forces of supply and demand ensure that alternatives always become economically viable when a resource starts to become scarce.
Below are two long essays tackling peak stuff as well as energy. If you have the time they are well worth the read.
I’m in sympathy with the basic concept of this piece, but there is a limit. Oil is finite in the long run, as long as we are restricted to earth.
Give us two hundred years however and there will likely be a constant stream of space constructed tankers carrying an endless amount of hydrocarbons from the outer planets back to earth Orbit. Space Elevators on Titan sucking up Methane maybe? All constructed by automatic machinery/robots.
Unless we give in to the doomsayers and put an artificial cap on our advancement.
My own personal doomsday scenario is that we dither around till the next ice age, which crashes human civilization and leaves our ancestors with no easily accessible resources once it comes to an end.
To those of you who have not read Julian Simon’s “The Ultimate Resource”, I highly recommend it and the second edition can be read online (sans graphics) here: http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/
Just over a year ago we had this little story. There are still problems to overcome before it can be made commercially viable though but the energy source is there in very large quantities.
There is also research and experiments on Algae Biodiesel. There are many other examples of potentially useable energy sources which I already linked to here.
We can also turn coal into car fuel as shown by the South Africans.
I should have better said “we can also turn coal into oil which can be turned into car fuel as shown by the South Africans.”
@Peter: “Oil is finite in the long run, as long as we are restricted to earth.”
Except it’s not. That’s exactly the kind of thinking the Wall Street Journal article is trying to combat. At a minimum, it’s starting to be economically viable to get oil from tar sands and shale. There are also alternatives to crude oil like reclaimed cooking oil, which is made from renewable resources. Yes, you could argue that reclaimed cooking oil is not crude oil, with which I would agree, but at some point it becomes a viable alternative, not for all use, but for some.
But some really clever people have figured out how to create more oil. See http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/169083-from-aeons-to-hours-new-process-can-pressure-cook-algae-into-crude-oil or http://www.technologyreview.com/news/408334/making-gasoline-from-bacteria/.
@Peter: “Oil is finite in the long run, as long as we are restricted to earth.”
Except it’s not. That’s exactly the kind of thinking the Wall Street Journal article is trying to combat. At a minimum, it’s starting to be economically viable to get oil from tar sands and shale. There are also alternatives to crude oil like reclaimed cooking oil, which is made from renewable resources. Yes, you could argue that reclaimed cooking oil is not crude oil, with which I would agree, but at some point it becomes a viable alternative, not for all use, but for some.
But some really clever people have figured out how to create more oil. See http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/169083-from-aeons-to-hours-new-process-can-pressure-cook-algae-into-crude-oil or http://www.technologyreview.com/news/408334/making-gasoline-from-bacteria/.
There are many types of oil. I think the article hints at the idea that we simply move onto alternatives. Also the hydrocarbon methane hydrates can be found in the oceans near the continents.
It seems the only thing we ever run out of is common sense.
I generally agree with Ridley’s point of view. However, note that he claims we can always recover resources through recycling. I have gotten into long debates with readers of WUWT about this view, which seems to me to be predicated upon an idea that the First Law of thermodynamics is in charge of the world’s operation. It is not–the Second Law is in charge. A better understanding of the Second Law and what engineers refer to as irreversibilities ought to illustrate the point that beyond a certain level of dispersion and dilution the Second Law practically prohibits concentrating such materials back to a useful state. The statement that human ingenuity will simply find a way has to be understood in the context of some hard physical limits.
We have an unending supply do doom & gloom hysteria and Eco fear mongering. Now if only we could figure a way to convert that fear into fuel for a V8 or 747.
Not just the second law hard limit, but ERoEI. Soon as it costs us more energy to get energy we need we are in a death spiral. Mining far away plants is a gross net loss of energy.
Peak oil isnt about what’s in the ground, never has been. Peak oil and peak resources period, is about supply meeting demand. That is the RATE of extraction, not the bulk of extraction. Soon as the rate cannot keep up with demand, prices spike.
Once energy costs get too high because lack of production meeting demand, prices cause recessions. Couple recessions with never ending government debt, and eventually something has to give. The US will never be able to make it’s interest payments soon, they will have to borrow just to do that. Once an economy falls into bankruptcy, and wealth destruction occurs, there isnt the capital to invest in alternatives.
Our best bet is Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors, yet for some bizarre reason the US, not anyone else in the Western World for that matter, is willing to make even one reactor. WUWT????
Not only are we running out of some resources, but we are running out of smart people running the show.
As a senior manager, I view that the problem is one of skills and knowledge.
The “ecologists”, that Ridley talks about, are absolutely correct:
=> with their knowledge and skill set,
– there is no hope
– the pie is finite and “get while the getting is good”
The technologists, economists, entrepreneurs, etc are also absolutely correct:
=> with their knowledge and skill set,
– the future is waiting to be created.
– Something cost too much or short supply?
=> find a better way, create new.
– The pie can, will, and is growing
– Moore’s law, fracking, iPhones, etc
– Challenges can and will be met and dealt with.
We see the same myopia displayed in the fashionable Piketty screed:
only manual labor can be valued
innovation, creativity, knowledge “we” are clueless about.
and, as captured in the Dunning/Kruger effect:
that which we can’t do, has no value.
By this time, I had thought/hoped we would be visiting Alpha Centauri.
But we are not.
– the “here and now drones” want their piece of the pie and
– have zero vision of a future
other than to grovel in the mud with clueless abandon fighting over dregs produced by others.
The future is for the brave and visionary,
– not the moma’s babies with their “attendance” trophies
who, unfortunately, seem to have bullied themselves to be in charge of the asylum.
….so, what have you created today?
This too is a lesson not learned by John Holdren at the WH science office.
@Peter
It is one sided to think that innovation only occurs on the supply side of the problem and price determination.
Strangely a material only becomes a “resource” when we identify a use for it.
Sort of like how government has identified enviro-nasties as a useful tool.
Susan Corwin above expresses the differing views of reality better than I could.
There is guaranteed to be shortage when kleptocrats rule.
kevin kilty says:
April 27, 2014 at 9:36 am
…
I think that if there is energy available we can just reconcentrate all ‘stuff’. This means that the only thing that is really consumed is energy. We already know that apart from nuclear disintegration all the stuff we use is still around even after use. If we have unlimited energy we will never run out of any stuff.
Human innovation has led to greater abundance and more efficient use of natural resources yet Malthusian paranoia dominates the mainstream perception of reality. Fortunately, human’s ability to creatively solve problems is a much more powerful “forcing” than supply constraints.
It should also be noted that the illusion of scarcity can be used to generate higher profit margins in non competitive markets.
Peter, I don’t care a whit, what our ancestors run out of.
G
There is no such thing as natural resources. There is only stuff. When humans discover ways of exploiting some stuff it becomes a resource. Why is it that so many people arrogantly think that our kids and theirs won’t ever come up with anything new?
It seems indisputable that we are running out of smart people.
Only section I quibble with. Unless we manage to innovate shortcuts through space, (wormholes, dimensional travel, anything), not very likely anytime soon.
Now mining the asteroid belt is a destination I could support.
hmm.
SOLAR INEFFICIENCY: 143,000 solar industry workers produce 1% of U.S. electricity — while 87,000 coal employees produce 40%.
It seems the only thing we will never run out of is dumb people.
In fact, we ARE subsidizing, rewarding and promoting the breeders of those ever-increasing numbers of easily-duped dumb people, deliberately ignorant people, accidentally ignorant people, and incidentally ignorant dumb people.
Unfortunately, our governments are also deliberately promoting, rewarding and paying for the education and hiring of those especially ignorant “smart” people BECAUSE our governments also exploit those ever-increasing numbers of dumb people!