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
Case in point: every time we think the cult of global warming has exhausted their resources of stupidity they reach in their bag and pull out a whole new level of stupid.
@Rud Istvan:
I see you lke to lead with insults “to the person”. So you must know you have nothing else.
I don’t need “my own facts” as what I linked was an “existence proof” of desalination based agriculture. In production now in Saudi amoung other places. The solar greenhouse linked is rather creative in their use of cheap materials to get both water and cooling. Sunlight is their fuel (being in a desert has that feature) so “energy cost” is nearly nil.
Per abiogenic oil: It exists. Another “existence proof”. Unless you want to say FT doesn’t work, or that Sasol is not in existence or that Titan and various comets have life on them. The same process (outlined above by Ferdberple) works in the crust. (And oddly, we find lots of oil at subduction zones like California and Saudi…) But the question is: 1%, 10%, 0.00000001%? That is what makes it hard to say where most of the oil production comes from. Is it mostly biogenic with abiogenic contamination? Or abiogenic with a load of things living in it / off of it? Hard to say. My opinion is that it is likely something that changed over time. 100% abiogenic in the first billion years, mostly biogenic in the last billion peaking at the Carboniferous.
So when you can do something other than toss insults and hide it might be interesting to speak with you. Until then, not so much…
@Kilty:
I was asking particular questions, not “explaining”, per China and the USA. Leaving it as an exercise for the student to figure out that folks in China still buy oil….
FWIW, I’ve made my own fuels from scratch. I think I know how it works. Ethanol and BioDiesel in particular, but some others too. Like I said, I’ve been up to my eyeballs in energy Econ since about ’72 (when I started my early experments in ‘funny fuels’ as I called them then. A Honda motorcycle on propane, a VW and Ford on alcohols and mixes, and more). You might find this interesting:
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/02/23/diy-gasoline-and-diesel-from-wood-and-trash/
BTW, the Nazi military ran on synthetic motor fuels (at far worse economics than present technologies) so I think there’s a pretty good existence proof that it works, even with large energy waste. (no, not advocating it. Illustrating that it is an existence proof that sets a bounds. Like the 400 years of coal that sets a bounds on “running out” of motor fuels…)
@Steve O:
We can make motor fuels from Coal and trash at about $4 / gallon. That limits oil price to about $160 / bbl right there. (Other things limit it to even less, like GTL Gas To Liquids, until the methane glut is worked off.)
@ferdberple:
Also note that Zeolite is a good catalyst for organic synthesis. It is a rock… Then, for fun, calculate the mass of animals needed to make the known amount of oil. Even using algae instead, that’s a lot of “stuff”. Then ask how it all got buried under 5 miles of rock under the oceans. And when… and what life was around then…
Some fields are clearly biogenic (most even?). Like the North Sea, where we can show it was an anoxic algae sink. Others, not so clear. Some Russian finds in hard non-sedimentary rocks for example. That’s why I think it’s a mixed case…
It doesn’t really matter, though. We’ve got so much other stuff that the oil could all run out in 30 years and not much would change. (Convert refineries to synthetic fuels plants, run garbage stream into them along with some coal and natural gas. Already exists, BTW. Companies are in production on those methods right now. Selling product.) Not to mention the Trillions of bbl equivalent in tar sands / shales. And, thanks to those silly European gas prices, we know folks will buy the product at prices that sustain those methods of production…
@Nullius In Verba:
Good point on the economics of hydroponics. Most folks don’t even know that a lot of “saladings” are already grown in greenhouses. Yeah, the field stuff is cheaper, but the quality makes it worth the hydroponics. Ditto tomatoes. And a couple of dozen other foods.
Disney had a great display of a hydroponic system (until they replaced a lot of it with a “Soaring” ride) growing all sorts of things. Even grains. (Corn in particular I remember). NASA worked out a 6 inch tall wheat for hydroponics in space. It’s not a question of tech, it’s a question of cheap.
IF we ever need it, we can do it.
BTW, you can also “grow oil” in hydroponics systems. (Yes, there are “existence proofs”…). Just can’t compete with $100 / bbl oil.
There is no “running out”, only change of supply mix, methods, and demands.
rogerknights says:
April 27, 2014 at 12:43 pm
“Moreover, these reactors can be produced quickly (100 per year starting in 2015, with the goal of building 3500 by 2050). ”
…
We have had about 60 years of commercial nuclear reactor operation. During this 60 year time frame, we’ve had, on average about 200 reactors operating. Roger is advocating increasing this number about 17-fold.
..
During the 60 year time frame, we have also had 3 major reactor accidents. Roughly one every twenty years.
If we increase the number of reactors by a factor of 17, then we need to deal with a major nuclear accident about every two years.
..
In 40 years at this level of operation, there will be more than 20 Fukishima-like areas on earth rendered uninhabitable.
..
Hopefully, the 3500 reactors that Roger envisions will not be located near populated areas.
chuck says:
April 28, 2014 at 1:22 pm
If we increase the number of reactors by a factor of 17, then we need to deal with a major nuclear accident about every two years.
You’ve made an assumption that newer reactors won’t be safer.
JohnWho says:
April 28, 2014 at 1:47 pm
” You’ve made an assumption that newer reactors won’t be safer.”
…
Seems you have made the assumption that new reactors won’t be more dangerous.
.
chuck says:
During the 60 year time frame, we have also had 3 major reactor accidents. Roughly one every twenty years.
How many fatalities resulted? None, you say? How many fatalities were counted at other power plants? I don’t know, but I suspect there were quite a few.
There will never be a 100% safe, fatality-free power generation industry. The universe doesn’t work that way. But nuclear power has an excellent record, and as pointed out, nukes are getting safer. Better designs and standardization will improve an already excellent safety record.
Seems you have made the assumption that new reactors won’t be more dangerous.
That is not a rational assumption. Rather, it is emotion-based.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Is this E.M. Smith when he was a kid? ☺
Re peter says: April 27, 2014 at 9:11 am
Peter, you missed the point – humans conserve, create (substitute), and find more (North America now has much oil and natural gas though yes at a price).
Resourceguy says: April 27, 2014 at 9:53 am is an excellent fundamental point.
John Whitman says: April 27, 2014 at 11:00 am puts it another good way.
The political problem is a shortage mentality that comes from a view of humans as uncreative and unethical. Thus Karl Marx’ fixed-pie economics (he wrote while surrounded by the evidence of the Industrial Revolution) and drive-to-the-bottom ethics (which ignores that rational thinking and trading values is life-supporting for the individual who behaves that way, and the opposite destructive to the opposite kind of individual). The sad thing is that some people herein who do not seem to be neo-Marxists have subsumed his notions. It’s an example of the adage that if you tell a lie often people will believe it, though I think it takes receptivity of a psychological bias (lack of confidence in some people, but sickness in many – McKibben and Hansen being good examples, Erlich even worse). Yes, people get concerned when they do not grasp the whole picture, in a narrow sense legitimately so, but that’s a failure to think critically – to ask questions (yet in other matters of life they are skeptical).
As for resources per se, I recommend the book The Doomsday Myth by Charles Maurice and Charles Smithson. It chronicles many cases of predicted shortages that did not occur, even in the face of government force. People conserve and invent – even Malthus was acknowledging that in old age.
Steven Kopits says: April 27, 2014 at 11:39 am also misses conservation (reduced use of home heating oil is likely due in substantial part to improving building insulation), though he does refer to the effect of price on that, and probably substitution. (Reduced use of home heating oil is likely due in substantial part to substitution of natural gas which is now even more plentiful in the US. Some parts of the US were actually importing gaseous energy like propane and natural gas, those ports and pipelines may now become export channels.) And when talking about reduced consumption of petroleum products you must consider the level of economic activity – the US is still in a recession caused by government meddling with lending and enticing borrowers to take on what they could not afford – and packaging junk mortgages to unsuspecting buyers.
Gary Pearse says: April 27, 2014 at 12:45 pm – his example of zinc vs coatings is an excellent one.
Some people are forgetting that materials like aluminum, copper, and steel have been recycled for half a century or more. (IIRC the aluminum industry encouraged recycling to lower the price of aluminum, on top of ALCOA’s success in dramatically lowering cost of production. That and production innovation resulted in aluminum being the material of choice for beverage cans. Its an amazing story – one detail is the development of a way in the drawing process to make the can to have a finish so smooth the label can simply be printed onto the metal.)
Re jrwakefield says: April 27, 2014 at 9:50 am
JR, in your negativity you missed a point – substitution.
Some uses of energy can be flexible – buildings can be heated with natural gas or electricity or fuel oil, even by coal and wood though they are messier and pollute.
And what do you mean by “…smart people running the show.”? There are many smart people finding more oil and natural gas.
dbstealey says:
April 28, 2014 at 2:08 pm
“That is not a rational assumption. Rather, it is emotion-based.”
Re-read my origanl post.
It does not assume new reactors will be safer, and it does not assume they will be more dangerous. The only assumption is that the new reactors will experience the same failure rate as the reactors of the past 60 years have experienced. That is an extremely rational assumption not involving the slightest bit of emotion.
Friends:
I am surprised that until now this thread has not linked to the article and associated thread by Tim Ball which was earlier thgis year and is here
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/05/overpopulation-the-fallacy-behind-the-fallacy-of-global-warming/
That article and thread addressed the same issues as Ridley makes in the above article. As evidence of that similarity and as example of that discussion, I copy one of my posts from that thread to here.
Richard
richardscourtney says:
January 6, 2014 at 2:00 am
Tim Ball:
Thankyou for a very fine article. It summarises truth which has often been said but needs constant repetition because it refutes falsehood which is constantly promoted.
The Malthusian idea wrongly assumes that humans are constrained like bacteria in a Petri dish: i.e. population expands until available resources are consumed when population collapses. The assumption is wrong because humans do not suffer such constraint: humans find and/or create new and alternative resources when existing resources become scarce.
The obvious example is food.
In the 1970s the Club of Rome predicted that human population would have collapsed from starvation by now. But human population has continued to rise and there are fewer starving people now than in the 1970s; n.b. there are less starving people in total and not merely fewer in in percentage.
Now – as seen in this thread – the most common Malthusian assertion is ‘peak oil’. But humans need energy supply and oil is only one source of energy supply. Adoption of natural gas displaces some requirement for oil, fracking increases available oil supply at acceptable cost; etc..
In the real world, for all practical purposes there are no “physical” limits to natural resources so every natural resource can be considered to be infinite; i.e. the human ‘Petri dish’ can be considered as being unbounded. This a matter of basic economics which I explain as follows.
Humans do not run out of anything although they can suffer local and/or temporary shortages of anything. The usage of a resource may “peak” then decline, but the usage does not peak because of exhaustion of the resource (e.g. flint, antler bone and bronze each “peaked” long ago but still exist in large amounts).
A resource is cheap (in time, money and effort) to obtain when it is in abundant supply. But “low-hanging fruit are picked first”, so the cost of obtaining the resource increases with time. Nobody bothers to seek an alternative to a resource when it is cheap.
But the cost of obtaining an adequate supply of a resource increases with time and, eventually, it becomes worthwhile to look for
(a) alternative sources of the resource
and
(b) alternatives to the resource.
And alternatives to the resource often prove to have advantages.
For example, both (a) and (b) apply in the case of crude oil.
Many alternative sources have been found. These include opening of new oil fields by use of new technologies (e.g. to obtain oil from beneath sea bed) and synthesising crude oil from other substances (e.g. tar sands, natural gas and coal). Indeed, since 1994 it has been possible to provide synthetic crude oil from coal at competitive cost with natural crude oil and this constrains the maximum true cost of crude.
Alternatives to oil as a transport fuel are possible. Oil was the transport fuel of military submarines for decades but uranium is now their fuel of choice.
There is sufficient coal to provide synthetic crude oil for at least the next 300 years. Hay to feed horses was the major transport fuel 300 years ago and ‘peak hay’ was feared in the nineteenth century, but availability of hay is not significant a significant consideration for transportation today. Nobody can know what – if any – demand for crude oil will exist 300 years in the future.
Indeed, coal also demonstrates an ‘expanding Petri dish’.
Spoil heaps from old coal mines contain much coal that could not be usefully extracted from the spoil when the mines were operational. Now, modern technology enables the extraction from the spoil at a cost which is economic now and would have been economic if it had been available when the spoil was dumped.
These principles not only enable growing human population: they also increase human well-being.
The ingenuity which increases availability of resources also provides additional usefulness to the resources. For example, abundant energy supply and technologies to use it have freed people from the constraints of ‘renewable’ energy and the need for the power of muscles provided by slaves and animals. Malthusians are blind to this obvious truth; for example, Greg Goodman says at January 6, 2014 at 12:28 am
And, of course, his assertion is blatantly untrue: the “current system” has freed humans from the need for slaves to operate treadmills, the oars of galleys, etc..
The Malthusian idea is wrong because it ignores basic economics and applies a wrong model; human population is NOT constrained by resources like the population of bacteria in a Petri dish.
Richard
“In 40 years at this level of operation, there will be more than 20 Fukishima-like areas on earth rendered uninhabitable.”
The Fukushima area hasn’t been rendered uninhabitable.
By far the biggest issue to habitability in Japan was the force-10 earthquake – tsunami combo. If you’re suggesting that with 17 times more reactors we’re going to get 17 times more tsunamis, then sure, I agree we ought to treat nuclear technology with a bit of caution.
But then, I’d argue the same applies to living in houses, given that a lot of people there died when their houses collapsed on top of them – a lot more than died at the power plant. Dangerous things, houses…
chuck says:
April 28, 2014 at 2:40 pm
dbstealey says:
April 28, 2014 at 2:08 pm
“That is not a rational assumption. Rather, it is emotion-based.”
Re-read my origanl post.
It does not assume new reactors will be safer, and it does not assume they will be more dangerous. The only assumption is that the new reactors will experience the same failure rate as the reactors of the past 60 years have experienced. That is an extremely rational assumption not involving the slightest bit of emotion.
Sorry Chuck, but it is extremely rational to expect that we have learned quite a bit in the past 60 years about how to make the reactors safer and is it extremely rational to expect that we would use that knowledge to build safer reactors.
Your assumption appears to be that we learn nothing from the past and we keep making the same mistakes over and over, giving us the same result. One would expect proper science to build on what has been learned, not ignore it.
Nullius in Verba says:
April 28, 2014 at 3:39 pm
“The Fukushima area hasn’t been rendered uninhabitable.”
http://blog.safecast.org/2013/12/current-fukushima-exclusion-zone-map/
Chuck,
That’s more to do with political hysteria than the Fukushima accident.
Nullius in Verba says:
April 28, 2014 at 4:15 pm
..
I’m sure not allowing people to live in the homes they own is “political hysteria”
Might be a great place to move to, I’m sure the real estate prices are attractive.
chuck says:
It does not assume new reactors will be safer, and it does not assume they will be more dangerous. The only assumption is that the new reactors will experience the same failure rate as the reactors of the past 60 years have experienced.
Those two sentences are mutually contradictory. I assume new reactors will be safer. There is certainly more emphasis on nuke safety than on car safety. And there is a lot of emphasis on automobile safety.
Think about it. Compare automobiles from 1960 with current cars. Which are safer?
And as a retired real estate broker [among many other things], please tell me where I can find attractive real estate prices on the California coast. Anywhere on the coast.
dbstealey says:
April 28, 2014 at 4:56 pm
“Those two sentences are mutually contradictory”
There are only three possibilities. New reactors can be safer, the same or more dangerous. (much like for all A, B, only one of the following is true A or B)
New reactors are less safe, as safe as today’s or more safe.
..
I assume they are the same, which does not contradict the previous sentence. You are free to assume they are safer, but you don’t have enough operational data to prove that is the case. Remember, a lot of effort was made to make Columbia “safer” than Challenger.
In case you didn’t get the gist of my prior post, you can find the attractive real estate prices in the Perfecture of Fukishima, in Japan. They are running a special on the beachfront adjacent to the crippled power plants.
– – – – – – – – – – –
dbstealey,
I loved that you quoted Ludwig von Mises!
Here are more Ludwig von Mises quotes that I have loved for 35 years.
John
John Whitman,
Thanks for the quotes. Unfortunately, no one in gov’t pays any attention to von Mises any more.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
richardscourtney says:
April 28, 2014 at 2:40 pm
Excellent post, Richard. Thanks.
=========================
chuck:
You may not see it, but you are motivated by emotion, not by science. Fear is an emotion, and a very powerful one. Nuclear power has been demonized for almost 70 years, to the point where lots of folks have the same gut reaction. They are afraid. No rational arguments can penetrate that fear.
Also, I specifically asked for real estate on the California coast. If I knew the local Japanese market, I would tend to think that coastal property adjacent to Fukushima would be a rip-roaring buy. Once in a lifetime, really. Ten years from now people will be asking how current buyers got such a great deal. But I am retired now, and my roaming days are over.
– – – – – – –
dbstealey,
Well the possible reason existing governments do not talk about him is his life long profund rejection of the possibility that any redeeming economic or moral feature can be found in socialism. (He especially despised the fascist type of stealth socialism.)
It is a challenge to find a quote from him where he does not contrast capitalism vs socialism.
He was one of von Hayek’s influences.
John
Thanks, A. This is an excellent article by Paul Ridley.
dbstealey says:
April 28, 2014 at 6:00 pm
“You may not see it, but you are motivated by emotion, not by science.”
…
The issue not so much about “science” as is an issue of “engineering.” Claims that new designs are safer are much the same as the claims made 40 years ago that nuclear power was safe. It took 40 years for the errors in engineering at Fukishima to manifest themselves. Will we have to wait 20 years into the operation of the newer “safe” designs to find the flaws in them?
Nuclear plants today that were engineered for 40 years of operation are attempting to extend their licenses to 60 years. Tell me how can a 40 year design be extended to 60? Was the calculated embrittlement of the metal in the core incorrect in the initial design? It’s really simple. Economics are now a higher priority than safety in existing nuclear power plants. This is not “emotion” these are “facts.”
The science of nuclear power has not changed much since it was first developed. Thorium, breeders, various cooling methods, all have been tried in the past. The environment of these processes however has changed. Containment domes designed in the past may not be strong enough to withstand an impact from the large wide body jetliners of today, that can be hijacked by terrorists. In fact, back during the advent of nuclear power, they didn’t need armed guards at power plants.
Of course, I could even mention that current crop of nuclear enthusiasts pushing their “safer” meme are no different than the people that promoted “safe” nuclear power fifty years ago. The difference between the current promoters and past promoters is that TMI, Chernobyl and Fukishima has enabled people to question anyone running about saying nuclear power is “safe”
“””””…..Karim D. Ghantous says:
April 27, 2014 at 9:00 pm
For the most part, I think this article is spot-on. I do have a minor quibble: some of the points made focus more on quantity than on quality.
E.g. the notion that we can grow more food with fertilizers and perticides. Technically it’s 100% right. But when you take into account human health, it’s not necessarily the better option.
Fertilizers and pesticides usually lead to a lower quality of food……”””””
I note you said (technically) it is 100 % right.
When starvation is the alternative , it is also better for human health. Lack of food is very unhealthy.
I know a whole lot of (very sophisticated) California central valley farmers. And to them, fertilizers and pesticides represent extra production cost, so they don’t use them, unless they have to.
With organized row crops, their machinery knows where their crops are, (on the rows), and where the weeds are between the rows, so they don’t put herbicides on the crops. Nor do they put it on the ground between the rows. Their machines know the IR signature of chlorophyll, and of dirt, so they don’t spray herbicides on dirt either. They only spray, when the machine identifies a weed plant not in the crop row.
So there is NO health concern from herbicides on their food. And a half hour of rain, that results in slip sliding wonderment on the roads in hi tech silicon valley, will destroy an entire stone fruit crop for the year, unless the farmer immediately applies the standard protection against brown rot. So it costs them money, and lowers their profit; and it provides food that an “organic” farmer simply will plough under, after wasting all that water on it.
Weeds are great water wasters.
This readily washes off the final fruit product, before it is marketed. Sans that treatment, and a whole year’s crop is plowed under.
Starvation is a terrible form of human health.
chuck says:
Nuclear plants today that were engineered for 40 years of operation are attempting to extend their licenses to 60 years.
And apparently they are still running safely. Since you didn’t acknowledge my point that new cars are much, much better and safer than cars made 40 years ago, that silence is concurrence. TV’s are also much better. Home computers didn’t even exist back then. In fact, just about anything you can think of is better now than it was 40 years ago. Tell us, why would that not apply just as well to nukes? [Also, Fukushima got hit with a tsunami — something that was under-engineered.]
Next, you say:
Economics are now a higher priority than safety in existing nuclear power plants. This is not “emotion” these are “facts.”
No, those are not “facts”. They are your assertions. I do not agree with them. There is nothing more important than safety in building a new reactor.
Next:
The science of nuclear power has not changed much since it was first developed.
Wrong again. But why bother working on researching facts, when your mind is made up and closed tight? You would not accept anything I posted. Instead, you would throw out the first emotion-laden words that occurred to you. TMI, Chernobyl, Fukishima. I can’t speak for Russian engineering or safety standartds, but I’m still waiting for you to name one person killed by a nuclear power plant in the U.S.
Finally, I was correct: fear is a powerful emotion, and it rules Luddite thinking. But all we need is an electricity blackout for more than a couple of days, and the public will forget the fearful propaganda that has been instilled in them by forty yearas of media naysaying. The public will demand power, and they will not care how it is produced.
Malthus was wrong, and so are the anti-nukes.