The Roman Philosopher Lucius Anneaus Seneca (4 BCE-65 CE) was perhaps the first to note the universal trend that growth is slow but ruin is rapid. I call this tendency the "Seneca Effect."

Sunday, May 14, 2023

Renewables are not a cleaner caterpillar, they are a new butterfly. A Discussion with Dennis Meadows

 

Dennis Meadows (left in the image) and Ugo Bardi in Berlin, 2016


A few days ago, I received a message from Dennis Meadows, one of the authors of the 1972 study "The Limits to Growth," about a previous post of mine on "The Seneca Effect." I am publishing it here with his kind permission, together with my comments, and his comments on my comments. I am happy to report that after this exchange we are "99% in agreement."


Ugo, 

I read with interest you review of the Michaux/Ahmed debate. Normally I greatly benefit from your writing. But in this case it seemed to me that your text totally avoided addressing the central point - replacing fossil fuels as an energy source with renewables will require enormous amounts of metals and other resources which we have no reasonable basis for assuming will be available. It is not true that peak oil was presented principally as a prediction. Rather critics of Hubert's original analysis misrepresented it as an effort to predict in order to ridicule it -  just as Bailey did for the Limits to Growth natural resource data from World3. I was struck that your critique of Michaux did not contain a single piece of empirical data - the strong point of his research. Rather you engaged in what I term "proof by assertion."

I am personally convinced that there is absolutely no possibility for renewables to be expanded sufficiently that they will support current levels of material consumption. I attach the text of a memo I recently wrote to other members of the Belcher group stating this belief (*). 

Best regards Dennis Meadows

_____________________

Dear Dennis, 

first of all, it is always a pleasure to receive comments from you. It is not a problem to be in disagreement on some subjects -- the world would be boring if we all were! Besides, I think our disagreement is not so large once we understand certain assumptions. 

Let me start by saying that I fully agree with your statement that "there is absolutely no possibility for renewables to be expanded sufficiently that they will support current levels of material consumption." Not only is it impossible, but even if it were, we would not want that!

So, what do we disagree about? It is about the direction to take.  The fork in the path leads in two different directions depending on the efficiency of renewable technologies: Path 1): renewables are useless, and Path 2): renewables are just what we need

I strongly argue for Path 2) in the sense that we definitely do NOT need to "support current levels of material consumption" to create a sustainable and reasonably prosperous society. But let me explain what I mean by that.  

First, in my opinion, the problem with Michaux's report is that it underestimates the efficiency of renewable technologies. He says that renewables are not really renewable, just "replaceable." He, like others who use this term, means that the plants that we are now building will not be replaceable once fossil fuels are gone. In this case, creating a renewable infrastructure will be a waste of resources and energy (Path 1). 

This view may have been correct until a few years ago, but it is now obsolete. The recent scientific literature on the subject indicates that the efficiency of renewable technologies (expressed in terms of EROI, energy return on energy invested) is now significantly better than that of fossil fuels. Furthermore, it is large enough that the materials used can be recycled using renewable energy. There is a vast literature on this subject. On the specific question of the EROI, I suggest to you this paper by Murphy et al. You can also find an extensive bibliography of the field in our recent paper,  "On the history and future of 100% renewable research." 

Of course, not everything is easy to recycle, and a future renewable infrastructure will have to avoid the use of rare metals (such as platinum for fuel cells) or metals that are not rare, but not abundant enough for the task (such as copper, that will have to be largely replaced by aluminum). That is possible: the current generation of wind and PV plants is mostly based on abundant and recyclable materials. Doing even better is part of the natural evolution of technology. What we can't recycle, we won't use. 

There is a much more fundamental point in this discussion. It is the very concept that we need renewables to be able to "replace fossil fuels," in the sense of matching in quantitative terms the energy produced today (in some views, even exceeding it in order to "keep the economy growing"). This is impossible, as we all agree. The point is that renewables will greatly reduce the need for energy and materials to keep a complex civilization working. If you think, for instance, of how inefficient and wasteful our fossil-based transportation system is, you see that by switching to electric transportation and shared vehicles, we can have the same services for a much smaller consumption of resources. This concept has been expressed by Tony Seba in a form that I interpret as, "Renewables are not a cleaner caterpillar-- they are a new butterfly"

That doesn't mean that the geological limits of the transition aren't to be taken into account; the butterfly cannot fly higher than a certain height. Then, it may well be that we won't be able to move to renewables fast enough to avoid a societal, or even ecosystemic, crash. On this point, please take a look at a paper that I co-authored, where we used the term "the sower's strategy" to indicate that the transition is possible, but it will need hard work, as the peasants of old knew. But staying with fossil fuels is leading us to disaster (as you correctly say in the document for the Balaton group) while moving to nuclear fission simply means exchanging a fossil fuel (hydrocarbons) for another fossil fuel (uranium). Going renewables is a fighting chance, but I believe it is the only chance we have.   

There is an even more fundamental point that goes beyond a certain technology being more efficient than another. Going renewables, as Nafeez Ahmed correctly points out, is a switch from a predatory economy to a bioeconomy.  Our industrial sphere should imitate the biosphere that has been using minerals from the Earth's crust on land for the past 350 million years (at least) and never ran out of anything. As I said elsewhere, we need to do what the biosphere does, that is:

1. Use only minerals that are abundant.
2. Use them sparingly and efficiently.
3. Recycle ferociously. 

If we can do that, we have a unique opportunity in the history of humankind. It means we can build a society that does not destroy everything in order to satisfy human greed. Can we do it? As always, reality will be the ultimate judge. 

Ugo


__________________________________________________________________
The answer from Dennis Meadows

Ugo, 

Thank you for sending me your article. I agree that the main difference of opinion lies in the direction to take. I am reminded of the defining characteristic of professors - two people who agree on 99% and spend all their time focusing on and debating the other one percent. Because I largely agree with you, my only relevant comment on what you say is that you have overly limited our options: 

So, what do we disagree about? It is about the direction to take.  The fork in the path leads in two different directions depending on the efficiency of renewable technologies: Path 1): renewables are useless, and Path 2): renewables are just what we need

I would not choose either path; rather I believe it is time to quit focusing on fossil energy scarcity as a source of our problems and start concentrating on fragility. The debate -renewables versus fossil - is a distraction from considering the important options for increasing the resilience of society.

Dennis Meadows




___________________________________________

A minor point. You say, "It is not true that peak oil was presented principally as a prediction." I beg to differ. I have been a member of ASPO (the Association for the Study of Peak Oil) almost from inception and part of its scientific committee as long as the association existed. And I can say that one of the problems of the approach of peak oilers was a certain obsession with the date of the peak. That doesn't disqualify a group of people whom I still think included some of the best minds on this planet during that period. The problem was that few of them were experts in modeling, and models are like weapons: you need to know the rules before you try to use them. By the way, you and your colleagues didn't make this mistake in your "Limits to Growth" in 1972; correctly, you were always careful of presenting a fan of scenarios, not a prediction. Later on, Bailey and his ilk accused you of having done what you didn't do: "wrong predictions." But that was politics, another story. 

_____________________________________________________

(*) Statements about being realistic about technology, alternative energy, and sustainability
Dennis Meadows

April 11, 2023 message to the Balaton Group

Dear Colleagues,

I have often described politics as the art of choosing which of several impossible outcomes you most prefer. It is important to envision good outcomes. It may be useful to strive for them. But it is important to be realistic. The recent discussion about technology, alternative energy, and sustainability are based on several implicit assumptions, which I believe are unrealistic. At the risk of being an old grump, and recognizing my own limited vision, I list here some statements that I believe from the study of science, history, and human nature to be realistic.

#1: There is no possibility that the so-called renewable energy sources will permit the elimination of fossil fuels and sustain current levels of economic activity and material well- being. The scramble for access to declining energy sources is likely to produce violence. 

#2: The planet will not sustain anywhere close to 9 billion people at living standards close to their aspirations (or our views about what is fair).


#3: Sustainable development is about how you travel, not where you are going.

#4: The privileged will not willingly sacrifice their own advantages to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor (witness the US.) They will lose their advantages, but unwillingly.

#5: The rapidly approaching climate chaos will erode society's capacity for constructive action before it prompts it.


#6: Expansion and efficiency are taken as unquestioned goals for society. They need to be replaced by sufficiency and resilience.

#7: History does not unfold in a smooth, linear, gradual process. Big, drastic discontinuities lie ahead - soon. 

#8: When a group of people believe they must choose between options that offer more order or those affording greater liberty, they will always opt for order. 

Unfortunately so, since it will have grave implications for the evolution of society’s governance systems. Dictators will always promise less chaos than Democrats.

69 comments:

  1. The Midwestern Doc just published on a similar topic, the knowledgeable folks here may want to join the substack discussion. If you haven't followed him, I find him a highly trustworthy individual. But of course he is a doctor, and he is going into another area here, not one of primary expertise.
    https://amidwesterndoctor.substack.com/p/how-the-war-on-climate-change-destroyed

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    1. I saw his post. It is a disaster how a small group of monstrous (I can't find another term) individuals could destroy the trust in science and scientists in a few years through a combination of greed, incompetence, and pure self-aggrandizement. Now we are in a mess: whom do we trust? I don't know anymore myself.

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    2. I am surprised to see you deleted my comment with the link to A Midwestern Doc. Why?

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    3. I didn't delete it, but it disappeared for a while. I found it marked as "to be reviewed" and I accepted it again. Now it is back. I didn't even know that an accepted comment could be marked as "to be reviewed." Mysteries of Google.

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    4. Weird! Thank you.

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  2. Digging up and transporting coal takes more energy than the energy in the coal produced.

    Coal production ceasing, and with it coal-powered power plants - not because there is no coal left in the ground - but rather - coal cannot lift up itself by itself without past energies...

    This is no matter how many times one invades Iraq for its resources, and how many Ukraine(s) Putin will be ordered to destroy - for our outgoing Western Civilisation to play an Energy Musical Chairs Game - and enjoying it to addiction...

    "No energy store holds enough energy to extract an amount of energy equal to the total energy it stores"

    Wailing.

    "South Africa's Power Grid Situation gets Even Worse" - https://youtu.be/xEAdONSxx40?t=254

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  3. I think this is right. We cannot continue to do things the way we do them now. Which means we have to decide which things to do (and which things not to do) and how, alongside the development of renewable energy harvesting and materials recycling.

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  4. "So, what do we disagree about? It is about the direction to take. The fork in the path leads in two different directions depending on the efficiency of renewable technologies: Path 1): renewables are useless, and Path 2): renewables are just what we need."

    This looks like a false choice, an implicit strawman of what Michaux is actually saying. Doing the same to your argument would look something like this:

    Path 1) The increase in EROEI of renewables means that we still haven't reached the ultimate limits to growth. Human ingenuity can still cause them to recede towards the endless horizon. The system can grosso modo stay the same, just a pinch of bioeconomy here, some recycling there, and get those stupidly pesky masses to do what we want them to do.
    Path 2) Renewables are just what we need, in a context of system that respects limits. A discussion is needed of the necessary changes to transition to that improved system.

    I know you are not saying 1), but I could present this false choice to imply that you do. I think your disagreement with Michaux is not so large once we understand certain assumptions.

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    1. Allow me to disagree, Neven. Gause's law holds in biology, but also in the economy. Only one technology can be the source of energy for the economy. So, it is an either/or

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    2. Let me add that there IS a third path, which is extinction. I'll discuss that in a future post

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    3. what is our most likely path then and is path 1 not the same as path 3 and when will we know on what path we're gonna be ?

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    4. Ugo "Only one technology can be the source of energy for the economy"
      = irrational assertion = self-evidently and provably false = ludicrous, so foolish, unreasonable, or out of place as to be amusing

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    5. Calm down, please. Before insulting other people, please try to see the situation in terms of the concept of "bioeconomy." The economy is an ecosystem. The Gause law holds in ecosystems. The most efficient creatures occupy every niche at 100%. It happens also in the economy, that's why we don't have airships or steam locomotives anymore. But it is useless to talk to people who can only reason in terms of insults.

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    6. OK, I will calm down. You say "The economy is an ecosystem." I say no it is not. The economy is a directly controlled and directly manipulated dynamic. The economy is not an "eco" system, one operating to defined Laws of Physics and Biology or any Laws at all.
      Why do you believe it is?

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    7. And I was not insulting anyone, I was criticizing and labeling what you stated Ugo. You and what you say are not the same thing.

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    8. The economy is a complex dissipation structure in the sense described by Prigogine. An ecosystem is the same thing. As for insults, if you believe that telling someone that what they say is "foolish and unreasonable" is not an insult, I wish you good luck in dealing with human beings in general

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    9. See: oikonomia versus chrematistics. Oikos was the root of both ecology and economy, IIRC.

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  5. Dear Ugo thanks for your reply to Meadows. What struck me about your reply and the links within it is the emphasis they put on technology, to the virtual exclusion of any consideration of ecological overshoot. Let's for the moment, accept the assertion that PVs and wind turbines can replace fossil fuels, or fusion, or whatever. The evidence is clear that humanity is already in ecological overshoot to a significant degree - we are disrupting the only biosphere we know of in terms of its most fundamental features - its ability to reproduce and to assimilate wastes sustainably. For humanity to return to living within carrying capacity we have to reduce our consumption of natural sources and sinks by at least 50%. Replacing our current fossil fuel energy system with renewables such as PVs and turbines is only going to add to this overshoot. Yes, the technology is clever and wonderful in its own right, but will push us over the edge we are currently tottering on as we exponentially approach irreversible ecological tipping points. The circular economy notion, even the circular bioeconomy notion, seems to ignore the biophysical limits we have already passed. Just because a technology works doesnt mean it is desirable or sustainable. When is a little wisdom going to curb our technical creativity?

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    1. It is the fundamental point. There is a good chance that humankind will be forced to return to subsistence agriculture, but its impact on the ecosphere may be even larger than that of the current industrial society. The other possibility is to keep a kind of industrial society, but the only possibility to keep it alive is to base it on renewable energy. It is not really a choice. We are discussing things that will happen independently of what we say in the comments of a small blog kept by a weird guy who lives in Italy. I can only say that I would personally prefer to move to a renewable-based world. But it is just a preference. The future is always right when it becomes the present.

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    2. You are quite correct that things will happen independently of what any of us suggest might be a desirable course. The smart money is on preparing for degrowth and being as ecologically resilient at a community level as possible. Renewable energy (which is not really renewable as it requires non-renewable resources) expansion is attractive in the short term, but will hasten further ecological destruction - not quite fair to other species and future generations. And it avoids the real challenge of learning to live within ecological limits.

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    3. Dear Anonymous: you need to consider the possibility of using the proceeds of abundant renewable energy in ecosystem REPAIR. See for example Adam Dorr's videos and Rethinkx's white papers. I say this not with great optimism about the likelihood of it happening, but rather to suggest the possibility of it happening, which you seem not to have considered. We probably could reverse the damage (largely). This is an important idea to have on your cognitive map; and, correspondingly, it is important to reject absolutes and ideas of inevitability. Cheers.

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  6. Jack Santa BarbaraMay 15, 2023 at 10:02 AM

    I attempted to comment in person but somehow didnt succeed.

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    1. The "anonymous" above is from Jack Santa Barbara

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    2. Thanks for the comments, Jack. Some people seem to have problem with commenting in ways other than "anonymous." I don't know what's wrong. Google's mysteries are many and deep. But you can just sign your comment and things will be clear.

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  7. With respect to energy sources, wind, solar, and even nuclear do not provide sufficient net energy necessary to sustain a level of socio-economic and technological complexity necessary to produce them (1). Given we are trending negative on the declining marginal returns of complexity curve, coinciding with rapid global energy descent of fossil energy breaching a 1:1 EROI within a decade, we simply do not have the energy nor net-beneficial complexity to scale up renewables to meet the energy demands necessary to power a complex society. Nuclear energy is advantageous, solely because it is not intermittent, but otherwise suffers from the core issues together with other alternatives. Both Germany and China aggressively subsidized renewable energy for the last decade, and have all but ceased because of (1) above. Merely looking at energy balance, substitution, or EROI of renewables fails to account for the union of energy and socioeconomic complexity.

    Moreover, there exists a bubble of money equivalents in excess of 3 quadrillion dollars (>30x Global annual GDP) , coinciding with virtually all western nations at or beyond debt saturation. Given that >95% of these money equivalents is a debt claim on future energy consumption and available energy, and the cascading counter party risk within the system, within a decade the vast majority of these money equivalents will cease to function as money. Money is the arbiter of trust between the social periphery and the core of complexity. With monetary collapse we will simply not have the economic means to increase let alone sustain complexity, nor will we have the social trust between the periphery and the core to ensure the core can reallocate energy from the periphery to sustain itself. In the end the core of complexity will not hold, thus giving way to localization, and more collapse of complexity in a positive feedback loop. This is how and why civilizations collapse.

    Changing what money is will not change the fact that the complexity we have today is the result of reallocating 30+ years of global energy demand from the future to the present, that the energetic foundation of that complexity is rapidly evaporating in large part because of this temporal reallocation , and that our economic system that enabled the centralization of complexity across spacetime will succumb to the fatal contradiction that was also its greatest advantage. Dialectically it is not unexpected. Again and again, we observe great things that become great through some internal property, only for that internal property to be the reason for their ultimate demise.

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    1. And think that I was accused of using "proof by assertion" (!!)

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    2. The cognitive and information gap between primary principles and derived assertions has widened sufficiently such that well founded assertions established by empirical and rational inference seem to stupid and uniformed beings to be made by fiat.

      Connecting and unifying disparate ideas and phenomena of complex systems requires a polymath knowledge base and non-discursive inference patterns, both of which are rare by themselves, and in combination almost non existent.

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    3. Dear Infoshark, I can see your info and inferences stack up just fine. Ignore the stone throwers who run their lives with fixed rules, sayings, and 'laws' they misapply at will. Sounds 'clever', but it isn't.

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    4. Keep this quote in mind when you read Meadows and the technocrats.

      "#8: When a group of people believe they must choose between options that offer more order or those affording greater liberty, they will always opt for order.

      Unfortunately so, since it will have grave implications for the evolution of society’s governance systems. Dictators will always promise less chaos than Democrats."

      Focus on resilience and sufficiency on the local level, form voluntary relationships with people from all walks of life, form a junto, join a protective association and resist political solutions. After all in the US, we are a Democratic Republic.. perhaps the only thing that saved our country from complete takeover by the Covid operation was State's rights, a tradition of individual liberty, the means of personal protection and a healthy skepticism of authority and centralized power structures.

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    5. Hi Ugo, all,

      I agree that the path no. 2 is the way to go. We don't have a choice here, as did not had a choice countless generations of our ancestors. This is who we are. 'Solution finding' species. Homo sapiens. We will fight till the end. Ours or industrial civlization, whatever comes first.

      Nevertheless, I fully agree with with infoshark. Breaking down his diagnosis to operational / feasibility level there will be some choices to be made by the ruling elites. And these choices will require tough decisions regarding distribution of the energy / resources / money available for society.
      How do you think the governments all over the world will split this declining energy pie in times of rising economic, financial and geopolitical tensions between
      consumers / population,
      energy transformation
      and military build-up?
      How can that work?

      Path no. 2 will make population bottleneck a little less narrow, I hope. For some time, for some of us.

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    6. Yes, we have a fighting chance. But some comments are quite scary. There is a widespread opinion that humankind deserves to be exterminated. I don't know what these people have in mind. Maybe they hope to be among the survivors? Or is it a kind of "death instinct" Freud style. I don't know, but it is worrisome.

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  8. With respect to renewable energy sources, wind, solar, and even nuclear do not provide sufficient net energy necessary to sustain a level of socio-economic and technological complexity necessary to produce them (1). Given we are trending negative on the declining marginal returns of complexity curve, coinciding with rapid global energy descent of fossil energy breaching a 1:1 EROI within a decade, we simply do not have the energy nor net-beneficial complexity to scale up renewables to meet the energy demands necessary to power a complex society. Nuclear energy is advantageous, solely because it is not intermittent, but otherwise suffers from the core issues together with other alternatives. Both Germany and China aggressively subsidized renewable energy for the last decade, and have all but ceased because of (1) above. Merely looking at energy balance, substitution, or EROI of renewables fails to account for the intersection of energy and socioeconomic complexity.

    Moreover, there exists a bubble of money equivalents in excess of 3 quadrillion dollars (>30x Global annual GDP) , coinciding with virtually all western nations at or beyond debt saturation. Given that >95% of these money equivalents is a debt claim on future energy consumption and available energy, combined with cascading counter party risk within the system, within a decade the vast majority of these money equivalents will cease to function as money altogether. Money is the arbiter of trust between the social periphery and the core of complexity mediating stable social relations between relative strangers. With monetary collapse we will simply not have the economic means to increase, let alone sustain complexity, nor will we have the social trust between the periphery and the core to ensure the core can reallocate energy from the periphery to sustain itself. In the end the core of complexity will not hold, thus giving way to localization, and more collapse of complexity in a self-fulfilling positive feedback loop. This is how and why civilizations collapse.

    Changing what money is will not change the fact that the complexity we have today is the result of reallocating 30+ years of global energy demand from the future to the present, that the energetic foundation of that complexity is rapidly evaporating in large part because of this temporal reallocation, and that our economic system that enabled the centralization of complexity across spacetime will succumb to the fatal contradiction that was also its greatest advantage. Dialectically it is not unexpected. Again and again, we observe great things that become great through some internal property, only for that internal property to be the reason for their ultimate demise.

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    1. A late comment, FWIW:

      "Both Germany and China aggressively subsidized renewable energy for the last decade, and have all but ceased"

      Not so, if by this is meant that China is backing off on their efforts. They are moving ahead rapidly and with increasing rate of speed:
      https://twitter.com/alan2102z/status/1680643911528722435

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  9. Some small cadre of elites may benefit from some deployment of solar panels and such (I cannot, in good conscience, refer to them as renewables.) as humans travel into the future. But ecological and resource base overshoot, in the context an industrial human population of over 8 billion, must be addressed one way or another. The traditional method has been famine and disease.

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    1. And think that I was accused of using "proof by assertion" (!!)

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    2. In the context of rapid global energy descent, and a negative trend on the declining marginal returns of complexity curve, there does not exist any increase in complexity that confers net aggregate benefit. However, local increases in complexity may and will benefit certain sub-groups temporarily, with the caveat that the local benefit manifests itself as a global detriment, feeding into the positive feedback loop of further collapsing complexity.

      What are needed now are simple solutions to complex problems such as "using a pencil in space" instead of a Max R&D spacepen. Given every problem facing humanity is scale dependent on population, the simplest solution to our nest of complex problems is self evident.

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    3. Kinda funny. If I had said that, "The Earth circles the Sun.", would that also be "proof by assertion"? The thing is, overshoot must be dealt with, one way or another.

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    4. There is a certain hierarchy among scientific statements. Some are slightly more certain than others.

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    5. The air is so rarefied at the top of the ivory tower, it's like an ascent to Everest. One needs their own bottle of Oxygen.

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  10. I wonder what is your opinion about Elon Musk/Tesla corp/ vision presented this year in the Tesla Master Plan Part 3?

    https://www.tesla.com/blog/master-plan-part-3

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    1. The future is all a question of control. The master plan by Tesla is possible if there is control. If we lose control, we lose everything. But we can still make it.

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    2. Here in your own words you point out that the Economy is "controlled" (saying what you say about Tesla's plan which will only operate in an Economy). Therefore the economy is not an "eco-system" running to a set of defined Laws - it is always a controlled quantity. Everything in it is.

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    3. Because you don't understand what "control" means in a complex system. A complex system is a network, and control is communication among the node. An economy and an ecosystem are the same thing.

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    4. "An economy and an ecosystem are the same thing." -- No. I totally disagree. They are not the same thing. They are nothing like each other. Not even in appearances are they even slightly similar.

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    5. Even etymology clearly connects economy and ecosystems

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  11. The key that Dennis Meadows has it right is about "two people who agree on 99% and spend all their time focusing on and debating the other one percent".
    What we should agree is:
    Renewables will not replace fossil fuels
    We are wasting a considerable amount of energy and resources for nothing useful - the quantity of energy could be easily reduced by a factor 2 or much more
    We should focus on keeping people alive which means food, clothes, houses or buildings - not travelling thousands miles per year or buying a new cell phone every two years
    The economy must be circular (as much as possible) and local
    The parasitic class must be controlled by all means (its elimination seems unfortunately impossible)
    And so on.
    Only then we will start seeing what is suitable, desirable, and possible.

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    1. Why do you want to keep people alive? Has the mass of 8 billion somehow proven itself?
      You might have moral reasons, but of course you know that those, who actually live parasitically, have the best chance to survive a Great Reset.
      There is no societal response to the end of the oil age that satisfies everyone. In particular, there will be no such moral response.
      At best, there will be a response that allows a small industrial civilization to exist. That's why our Iraqi friend is always whining - and rightly so.
      Here in Germany, it is easy to see that our elite do not aspire to solutions for all. They are only pretending - while they are converting the seat of government into a fortress.
      The answers for the future are not to be found in thick physics books, but rather in a thin booklet by Machiavelli
      Mit besten Grüßen von Marcus

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    2. Machiavelli works but not on a fossil fuels-run scale...

      With all the Machiavelli exercised - Iraq today is 43 million and rising - from only 10 million in 1980 - before all vicious wars that erupted since - and killed or displaced tens of millions...

      Is this Machiavelli or a turbo breeding programme?

      When you challenge Life with Machiavelli, Life responds and replicates like crazy...

      Jump to 40:40 and listen to Dr. Tenpenny reading from two statements made back in 1956 or after - Machiavelli style...

      The statements are true - but not effective enough - or at all - when fossil fuels are gone....

      Wisdom appears to be not a luxury for humans to ignore - but rather a deepest reflection of the Laws of Physics - believe it or not...

      How to burn the little remaining finite fossil fuels to re-discover and follow Wisdom rather than keeping Machiavelling and Machiavelling - is now the issue....

      It cannot be true that a European remains unable to comprehend that - but an Iraqi can...

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    3. Even Google gave up on that slogan, Ugo... morality is expensive ... ArtDeco

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    4. There exists such a thing as "irony"

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  12. "...I believe it is time to quit [, and instead] focusing on fossil energy scarcity as a source of our problems and start concentrating on fragility" - Dennis Meadows

    The fossil fuels era - when humans thought wrongly they can manufacture energy - is over...

    Hurrah!

    Two camps are forming in the world today - as we speak - the camp of the old-guard of the outgoing fossil fuels-hypnotised reality - VS - the new camp that calls now for an Era of Wisdom...

    The camp of Wisdom will ultimately win - by Physics and Laws of Nature - even if no one left alive in it...

    "No system of energy can deliver sum useful energy in excess of the total energy put into constructing it"

    The Sun of a new day - dawns...

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  13. Quote: "(Michaux) says that renewables are not really renewable, just "replaceable." He, like others who use this term, means that the plants that we are now building will not be replaceable once fossil fuels are gone."
    What Ugo says here is false. That is not what Michaux means when using the word 'rebuildables' the criticism is irrelevant besides being completely wrong.

    Quote: 1. Use only minerals that are abundant.
    2. Use them sparingly and efficiently.
    3. Recycle ferociously.

    Michaux says the exactly the same things.

    Quote: "Path 1): renewables are useless, and Path 2): renewables are just what we need. "

    A False dichotomy - too simplistic, reality is far more nuanced than that 'rhetorical debating device' to win an argument.

    Michaux would as do I agree with Meadows -quote:
    "I would not choose either path; rather I believe it is time to quit focusing on fossil energy scarcity as a source of our problems and start concentrating on fragility. The debate -renewables versus fossil - is a distraction from considering the important options for increasing the resilience of society."

    Meadows is right here: It is not true that peak oil was presented PRINCIPLALLY as a prediction. Rather critics of Hubert's original analysis misrepresented it
    - Hubert would know - because he wrote it!

    Lastly, I completely concur with Meadows comments in - Statements about being realistic about technology, alternative energy, and sustainability



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  14. It appears that there is not enough copper in the ground, nowhere near enough.
    https://thehonestsorcerer.medium.com/the-copper-conundrum-3b98704602c8

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    1. It is well known. For this reason, we'll go local, so we'll need less copper. And we'll use aluminum, which is very abundant.

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  15. I thoroughly agree with Dennis on this, that there is work to do, vegetable gardens to tend, bicycle training, etc.

    "I would not choose either path; rather I believe it is time to quit focusing on fossil energy scarcity as a source of our problems and start concentrating on fragility. The debate -renewables versus fossil - is a distraction from considering the important options for increasing the resilience of society."

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  16. Ugo wrote an excellent book about mining called "Extracted" that goes into depth about the tremendous damage done by mining, and the huge amount of energy required. I have 7 posts from it on my website from it at https://energyskeptic.com/category/expert-biophysical/ugo-bardi/

    I calculated that it would take 71.4 million 2MW wind turbines weighing 1688 tons each (mostly concrete & steel) to replace all the fossil fuels consumed in 2021 (converted to TWh). That's 120.5 billion tons of wind turbines which need to be replaced in 20 years. Mining also uses 10% of world energy, mostly fossil fuels unless near the grid, with electrical processes done using diesel generators. Ugo, how can you think renewables are renewable? To get them requires turning Earth into Mars, with mines affecting 50 million square miles (a third of the planet's surface minus Antarctica) many of them destroying biodiversity and polluting land, air, and water?

    Mining: Waste, Pollution, Destruction
    Ugo Bardi predictions of the future
    Minerals and War
    Minerals: Natural gas
    Minerals: Coal
    Mineral: Soil
    Peak Uranium

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    1. The 3 rules of the biosphere: (one of several versions)

      Use only what's available
      Recycle ferociously
      Be happy with what you have

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    2. I have a corollary to those 3 rules in my notes. Sadly I did not write down who to credit the following to.

      The 3 fundamental questions regarding economics and society:
      1. How much is there?
      2. Who gets what?
      3.How to make the Earth last?

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  17. "there is absolutely no possibility for renewables to be expanded sufficiently that they will support current levels of material consumption." Not only is it impossible, but even if it were, we would not want that!

    Who is this we? People I know want stuff, lots of stuff and more. Stuff is getting a wee bit hard to get now, and the price rises. The world gets janky about it and shortages have hardly begun. So are renewables a good idea?

    It is a question without an answer. The laboratory to test renewables in ma light up with a nuclear glow at any time. That will cancel all experiments. If that does not happen then sufficient insanity will color world to such a degree renewables won't be pursued. Global economic instability will not provide suitable conditions.

    How many angels can dance on the head of this pin. Having lost the pin it does not matter.

    Concentrate on fragility, the basics. How will the sheep be fed? They hunger.

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    1. Think of how resilient were the Irish in the 1840s.... Everyone had their patch of land, they cultivated their own potatoes, perfect resilience, no?

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    2. Resilience requires a backup plan and even a backup to the backup ... the Irish didn't have that.
      And it's very hard to see how they could have since Ireland was exporting shiploads of food to England the whole time people were starving, since the English landlords could make much more money selling food to the English at high prices rather than to the Irish natives .

      Just another of the built in features of capitalism ... as I said above, morality is expensive. ArtDeco

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  18. In his own words - Assoc Prof Simon Michaux Feb 2023 see page 11 of
    https://sebgroup.com/siteassets/cision/documents/2023/20230202-sebs-the-green-bond-report-raised-forecasts-for-transition-investment-en-gb-0-3219814.pdf
    Quote:
    "The above paragraph describes the paradigm of almost
    all senior civil servants I met whom had influence of
    developing strategic planning for Europe in 2017. I would
    see this paradigm reflected in multiple strategic documents
    from the European Commission 2019.
    This work presented in this article was done for the express
    purpose of addressing logistical difficulties in strategies
    proposed by EU Commission civil servants to phase out
    fossil fuels.
    The report (Michaux 2021 and Michaux 2023a)
    was to map out exactly what they thought was
    going to happen (based on what I saw personally at
    meetings in Brussels). The intention was to show that the
    existing EU plan had multiple structural flaws and would
    not work. After understanding this shortfall, we could all
    develop a more useful plan to transition away from fossil
    fuels."

    The quantity of metals required to manufacture just one generation of Renewable Energy Transition (2021 Report slides data explanations)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBVmnKuBocc

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  19. The Murphy paper is unconvincing by itself. I tried to follow secondary and tertiary references. They admit to wide error bars in renewable EROI and do not adjust for latitude or country as far as I could see. Pretty good case with tables showing falling EROI of FF to the point of not supporting a USA lifestyle/debt. Renewable data is from an organization "Ecoinvent" which I was unable to access. Storage was for hours not for seasons. I might be labelled "East coast Doc" so ecology also not my primary vocation. Still the case for high renewable EROI remains open (that's including storage). Is there a definitive paper?

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    1. Accessible via https://www.simonmichaux.com/
      https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Simon-Michaux-2
      https://www.centrumbalticum.org/files/5598/BSR_Policy_Briefing_2_2023.pdf
      https://unece.org/sites/default/files/2023-02/1.%20Simon%20Michaus-Challenges%20and%20Bottlenecks%20for%20the%20Green%20Transition.pdf
      2021 summary
      https://mcusercontent.com/72459de8ffe7657f347608c49/files/be87ecb0-46b0-9c31-886a-6202ba5a9b63 /Assessment_to_phase_out_fossil_fuels_Summary.pdf
      2021 original 1000 pages
      https://tupa.gtk.fi/raportti/arkisto/42_2021.pdf

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  20. Homo sapiens have behaved and taken over the entire global biosphere destroying all in it's path more than any pernicious invasive parasite species would. Whom among you 'deserve' to survive?

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  21. hello mister bardi do you imply if fossil fuels are depleted we can still build factories if it is so then I have a second question why do we not wait until fossil fuels are depleted and than rebuild the factories ?

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    1. You are marooned on a desert island. You have some hardtack with you. Which one of these two strategies is best? 1) while you still have hardtack, you clean a patch of forest, till it to make it ready for seeds, seed it, collect the harvest. 2) eat your hardtack as long as you have it. You will start cleaning the forest after that you ran out of it.

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  22. I couldn't help but notice the support for Dennis' statement.
    #8: When a group of people believe they must choose between options that offer more order or those affording greater liberty, they will always opt for order. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/30/vladimir-putin-ousted-wagner-group-00104272

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