Rice Farmer

In public discourse on implementing renewable energy sources, it is just assumed that we will be able to transition (maybe not seamlessly, but somehow) away from fossil fuels and to renewable sources that will keep societies and economies running more or less just as they have up to now. We will have more technological advances, the airlines will keep flying, the fleets of motor vehicles will keep rolling, and — of course — we will have perpetual economic growth. But this scenario takes some things for granted, and tragically overlooks the essential role of fossil fuels.

Before going any further, I would like to acknowledge that I didn’t just come up with this essay out of the blue. I benefited greatly from a series of blog posts by Jeff Vail called “The Renewables Hump.” For those with the time, I recommend reading the whole series (you can find a list of all the posts with links here). I think Jeff is a little more sanguine than I am about the possibilities for keeping the show on the road, despite the fact that he himself has raised issues which cast serious doubt on those possibilities. So in a way I have brought together some ideas he has presented and flavored them with my own thoughts.

There is much disagreement over EROEI. Wind energy proponents are citing some fantastic (in the literal sense of the word) figures. Of course there is the endless argument over where to draw boundaries, but all the inputs are not readily apparent.

One apparent input is the energy embodied in the steel and other metals and materials that make up a wind turbine or a biofuel reactor or what have you. That part is relatively easy to calculate, but in fact I believe that is the smaller input.

The more high-tech the machine, the greater the input in terms of the energy embodied in the technology itself. For example, the design, testing, manufacturing, installation, and maintenance of the hardware requires the talents of many scientists, engineers, steelmakers, machinists, technicians, and other skilled people. They weren’t born with those advanced skills and knowledge; it required many years of education, from elementary school through university, plus years of experience on the job. Start adding up the energy consumed in their education and training, and you will no doubt come up with an amount that is far greater than the energy contained in the materials of the structures themselves. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist yourself to see that society expends a huge amount of energy producing just one rocket scientist. We often hear about the need to invest lots of money in education, but of course money is just a means of accessing energy, and we need to focus on the energy that is being invested in educating and training scientists, engineers, and skilled workers. And because people don’t live forever, we need to keep investing lots of energy in education and training if technological civilization is to continue. Therefore, that energy input has to be taken into account when calculating the net energy of renewables (or anything else, for that matter). And a vital question here is: Can renewables be counted on to churn out that much surplus energy?

Another vital question is: Can renewables really replace fossil fuels? Let’s for the moment ignore things like the petrochemical industry and focus on the use of coal and oil for their energy value. Proponents of renewables claim that achieving a certain EROEI will produce enough surplus energy to build many more of the same machines. I have not seen a detailed exposition of this claim, but I assume they are calculating energy equivalencies, finding that a wind machine, for example, produces electricity that is equivalent to the energy in a certain amount of coal and oil, and pronouncing it a success. But renewables produce much electricity, and relatively small amounts of liquid and solid fuels. Recall that making hardware starts with mining ore, smelting it, making steel, casting parts, and machining them. Are they going to run cables from a wind machine to a blast furnace and smelt iron ore? Having never seen this matter addressed anywhere, I imagine that continued mining and smelting is just assumed. But since we are trying to replace fossil fuels, we have to replace all their significant uses or the whole exercise is meaningless. Recall that fossil fuels will become prohibitively expensive long before they run out.

Finally there is the matter of legacy infrastructure. Proponents of renewables seem to have given little or no thought to the very large amount of fossil fuel energy embodied in the infrastructure of industrial civilization, such as that for metals (mines, mining machines, smelting facilities, steel mills, machine shops, etc.) and that for oil (drilling equipment, pipelines, terminals, oil tankers, refineries, etc.). How about railroads, factories, trucks, and highways? All these exist thanks to fossil fuels. Do renewables proponents claim that all this and more can be maintained with the energy produced by renewables? Do they realize that renewable energy hardware is piggybacked on this fossil fuel-built platform?

Proponents of renewable energy are going off half-cocked in claiming that we can keep industrial civilization running smoothly with the energy produced by renewable energy equipment. I agree that we should build as much renewable capacity as possible, as soon as possible. In fact, I advocate a crash program for doing so. But I am under no illusion that it will save industrial civilization. It will just help us achieve a soft landing.

Those who claim that renewables can prop up industrial/technological civilization need to account for all these problems instead of proclaiming a new “green” age with more economic growth.

With all the miracle disease cures coming on line these days, you’d think someone would have come up with a cure for stupid disease by now, but its virus continues to mutate into more deadly forms and plague humanity. Not that it’s hard to find examples, but here is one that really caught my eye. An article titled China mulls urbanization of 140m migrant workers informs us that the Chinese government would like to speed up urbanization and make consumers out of migrant workers. They will spend spend spend, and the economy will really grow. The article quotes an official who says:

“There are 140 million migrant workers nationwide, and that figure can increase to 300 million, taking their families into account. If these people can afford to buy or rent an apartment to settle down in cities, the potential for expanding consumption is huge.” (Emphasis mine)

Wow! He’s not just whistling Dixie. That would indeed be a lot of consumption. I’ll leave it to the reader to imagine what economic and environmental impacts all that added consumption would have. Which is not to say that all those Chinese migrant workers don’t deserve to attain the same level of consumption as people in the developed countries. But in light of reality, it’s stupid to say this. Then there is the matter of urban infrastructure. Roads, power lines, water and sewage pipes, and the like, plus urban services like trash collection. Since infrastructure is already crumbling in the developed countries due to lack of cheap energy, there’s no hope of ever building and maintaining so much more of it.

But unfortunately, stupid disease blinds people to reality and makes them say the stupidest things.

Nuclear power is supposedly just what the doctor ordered to combat global warming. Proponents tell us that we must vastly expand nuclear power because it does not emit carbon dioxide (which is of course untrue). But ironically, nuclear power itself is falling victim to global warming because of cooling problems. Indeed, that bastion of nuclear power, France, has been forced by hot weather to shut down some of its nuclear plants and import electricity from Britain. Of course proponents will claim that this problem can be solved by supplying plants with cooling towers. But that will further raise the already skyrocketing cost estimates for new nuclear plants, and the towers still need a supply of water. Is there any assurance of that in the hot and dry summer weather projected for the future?

In addition to the need to use fossil fuels to build the equipment for renewable energy sources (raising the question of ultimately how “renewable” they are), a recent news item tells us that T. Boone Pickens’ plan to build the world’s biggest wind farm has been stymied by two problems: financing and the grid. Specifically, the credit crunch is limiting the funds available for financing renewable energy projects, and America’s grid isn’t up to handing the power that the wind farm would be feeding into it.

The lack of money for financing is crimping just about everything. We are also supposed to be looking forward to a revival of nuclear power, but the skyrocketing costs of these large-scale, high-tech installations is killing the nuclear renaissance even before it gets started. And while various costs are being quoted for upgrading the grid, they are all astronomical.

Thus, dreams of expansive wind farms, solar parks, and other installations need to be tempered with the reality of cost, which ultimately comes down to the price of fossil fuels.

Last month we learned that states are cutting back on mowing highway shoulders and median strips. Of course a considerable amount of fuel is consumed by all those mowers. This is another sign that road maintenance in the US is beginning to fall by the wayside, so to speak.

This more recent story informs us of yet another cutback that is even more symbolic of what is coming: Virginia is shutting down highway rest stops. It is highly doubtful that these rest areas will be reopened, and highly probable that this is just the beginning of further such closings.

Of course, it is not only the US where traffic infrastructure is beginning to crumble. Another recent press report informs us that thousands of stress fractures have been discovered in Tokyo’s expressways.

Cheap oil giveth, and expensive oil taketh away.

On a daily basis the mainstream media and nuclear power proponents bombard us with propaganda about how nuclear power can stave off global warming because it supposedly emits no carbon dioxide. Of course this is absurd, as discussed in “Nuclear power is well-disguised fossil fuel.” Nevertheless, nuclear proponents will still argue that this is a necessary and acceptable tradeoff.

But in fact, the situation is much more serious. Because fossil fuels are necessary for nuclear power, the viability of nuclear power is totally dependent on access to reasonably priced fossil fuels. Yet, net oil energy has declined precipitously over the last few decades, and that problem is going to worsen at an accelerating pace in the near future as society has to expend increasing amounts of energy just to get energy. What this will do to the price of crude (and indirectly to that of coal) is obvious. Hence, it is just a matter of time until fossil fuels become too expensive, making it impossible to build any more nuclear power plants, not to mention any other such large-scale construction projects.

And remember, the corollary to this is that the deployment of renewable energy infrastructure will also be severely crimped because fossil fuels are needed to manufacture, deploy, and maintain renewable energy infrastructure.

A couple of articles in the Globe and Mail show just how far out of touch with reality some people can be. One of them, titled “Whither the Consumer,” meaning in particular the American consumer, laments that while American consumption once powered the world economy, the new found penchant of Americans to save instead of spend as though the world were ending tomorrow threatens the world economy. You sometimes have to wonder if these pundits are living on the same planet as we are. Debt-fueled spending is what got American consumers into this mess in the first place. In case the writer hadn’t noticed, Americans are in hock up to their eyeballs. At last they are coming to their senses, and see that they must save and whittle down their debt. But the “experts” condemn consumers for doing so, claiming this will derail the recovery.

Two points here. First, there will be no recovery that will restore the golden age of consumption and fast-paced economic growth. We may see growth in certain places at certain times — for example, countries like China may still enjoy some growth — but overall the world is headed toward a long decline characterized primarily by economic contraction. The order of the day for industrial society is more rust. So, trying to revive and sustain that system by inducing people to spend is wasted effort. People should not be blamed for ruining our chances for “recovery” because they are trying to put their financial houses in order and shed the debt that is strangling and imprisoning them.

Second, the debt that fueled all that consumer spending is but a part of the whole debt-based economic system in which anticipated future economic growth is the ultimate collateral for the massive debt incurred by consumers, businesses, municipalities, and governments. Because we are not going back to those days of economic growth, most of all that whopping debt is bad debt, and the world is just starting down the road to a string of massive defaults that will devastate the debt-based economic system.

The second article, “The consumer paradox,” looks at the situation from China. Not surprisingly, economic gurus contend that if thrifty Chinese would just stop saving so much and instead spend as Americans have been doing, China could do much to pull the world economy out of the sand trap and back onto the green. But of course! It’s that old chestnut about how one could get rich just by getting every Chinese to buy a pill. But we could get them to buy so much more by issuing them all credit cards and getting them to take on lots of debt, just as Americans have done.

Ultimately, we little people — Chinese, Americans, or whatever — have to watch out for ourselves, and that means we have to save most of what little wealth that comes our way instead of spending with abandon and getting ourselves into debt.

When a large accident occurs it sometimes awakens us to the aging and crumbling state of infrastructure and real capital. When a bridge in the US state of Minnesota collapsed, for example, the public suddenly found out that many bridges and roads throughout the US are in decrepit condition. So it is with the latest train accident, after which we find that much rolling stock is similarly aged and in need of replacement. Each new such revelation further underscores the quickly deteriorating condition of the capital stock that was made possible by cheap fossil fuels, and which underpinned decades of economic expansion.

California’s grim fiscal situation is of course not news to anyone, and the media are now filled with reports about the state’s problems. But make no mistake about it — this is not a passing crisis. Take a look at California Collapsing for some hard data and facts that will make your hair stand on end. The sheer size of California’s collapsing economy means that it is turning into a black hole that threatens to drag the whole US economy into itself. Other states will find their abilities taxed just to avoid its event horizon. What’s more, the Los Angeles area is vulnerable to power outages (see the PDF report in the previous post).

Here is another situation that bears close monitoring. California’s collapse could easily have global impacts and repercussions. Get ready for the shock waves.

Power shortages, brownouts, load-shedding, and similar problems are nothing new, and indeed routine, for many countries of the world, but how about in developed countries like the US? A study released last September, “Lights Out In 2009?” [PDF], rang the warning bells on the state of the US grid and the distinct possibility of brownouts and blackouts, especially due to the heavy demand for electricity in very hot weather.

It’s still only June, but already the US is experiencing very hot weather. Watch this situation carefully, and if you live in the US, plan accordingly. The loss of electric power, even for a short time, is catastrophic for modern societies and economies.

R-Squared Energy Blog (a thoughtful and informative blog if you are interested in following energy issues) has a post on the possibility of replacing gasoline with natural gas for transportation. This topic was bound to get more attention because of the increase in natural gas realized by new drilling technologies. No matter what happens, having more natural gas available will at least help stave off the inevitable “freezing in the dark” for some of the population a little longer. As such, I certainly welcome this news (even though I myself do not use any natural gas).

But how easy would it be to convert a significant portion of the US vehicle fleet to natural gas? Some problems are mentioned in the blog post, such as cost. In view of the deteriorating economic situation and the debt implosion — which appears to be just getting started, even large corporations with fleets of vehicles might not be able to field enough capital to convert many existing vehicles, or acquire new ones.

A second problem is that of course not all fossil fuel reserves are economically recoverable. How much of all this new natural gas will actually be produced? Remember, the numbers include “probable, possible and speculative reserves.” Some of those might not even exist.

Third, natural gas production, as well as the manufacturing of natural gas vehicles, are dependent on oil and coal.

Fourth, a great deal of new infrastructure will be needed because vehicles would require a far-flung and reliable fueling network, just like our present ubiquitous gas stations. How many gas stations also have natural gas on tap? And you would need a fleet of tank trucks to service the network. That should give you an idea of the magnitude of such an undertaking.

Fifth, building and maintaining that infrastructure will generate more competition for the funds (read: energy and resources) that are badly needed for maintaining and replacing our existing infrastructure, which is already crumbling, and for all the other new infrastructure, such as renewable-energy equipment (wind turbines, solar panels, etc.) and the “smart grid,” which alone could easily cost a trillion dollars.

And sixth, the rising cost of energy is putting the kibosh on “economic growth,” which in itself means that progressively less money will be available for everything.

So, we need to at least look at this realistically and realize that there is a great distance between having lots of natural gas in the ground and using it to fuel vast fleets of vehicles. Instead, I think it would make more sense to use the gas for space heating, electricity generation, and fertilizer manufacturing, and concentrate on economic re-localization that would substantially reduce vehicular traffic. Using large natural gas reserves as an excuse to perpetuate an economy heavily dependent on long-distance shipping and the general overuse of motor vehicles would only aggravate the situation and make it all the worse in the long run.