
Peak Everything? - cwan
http://reason.com/archives/2010/04/27/peak-everything
======
porter
Exponential Growth is a magical thing. The doubling time of something growing
at a constant rate is approximately 70 divided by that rate. For example,
something growing at a 10% annual rate will roughly double in size every 7
years. I don't doubt the potential of human ideas, but unless the rate of
growth in natural resource consumption goes to zero (or becomes negative), we
will at best defer depletion. While the author points out some novel ideas, he
doesn't show the math to prove these ideas will reverse the growth in
consumption. Until that’s shown, we are at best just buying time.

~~~
InclinedPlane
This is a historically ignorant argument. It's unlikely we'll actually run
short of any of these metals. The more likely scenario is that if and when we
do start to exhaust the most easily mined sources prices will start to rise,
spurring investment in new extraction technologies and exploitation of
previously uneconomical sources. Increasing production and amortization of R&D
costs will then lead to lower prices in the future. This has happened
innumerable times with innumerable resources throughout history.

Which is, indeed, the conclusion of the linked article as well.

~~~
porter
Unless we stop consuming a finite resource we will eventually run out, by
definition. Your argument simply demonstrates how rising prices will lead to
extracting 'harder to get' resources. When something is harder to get that
means it's scarce, which is the opposite of abundant. In other words, it means
we are running out.

~~~
InclinedPlane
_"Unless we stop consuming a finite resource we will eventually run out, by
definition."_

Timescales matter here. If we're going to run out of a "finite" resource in 10
billion years vs. 1,000 years or 10 years it makes all the difference in the
actions you take.

Also, when something is "harder to get" it may mean merely that we haven't
developed the technology to extract it yet. Aluminum used to be more precious
than Gold because it was "harder to get" than Gold, though it was not scarce.
And today Aluminum metal is far from scarce and far from expensive.

------
nas
How about peak arable land?
[http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/March06/soil.erosion.thr...](http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/March06/soil.erosion.threat.ssl.html)

It is estimated that about 10 million hectares a year is lost (the size of the
state of Indiana), 30% of the arable land in the last 40 years. 1mm of topsoil
lost takes about 20 years to replace. The United States is losing soil 10
times faster -- and China and India are losing soil 30 to 40 times faster --
than the natural replenishment rate.

~~~
eru
Can't we pop up soil artificially when that becomes a big enough problem?
Sprinkle compost on it or so?

~~~
nas
Not to be rude but I don't think you are comprehending the scale of the
problem. Where would the compost come from? A rough calculation (10 million
ha, assume a thin 80 mm layer of topsoil is lost, 1 mm of soil over 1 ha is 13
tons) estimates that 10 billion tonnes of compost would be needed per year to
replace the lost organic matter.

It's a feedback system since good land produces lots of organic matter. Once
eroded away, it's extremely difficult to restore. I have a hard time figuring
out how we could avoid serious troubles in this area in the not too distant
future. Some years ago there was a big push in North American to improve farm
practices (stop burning straw, reduction or elimination of tillage, etc). That
helped a lot but developing countries have not or cannot adopt such practices.

~~~
eru
Thanks for the numbers and details.

By the way, what's so bad about burning straw? Or is it just that composting
straw gives more soil?

~~~
nas
I'm not sure we should turn this thread into a farming lesson but I'm happy to
explain. ;-) Burning straw causes a lot of nutrients to end up in the
atmosphere (see
[http://www.topcropmanager.com/index.php?option=com_content&#...</a>). It
really is horrible practice but old habits die hard. It also reduces soil
organic matter and the surface "trash" (broken up straw and chaff), making the
top soil much more likely to be eroded by wind and rain.<p>In the 1930's
drought (the dirty thirties, the Dust Bowl) soil drifted in the wind like
snow. North America had a worse drought in the late 1980's (<a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Drought_of_1988"
rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Drought_of_1988</a>) but
erosion was not really a problem due to much improved farming practices. Crop
yield during the late 1980's drought were also much higher than in the 1930's
because the new farming practice was much better at preserving soil moisture.
That said, it was still not a fun time to be a farmer.

~~~
eru
Thanks. Farming is quite an interesting but underrated subject.

E.g. the improvements in farming that eventually lead to the industrial
revolution in England are rarely looked at.

------
cbell44
Despite regular evidence to the contrary going back for generations, so many
are ready to fall in to the trap that advancement and innovation is done. If
materials, goods, and skill markets are reasonably free and fair, the price
signals alone will drive others to innovate and develop alternatives in
resource use, resource access/extraction, or resource reduction through the
use of other materials or technologies. As long as the rewards for innovation
remain, alternatives are likely to be found and developed.

~~~
j_baker
You know, not every problem is solvable by creating another startup. :-)

In particular, it takes a bit more than the spirit of innovation to move the
developed world from a depleting energy source to a more renewable energy
source.

~~~
lukev
But market forces will do it.

For example, it's not like oil is going to disappear overnight. When gas
prices get up to 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 dollars a gallon... at some point, people
are definitely going to start buying electric cars. Same goes for trucks,
ships, everything else that uses oil. But innovation to make alternatives
available isn't going to happen until market forces make it profitable.

~~~
InclinedPlane
For pretty much any location in the world outside of perhaps France an
"electric" car is, in most cases, a coal powered car. There is far too much
coal in the ground for it to run out in the near future, market rates alone
aren't going to get rid of coal power plants.

~~~
pyre
> _There is far too much coal in the ground for it to run out in the near
> future_

And "640K should be enough for anyone," right? The idea that something will
never 'run out' is usually predicated on the assumption that consumption
levels will remain the same (or at least only increase linearly rather than
exponentially).

------
wanderr
Peak [insert metal here] isn't directly comparable to peak
oil/coal/combustible for the obvious reason that when the former is used up
and discarded, it can be reclaimed, while the latter is gone forever.
Obviously you can still hit limitations, such as when demand is greater than
the entire supply on earth, but that at least puts the problem further out,
buying more time for innovation and reducing demand for less valuable things
that also require those resources.

~~~
InclinedPlane
The problem with the peak hydrocarbon argument is that there is more than
enough of _some_ variety of hydrocarbons in the ground to satisfy a world
population 10 billion people all consuming hydrocarbons at 1st world levels
for hundreds of years. The peak hydrocarbon argument relies on a chain of
hypothesis, none of which have been backed up by evidence. Firstly, there must
be no discoveries of new reserves. Secondly, there must be no advances in
technologies in extraction or refinement. Thirdly, there must be no advances
in technologies to convert different hydrocarbon sources into others (e.g.
manufacturing gasoline from coal), worse than that there must be no adoption
of known hydrocarbon conversion technologies (coal gasification is a decades
old technology).

Anyone who's looked at the numbers for reserves of coal, tar sands, methane
clathrates, etc. is unlikely to take peak hydrocarbon arguments seriously,
there's just too much of the stuff. Ultimately the peak oil argument comes
back to a visceral hatred of petroleum and a wish to see a world without it,
but wishes aren't reality.

~~~
crpatino
Let's talk about peakers' "mistakes": > Firstly, there must be no discoveries
of new reserves.

Wrong, all it takes is that the demand grows above the discoveries rate. If I
remember correctly, demand to discoveries ratio was about 4:1 in the last
decade. (and demand is to go even higher as emergent countries create middle
classes that aspire to follow the American dream)

> Secondly, there must be no advances in technologies in extraction or
> refinement.

That is irrelevant. Efficiencies can only buy you more time. Every grade
school kid knows fossil fuels are non renewable resources. We could debate
whether the Peak Oil is one year, or one decade or one century away, but this
is something that will eventually happen.

> Thirdly, there must be no advances in technologies to convert different
> hydrocarbon sources into others.

This is frankly foolish! It takes energy to transform materials from one
"format" to another, and it takes serious energy to do that at an industrial
scale. Specially, if you want to take low concentrated energy sources and make
then highly concentrated, you will waste most of it away! (while screwing the
environment on unprecedented scales) There is a good reason the Nazis tried an
all-in and attacked Russia. They could not afford to keep converting coal into
synthetic oil for much longer!

> Anyone who's looked at the numbers for reserves of coal, tar sands...

One thing that has to be said about this, is that the good stuff is already
gone. Clearly, there is plenty of cheap, dirty, low yield fossil fuels around.
But the sweet crude, the one that yielded 100:1 returns on energy invested,
was burned during the economic expansion of the 20th century.

This is not to say that we are doomed, and that we are back to the dark ages
(when I see the stupidity around in Facebook, I sometimes think we are indeed,
but it clearly has nothing to do with peak oil). The catch is that we need to
recognize that our whole civilization is built over a non renewable resource,
and we have to use whatever we have left of it in an strategic way (which I
think may last for the 21st century, give or take). It would be nice to make
the jump now that we have still some capacity for retooling, than later on
when we have less so.

~~~
eru
According to the table at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density> coal
doesn't fare too bad compared to gasoline in terms of J/kg.

Another factor in the attack of Germany on the Soviet Union was that both
countries had quite insane leaders..

------
TetOn
Also peak helium: <http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/going_going_gone/>

~~~
euroclydon
"Federal Helium Reserve", "Saudi Arabia of Helium", "The world's lone Helium
Superpower"

Wow!

~~~
j_baker
They also forgot "the helium capital of the world", one of Amarillo's
nicknames (I happen to have family in Amarillo).

------
dflock
There's only one planet Earth, finite in size - and therefore a finite amount
of natural resources exist within it. Once we've split all the uranium and
washed all the phosphorus into the ocean, that's it - you can't think up more
Zinc, Rubidium or Lithium - once it's gone, it's gone.

I'm sure we could do vastly more recycling, use alternatives for some things,
improve efficiency, develop magical new technologies, etc, etc... but almost
no-one I've spoken to about this appreciates just how terrifyingly rapidly
we're approaching these limits. If we run out of available mine-able Zinc &
Copper in 30 years - which is quite possible - what then? Do we have enough
time to switch to coping strategies? Will that be a smooth ride? It seems to
me that the front of the train has already hit the buffers, but we've still
got our foot on the gas pedal, back here in the cab.

Most of the useful mineral resources on Earth are only available in
vanishingly tiny quantities elsewhere in the solar system. We currently do
almost no recycling of anything, compared to our consumption. The human
population is huge, growing in number, affluence and resource usage per
capita. We're on course to run out of the minerals required to run our economy
& infrastructure within most of our lifetimes.

Nice infographic with some estimated timescales for various resources:
[http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/archive/2605/2605120...](http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/archive/2605/26051202.jpg)

The Greatest Shortcoming of the Human Race is our inability to understand the
exponential function: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY>

I'm not being alarmist - sometimes things are actually alarming.

~~~
eru
We are sitting on a huge ball of matter. And with enough energy--which we can
get from the sun for another 5 billion years or so--we can recycle almost
anything.

Of course coping may not be easy in the first place.

~~~
dflock
It's not really the long term future that I find alarming, it's the near-term
transitions. It seems like globally we're finally bumping up against a load of
fixed environmental, resource and population buffers almost all at once. Bumpy
road ahead, possibly.

~~~
eru
The population bomb is already defusing. The environmental and resource limits
might create some serious problems.

------
cmars232
“Is it realistic to predict that knowledge accumulation is so powerful as to
outweigh the physical limits of physical capital services and the limited
substitution possibilities for natural resources?”

Yes, unless we figure out the knowledge required to synthesize these elements,
recapture them, or develop substitutes.

Knowledge has a habit of disrupting what otherwise looks like a zero-sum game.

------
doki_pen
It seems natural that humans have always reproduced until they ran into some
limiting factor. No matter how much we conserve, we will just have more
babies. There is an out though. Research suggests that educated woman have
less babies. <http://www.eubios.info/EJ124/ej124i.htm> . Just imagine a life
where no one had to worry about limited resources because there are a lot less
people on earth. _That_ would be a utopia.

~~~
a-priori
That rule, to reproduce until you reach a limiting factor (food, money,
whatever) applied until the introduction of birth control. Today, we see that
in places with good access to birth control people end up being quite
conservative about reproducing, trending to replacement rates or lower.

~~~
jdminhbg
Actually, that change took place well before the introduction of reliable
birth control. See "A Farewell To Alms" for an account of the transition from
resource-limited birth rates to the modern world:
[http://www.amazon.com/Farewell-Alms-Economic-History-
Princet...](http://www.amazon.com/Farewell-Alms-Economic-History-
Princeton/dp/0691141282)

------
georgecmu
see also: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1283172>

------
gills
An important topic to keep in mind. We...or a distant future generation...will
probably need to develop alternatives and agressive recycling.

I wonder when we will reach "peak peak-resource stories"?

------
eli_s
I guess at some point mining our solar system will become technologically and
economically feasible. Maybe waiting for and 'roping in' a passing Asteroid
would also work - aren't those things chock full of useful elements?

