Peak Resources: energy

Showing posts with label energy. Show all posts

The central assumption of the neoliberal economic model that material consumption and industrial expansion can continue without devastating political and environmental consequences is known to be false. Yet, every politician on Earth is pushing for further material growth which in a time of resource scarcity only leads to rapidly increasing income inequality. This in turn undermines the stability of society. And vulnerable societies that suffer major economic downturns are known to elect dangerous people and do some crazy stuff.

Overexploiting and degrading both ecological and social capital to gain ephemeral financial capital is the pathway to collapse of a society. Anthropological and agent-based modelling studies have shown that any society that undermines its ecological base runs into declining marginal returns from further material growth. When a threshold is passed, and net energy starts to fall, society can no longer afford to maintain its social organisation and infrastructure and starts to decay. If the ruling elite refuses to give up on trying to push the economy to grow the remaining resources will simply be swallowed up by the resource sector and benefit only a small minority of rich elites while the majority grows poorer over time. This will of course cause political turmoil as even the middle class starts to voice their dissatisfaction. And the entire process makes any democracy open to totalitarianism, a form of government in which the state has no limits in authority and does whatever it wants.

Full collapse from over-depletion and high levels of inequality. Source: Castro et al. 2014

“Democracy is first and foremost about equality: equality of power and equality of sharing in the benefits and values made possible by social cooperation” (Sheldon Wolin, 2010, p. 61).

Most societies have no mechanisms for sharing power and the benefits of cooperation in a time of involuntary degrowth, which we are currently in. Every government policy since the 1970s have only worsened the issue by promoting the enrichment of the capital owning class over the worker class through financialisation. Giving out cheap credit has masked the systemic issues and kept the middle class happy for a while, as they get to continue consuming resources in the moment, but its a giant ponzi scheme that will collapse eventually. Meanwhile, the working class has only suffered since the 70s, with falling living standards and increasing poverty, and thus started to heavily mistrust the ruling elite.

Furthemore, wealth equalizing institutions, such as income taxation, has become ineffective in a globalised world. Big corporations and rich individuals can escape national laws and continue to enrich themselves at the cost of everyone else and nature. The world's richest 1 percent now owns as 82% of global wealth, while the poorest 3.7 billion people saw no increase in their wealth in 2018.

When people are desperate for change, ideology becomes a powerful weapon. If people have no way to influence the political system, no equality in control of the instruments of persuasion, other than voting every four years it cannot be called a true democracy. Private control over the media and higher education are examples of public loss of instruments of persuasion.

Rising inequality opens up a power vacuum that is easily filled by leaders of business or populistic parties in order to extract what they want from the system. The rich business elites usually claim the “trickle down” doctrine or that “government is the problem” to justify deregulation and tax cuts for the rich. While populistic parties (left and right) exploit the working class hate of elites and fuels polarisation and division in society while arguing for a centralised strong government. We see this type of development all over Europe and in the US.

The only way to combat this negative development, as I see it, is to promote decentralization of power and strengthening local economies with circular resource flows that stay within certain boundaries through for example a local currency. And promoting self-sufficiency. Also trying to even the playing field by offering alternative stories through online platforms when the mainstream media is failing. I know that many instead are calling for global governance to reign in multinational corporations but that won't be possible in a resource constrained world and it's certainly not what people are going to vote for.

If no credible options are put forward as the old story breaks apart there is a high chance that people will turn to “strongman” governance in their desperation for change. With potentially catastrophic consequences for peace and security. It's now 100 years since the end of World War I and we are again living in very dangerous times. Europe is so fragile that it feels like any shock could trigger something major, especially if we have a major financial collapse. Unfortunately, such a financial crisis looks increasingly likely as the global debt bubble has started to unravel. I hope there is still some sanity left among people to resist another major war.

We are in a double bind. Growing the economy will cause catastrophic climate change and massive biological extinction. But not growing the economy will lead to lots of suffering under the current neoclassical economic structure. Of course, we could chose to change our entire economic system so that its in line with the biophysical reality we live in, i.e. we would have to give up on growing materially and lower our consumption radically but do so in a more orderly and just fashion. But no, we have made no such decision, instead every government on Earth is trying to push its economy to grow further while dabbling in some greenwashing on the side.

Because we, especially the ruling elites, don't like the alternatives we have to choose from in this dilemma we have tried to maintained status quo at any cost. With the consequence of rapidly rising inequalities, failing infrastructures, collapsing ecosystems, climate disruption and failing states. But now this strategy has reached its end game. The global economy which has been stagnating and on life-support by central bankers stimulus for over a decade is starting to fall apart. All the while people around the world are electing unsavory authoritarian leaders “strong men”, that promote heavy extractive practices, due to increasing mistrust of the ruling elite. The latest example being Brazil.

And nowhere in the mainstream media or from elected politicians do we hear about the underlying issues of our current predicament. About how net energy decline restricts growth and forces the economy to contract. The fact that trying to push for further material growth now costs more than it benefits society. Or that it's simply not possible to fuel our current overconsumptive, overpopulated and destructive techno-industrial society with renewable energy. Not to mention the fact that it's not desirable since it would destroy the ecosystems upon which our very survival depends.

Using total factor productivity as an indicator of returns on innovation, Bonaiuti (2018) has shown how industrial nations have gone through three industrial revolutions of which the latest is now coming to an end. After the peak in the 1930s, when global oil and gas EROI hit a peak, productivity decreased until it reached only 0.34% in the period 1973-95. When US oil production peaked and massive privatization and debt accumulation took off to fund further consumption. The third industrial revolution, known as ICT, has not been powerful enough to compensate for the declining returns of the second industrial revolution. This is evidence that advanced capitalist societies such as the US, Europe and Japan have entered a phase of declining marginal returns or involuntary degrowth with detrimental impacts on societies capacity to maintain its institutional framework.

Total Factor Productivity % of the Private Non-Farm Business Sector (1750-2014). Source: Bonaiuti (2018)

Historical estimate of the global EROI of oil. Source: Court and Fizaine (2017)

In other words, fundamental resources are becoming scarce and expensive and we are becoming poorer and cannot afford to maintain or grow our current society so it starts to crumble. This shows up in the economy in terms of increasingly expensive basic resources like food, rising levels of debt, rising income inequality, underinvestment in infrastructure (e.g. health care, education, railways), and higher unemployment etc.

People are experiencing their living standards falling while politicians are telling them everything is just fine as is, or that the issue can be solved by tweaking the system. But this is no longer enough, people are fed up with false promises and incompetent governments. And rightly so, but the thing people don't realise is the fundamental drivers of our current situation and the fact that no matter how much more they exploit and destroy nature will it improve their lives. Actually, the opposite is true, it only undermines their own wellbeing in the long run. Only investments into low-energy infrastructure and restructuring of the entire economy, focusing on increasing social and ecological capital, can lessen people's suffering. Yet people around the world are voting for violent idiots that promises economic growth by aggressive exploitation of the remaining ecosystems that sustain all biological life.

For example, if the new president of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro has his way the Amazon rainforest will be decimated to give way for unsustainable soy plantations. The biodiverse rich region and home to traditional peoples will be destroyed and the ecosystems capacity to oxygenate the planet and store carbon will be greatly impacted. Bolsonaro also has plans to legalise the use of weapons on a wider scale which will probably lead to further indiscriminate killings of people trying to safeguard the Amazon and promote wide scale illegal logging. This of course will only undermine Brazilians wellbeing but the majority believe the opposite to be true.

Economic decline led by net energy decline doesn't have to result in despotism, although it can. A number of other factors are likely influencing how politics in resource scarce times turns out. Weak institutions, dysfunctional media, high levels of inequality, high population growth, high levels of private debt, a powerful military, and high vulnerability to changes in environment are other generic factors likely playing a role. Other factors tied directly to energy include: high dependency on food imports, government budgets tied to fossil fuel exports, high per capita energy use, and high dependency on energy imports.

There are several measures governments and organisations can take to reduce the risk of a society falling into the hands of a dictator. For example by promoting independent media, investing in low-energy infrastructure, reducing political polarization, strengthening democratic institutions, discouraging inequality, building local food production capacity, decentralising the economic and political system, limiting population growth, and reducing financial instability. In other words, the opposite of what many governments are trying to do currently. So people need to wake up to the realities of our situation and demand change, but such change needs to be guided by the understanding of biophysical realities. Otherwise it is doomed to fail, will only promote further violence and destruction.

Silage windrows in a field in Brastad, Lysekil Municipality, Sweden. Credit: W.Carter (CC0 1.0)

Multiple stressors are converging to make the current industrial food system increasingly unsustainable and vulnerable to perturbations. Of course, the food system is in and of itself a leading cause to what is now threatening its future survival. Climate disruption, freshwater depletion, biodiversity loss, soil erosion and falling EROI on fossil fuels all point to the demise of industrial agriculture. This is well understood by biophysical economists and systems ecologists but often neglected in public or political discussions about food security. Most agricultural policies worsen the problem by making small-scale local agroecological farming unprofitable. Thus dooming large swathes of the population to become reliant on a dying system that costs more than it provides in terms of surplus energy.

There is a big misconception in the world about how modern technology has made us more efficient in agriculture. We think that big machines and lots of fertilizers are a better use of resources than employing more people. While large scale farming may seem efficient at first glance our perceptions are opposite of reality. How efficient the production of food is depends on the amount of energy expended on its development. The EROI, Energy Return on Investment, shows us the true nature of our efficiency in producing and consuming food.

In hunter-gatherer societies, the relevant EROI metric is the caloric value of the food captured or gathered, versus the caloric expenditure of the hunt or gathering expedition. Studies of hunter-gatherers show an EROI of 10:1 to as high as 50:1 (Glaub 2015, Glaub & Hall 2017) depending on effort and final consumption. Large prey eaten directly by the hunting party only would yield a large energy profit while meat provided to support the hunters families would yield lower EROI ranging between 16:1 to 6:1. Nevertheless, this relatively large energy profit ratio probably allowed for the leisure time often associated with gathering societies. But limited capacity for food storage and settlement hinders development of a larger society.

High population and overexploitation of resources was likely a driver of early domestication. In pre-industrial agriculture, dependent on peasant farmers, the EROI was 5:1 or less (Day et al. 2018) as it required intense efforts over long periods with often variable results. Much time was spent on production of food, fodder and fuelwood. But farming had the benefit of food storage which led to established settlements and concentrated labour. Fuelling population growth and specializations.

Early industrialized societies benefited from high EROI from fossil fuels and large energy surpluses. Capital and energy substituted for labour. Food, fodder and fuel could be provided with fewer workers, permitting an expansion of non-primary sectors. The range of goods and services expanded. In the United Kingdom, energy and food expenditures fell to 20% as a proportion of GDP in 1830 from 50-80% prior to the industrial revolution (Day et al. 2018). But EROI of global oil reached its maximum value of 50:1 in the 1930s and has fallen since then to about 10-15:1 today (Court & Fizaine 2017). Modern industrial high-tech agriculture now consumes a staggering 10 calories of energy for every calorie of energy (food) delivered to the market, i.e. EROI of 1:10. Rending much of agriculture a net energy loss and completely unviable without fossil fuels.

As EROI of fossil fuels continues to fall an increasing amount of energy will be needed simply to provide energy and food to society. Leaving less energy over for other sectors of the economy such as education, health care etc. The only way to get out of this trap is to switch to renewable energy sources and promote small-scale, local, agroecological food production that can generate high yields but in a more diffused manner. Just like renewable energy technologies. Thus there needs to be a transition from centralised to decentralised energy and food production. Very few believe we can replace all fossil fuels with biofuels or electricity, especially in the agricultural industry that is very reliant on diesel as transport fuel. Furthermore, even if some farms could make such a shift in fuel use they would still be unsustainable if they continue to erode soils, eradicate biodiversity, deplete freshwater sources and pollute the environment. Even FAO recognizes this dilemma and now promotes agricultural practices in line with ecosystem-based management.

Wishful thinking is today so prevalent that it even has infected the brain of people who are trained not to be biased, scientists. I mean sure, economists have always been blissfully ignorant and wrong in their predictions but what I’m talking about is more widespread. It's a deep denial among the people researching our most critical issues: climate change and energy limitations.

You see it in the media when scientists discuss oxymorons like “green growth”, or proclaim that we can “decarbonize our entire economy within 20 years”, or that “agriculture will save biodiversity”, or that “lab grown meat will solve our food problems” and so on. It's nothings but grasping at straws in a world that is on fire. Such delusional statements are more about belief systems and identities reflecting values than science. It's also because climate scientists have been told by behavioural psychologists not to scare people as it may hamper action. But isn't it odd that the profession that claims to be devoted to curiosity and truth seeking wants to restrict exploration of future possibilities and censor people due to how it might come across to others?

Our climate reality is harsh. Most scientists tend to underestimate our predicament because they are too conservative, not the other way around. But now it's becoming clear, predictions made by oversimplified climate models have underestimated the changes we're already witnessing due to climate change. Earth, the biosphere, ecosystems and human systems such as the economy are dynamic complex systems and their behaviour is nonlinear. A model that does not include critical feedbacks in the system will not be able to accurately predict results in the real world. This has now become obvious as real world observations about the sad state of our climate is pouring in. Climate change is accelerating.

Sea ice in the Arctic is melting at an alarming rate and looks to be completely gone summertime some time in the coming years (2022?), accelerating global warming further. Ice and snow reflect about 80 percent of the Sun’s energy back into space while the darker ocean and land will absorb 90 percent of that heat. The albedo effect due to vanishing sea ice is already responsible for about 25 percent of global warming (Pistone et al. 2014). Greenland shed about 280 gigatons of ice per year between 2002-2016 and the island’s lower-elevation and coastal areas experienced up to 4 meters of ice mass loss (expressed in equivalent-water-height) over a 14-year period (NASA, 2018). Accelerating rates of ice loss also implies accelerated rates of sea level rise. Certain cities will have to be abandoned. In ten years prior to 2016 the Atlantic Ocean soaked up 50 percent more carbon dioxide than it did the previous decade, speeding up the acidification of the ocean (Woosley et al. 2016). And the list goes on and on with increasingly worrisome observations.

With an increase of carbon emissions of 2% in 2017 (Carbon Brief, 2017), the so called “decoupling” of economic activity from emissions is not yet making a net dent in global emissions. Even if we start reducing emissions now it's not going to be enough to prevent dangerous climate change since there is about a decade lag between emissions and resulting warming (Ricke & Caldeira, 2014). We have already (95% probability) gone past the 2°C warming point/UN target (Raftery et al. 2017), and are likely headed towards 4-5°C (Steffen et al. 2018). That's because the Earth system is dynamic and is more likely to continue warming until it stabilises at another point, which in the Earth's past occurred at about 4-5°C warmer than pre-industrial levels. By the way, it is generally accepted that a 5 degree rise in temperature is not compatible with human civilisation as we know it. At the same time, perhaps a complete collapse of civilisation could prevent the worst climate change outcomes (Garrett, 2012). But no one is going to promote or talk about that in public. Even if diminishing returns on resources, especially oil, likely will shrink our civilisation in the near future, whether we like it or not (Turner, 2014).

No one likes either outcomes of this predicament and that's why most experts are basically just arguing over different options of removing carbon from the atmosphere through geoengineering. Using machines to suck out carbon, however, is not feasible both in terms of cost and scale and could cause more harm than good. Current technology would have to be scaled by a factor of 2 million times within 2 years. That's just not going to happen. Biological approaches to carbon capture such as planting trees, restoring soils, holistic grazing, and growing seagrass and kelp appear far more promising.

Anyway, the real issue for ordinary people is how to adapt to a world that is increasingly hostile while using less energy? Not wasting time listening to myths about "green tech" or believing in fantasies like "colonising Mars" or "geoengineering the entire planet"

James Howard Kunstler holding a presentation about urban design in Sweden at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm.

Adaptive cycle from Resilience Alliance modified based on Van der Leeuw (2012)

In systems ecology there is a useful heuristic model - The Adaptive Cycle - that attempts to map out cyclical change in social-ecological systems. The concept builds on observations of ecosystem and social change over time. In the original picture the y-axis stood for potential (or capital) and the x-axis said connectedness. But in this figure I have swapped out those for energy and information as the constraints of the system. This is not my idea but based on Sander E. van der Leeuw (2012) article "Global systems dynamics and policy: Lessons from the distant past" where he applies resilience thinking to social change over time, drawing on knowledge from the past.

As depicted above, in the first phase of the adaptive cycle, exploitation, society and its environment grow based on a particular form of organization that permits an increase in energy flow in exchange for an increasingly coherent institutional structure, that in turn increases its impact on the environment over time. In this phase, when resources are abundant, every individual has a chance to make something of her/his situation, and so the culture is one of individualism. However, during this time the system suppresses structural innovation and institutional change because the dominant paradigm is thought to be so effective that there is no reason for innovation.

Eventually, however, the growth curve levels off and the system’s effectiveness and growth ceases. Enter the conservation phase. The limits of expansion become apparent and society “defends itself” (state of denial) by becoming more fixated on rules and hierarchies as a consequence of the need to deal with increasing levels of conflict over resources. Bottom-up change is slowly replaced by “top-down” power over people. Fundamental change is not implemented because the system as a whole is still aligned on the pre-existing dynamics.

In the next phase, release, resources are suddenly freed up once the system reaches a tipping point and the existing structure collapses. The immediate result of that is a complete lack of institutional structure, true chaos in which the system can transform in many different ways, but none of the potentials are clear enough to give a sense of direction. People turn against how the system was structured but also show an inability to understand. Which in turn lead to a ‘fatalist’ attitude, like during the Dark Ages in Europe.

The fourth phase is that of reorganization, a time of experiments with different forms of organization on a very local scale. Real innovation becomes possible and necessary, and small communities flourish and gather support based on an egalitarian perspective. Eventually smaller communities organize into larger structures and growth starts again. And so the cycle repeats, according to theory.

A time of crisis

I believe that we are currently in the very last stages of the conservation phase, passed the tipping point, and now headed towards the release phase. In terms of resource depletion, it is clear we have reached our peak of extraction and we are now left with huge increases in costs of providing basic services, like freshwater, food and energy. We see an increase in conflict over limited resources, state failure and attempts to regulate and control ordinary people. The massive global debt bubble is unpayable but governments are unwilling to implement structural reform. Short term political considerations trump the long-term viability of society. Most people do not understand the full complexity of the processes going on around us. The fragmented worldview has been institutionalized through academia working in silos and only focusing on one narrow subject at a time. And don't get me started on neoliberal economics, which is simply unscientific. In society in general we have witnessed an explosion of trade in material goods and services that are utterly useless. The need is no longer for innovation to meet existing challenges, but simply to create ‘value’ to maintain the growth of the world economy (like a cancer). This is a time of crisis, when people lose faith in the system and it collapses. At the same time, people do not understand why things are getting worse and instead look for someone to blame. But the problem is not religion, ethnicity, or gender, its structural. The entire system is flawed, and will collapse.

Greek protesters clash with policemen during riots at a May Day rally in Athens May 1, 2010. Credit: Joanna CC-BY-SA 2.0

Debt = theft from future generations

All economic activity requires energy to perform useful work. Without an increasing flow of net energy to society the economy starts to contract. The extraction of finite fossil resources cannot sustain increased growth as depletion and diminishing returns eventually leads to bankruptcy and falling supply.

Shows how the entire Eurozone has been contracting since 2007 as is visible in lower oil consumption.

Monetization based on the assumption that the resource base is endless, which flies in the face of fundamental physics, can only lead to financial collapse. Intermediate stages that we have witnessed since 2008 is the erosion of the middle class, increased wealth inequality and increased numbers of poor people in society. Borrowing of work and resources from the future, through debt fuelled credit expansion, has become completely insane. To the extent that we are eroding the life-support systems that make up the basis for our own long-term survival. It has indebted future generations in ways they can never repay and is a grave intergenerational injustice.

Thermodynamic limitations of the physical world don’t even enter the grammar of most economists or central bankers who are wilfully inept to give advice on anything but how to ruin entire nations. The lack of a systems perspective has made the public unaware of the real dangers of a out of control financial system. Economic growth based on credit fuelled debt, which has exploded since the early 1980s, in form of unlimited issuance of government bonds, credit cards without security, sub-prime mortgages or quantitative easing are all just sophisticated ways of sending the bill to the future.

Its obvious that it's not possible to cure problems that arise from too much of something (debt) by doing more of it (piling on more debt). That's just insanity. If credit costs are larger than income minus other expenses then either the income must increase to balance losses or bankruptcy is the only way out. By now, we know that the pile of debt accumulated is unpayable and so a debt restructuring or debt jubilee is the only way forward. The young generation, especially, need to have their debts forgiven or we will have riots in the streets, political turmoil and an increase in crime rates.

Protesters in front of the Alþingishús, seat of the Icelandic parliament, on 15 November 2008. Credit: Haukurth (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Difference between purely financial and energy-induced collapse

In the fall of 2008 the financial system in Iceland collapsed leading to a closure of the three main banks and a 50% fall in the value of the Icelandic króna. When the banks collapsed they left huge obligations to lenders and customers without coverage. The Icelandic government issued a guarantee for all Icelandic accounts, releasing comparative demands from a large volume of overseas accounts (a net deficit of €3.2 billion after all assets were sold). The government had no way of covering this demand, causing the collapse of the Central Bank of Iceland and the currency. Iceland went bankrupt and loans in foreign currency became unpayable for state, businesses and private persons. The Icelandic people voted no in referendums to repay foreign debts, elected different people in office and jailed bankers for corruption. They basically had to restart the system. However, the real reason that Iceland has not suffered like Greece, for example, is because they were able to keep increasing their oil consumption (from imports) while relying heavily on domestic hydropower and geothermal for electricity production. This is not the case for the PIIGS countries which all were heavily reliant on oil imports that they could no longer afford.

Data from the National Energy Agency in Iceland

Greece cannot afford to import more oil

Many of the driving factors behind the Icelandic banking crisis and the GFC arose from a fundamental systems crisis in our present world. The economic model based on eternal financial and material growth has started to meet limits, where the human civilisation has outgrown the capacities of the planet to support it. Borrowing from the future to cover up this fundamental problem is a short sighted strategy that will come to an end, sooner rather than later. And it also means that the collapse curve will be even steeper as we have depleted more resources without making a transition to renewable energy resources.

Against such limitations, all talk or negotiations are futile, and pretending the dilemma does not exist has only lead to bigger risks with ever more debt - stealing from future generations. Countries may be able to handle a purely financial crisis, like Iceland, but they won't be able to handle a energy-induced financial crisis, like in the case of Greece. It doesn't matter what financial reforms they make as long as they can't afford the energy needed to operate society they will continue to contract. So while debt forgiveness is necessary it's not sufficient in solving Greece's problems.

IT IS 3 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT Doomsday Clock. The Bulletin

Responses to resource scarcity

Throughout history, different societies have opted for different “solutions” to energy scarcity and collapse. Some might try to adapt to this new socioeconomic reality (Cuba 1990s), others may protect the elite at the expense of the general population (North Korea 1990s), while some may turn to external aggression and predatory militarism (Japan 1918-45) (Friedrichs, 2012). Predatory militarism is, according to Friedrichs, the result of desperation and temptation to gain resources through military means. In the Japanese case, the element of desperation prevailed. In the 1930s Japan started its aggressive military campaigns against China in attempts to prevent fuel starvation and external dependence on strategic resources. However, ironically this predatory militarism instead lead Japan to become increasingly dependent on importing critical commodities (oil) from the US (about 70-80% of gasoline). So when the US put in place a trade embargo (1941) Japan started looting oil from Borneo, Sumatra and the East Indies. And we all know what happened after that. In short, Japan tried gain critical resources from other countries, prompted by the potential of fuel starvation, which lead them to scrap free trade policy and to radicalise a strategy of predatory militarism to secure access to energy.

Worrying Trends 2015

Countries prone to military solutions like the US and Russia seems to have followed a Japanese-style strategy of predatory militarism.The US (and NATO) involvement in the Middle East to secure access to oil by military force is a clear example of this. We also see a worrying trend of potential US involvement in the South China Sea, as well as China’s use of its military power to secure oil and gas in Central Asia. However, it seems unlikely that China will stray further than that in terms of military force, instead they have been making trade deals with Iran and Russia for oil. China will probably hesitate to anger the US which has a much stronger military than China, but the country may become increasingly desperate for more energy as its population continues increasing while demanding reductions to coal pollution. I am more concerned about what the US might do next. Since 2001 the US have been in constant warfare, and for no benefit of the people of those countries (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Pakistan) or the countries receiving all the migrants from these war torn regions. Then we have Russia's invasion of Ukraine (or support of separatist movements as some like to call it), to secure the flow of natural gas, and now its involvement in Syria. This shows signs of major geopolitical instability in the oil rich Middle East and in Europe due to global scarcity of energy, and an escalating power play between NATO and Russia over "what's left".

October – Outlook from a Swedish perspective

On the military side of so called strategic deterrence we have seen an increase in military drills in our neighbourhood. During the summer both NATO and Russia conducted naval exercises in the the Baltic Sea. Now, during the fall, drills have intensified both in Russia, Belarus, and on NATO territory. Both naval and air forces have been deployed to show “might” on both sides. However, it is on the nuclear side of the deterrence strategy where most activity have been going over the last couple of months. It is likely that Iskander with nuclear capability is located in Kaliningrad and that the US has started to upgrade their capability with the new B61 nuclear bombs for fighters at German, Italian and Turkish air bases. At least according to credible Swedish commentators. Furthermore, the UK has voiced a wish to join NATO:s exercises on nuclear escalation (i.e. in the case of transitioning from conventional weapons to high alert for nuclear weapons deployment).

Credit: WikiCommons

The Russian intervention in Syria has increased the likelihood of confrontation. Perhaps not intentional but the risk of unintended consequences, with potentially catastrophic results, getting out of hand has risen. Russian rocket launches from the Caspian Sea was, according to most experts, a demonstration of power for mainstream media and the domestic audience back home. But because the robotics system, similar to Iskander, can launch both conventional ammunition as well as nuclear this illustrates a serious upper hand that Russia has gained in terms of tactical and potentially mid range weaponry. It is, however, yet unclear if the images shown were real or potentially tampered with. The propaganda war between Russia and the West has reached such high levels that it's becoming increasingly difficult to know what is actually going on down on the ground.

For Sweden this escalation of tension between NATO and Russia is very troublesome, especially since exercises have been occurring on and around our borders. We don’t really have any defence to speak of and so popular support for joining NATO is increasing in Sweden, a similar trend is visible in Finland. Experts over here are mostly concerned with the unpredictability of Russia, which is very good at hiding its true intentions and preparations. The larger issue, however, is the political confusion over Russian statements and lack of insight into Kremlin's actual behaviour. The West’s analysis of Russia have been wrong all along and there has been little focus on the actual geopolitical consequences on the ground. This is of course a consequence of the whole propaganda war going on and the increasing inability of the government to solve complex problems.

Furthermore, there is very low public support for NATO and military interventions in Europe, which probably annoys the hell out of US "diplomats". Few soldiers have been mustered in Europe and the few who are in service are not ready for combat. Most Europeans don't want to get involved with either Russia or the US, but if they have to chose, well, Russia supply almost all of Europe's natural gas and oil so… yeah… I think you know the answer.

As for other European countries turning to the predatory strategy we have seen some of that in terms of the nuclear powers (France, the UK, Italy) engagement in the Middle East. It is unclear what these countries may do under pressure, any large-scale military response inside Europe seems unlikely, but then again, history has shown that any liberal democracy can turn into an authoritarian military machine when conditions turn really ugly. The current economic crisis and hardship for people in southern Europe could perhaps lead to extremists rising to power again if there is another major economic blow (which looks like it's on its way now with the global economic slowdown). Even here in Sweden I see a trend towards people voting for the Sweden Democrats (far right wing) in pure frustration over the current government's incompetence. Of course, the problem is not so much political as it is a resource problem but most people don't see the connection. And so on and on the debate goes, generating more irrational political behaviour, which in turn angers the public even more.

Despite all these worrying signs in our close proximity our dear politicians, here in Sweden, have not been able to come to any agreement about funding emergency preparedness and response. So we are basically helpless if there is a conflict in our neighbourhood and will have to rely on Finland and other countries to help us out. Or perhaps we would simply hope that there is nothing of value to Russia and NATO here, we have no oil, coal or natural gas.

The Swedish Empire in Early Modern Europe
Credit: Memnon335bc (CC-BY-SA 3.0)

How forests and metals changed the country

From 1560 to 1720, Sweden was the most powerful country in Northern Europe, based mostly on its very productive metal mines (silver, copper, steel) but also on aggressive foreign policy backed up by high-quality steel weapons. The production of these mines and weapons required large amounts of energy for mining and smelting. Wood and charcoal were the primary energy carriers used in those days but required large tracts of forests.

During this time (1650-1800), Sweden changed it's property laws and went from public to private ownership of forests since forests were mainly used for household consumption, without clear ownership rules, and didn't generate any economic value. This changed forestry incentives.

Moreover, the little Ice Age, at its worst period in 1500-1600s, resulted in failed harvests and starvation that made European countries more aggressive towards their neighbours in attempts to expand their land area, as to grow more food. But the cool period also helped the Swedes in terms of enabling them to be able to cross the frozen sea from Germany and defeat Denmark in 1658.

Credit: Saperaud~commonswiki (CC-BY-SA 3.0)

According to Sundberg (1992) a typical forester and his family were self-sufficient on 2 hectares of farmland, 8 hectares of pasture and 40 hectares of forest which in turn generated some 760 GJ (or 211 MWh) of charcoal per year for the mines. That gives an EROI of roughly 4:1, i.e. very low return on investment, according to Hall (2015). As with all finite resources, the Swedish mines reached a peak in production in 1632, according to Sverdrup & Ragnarsdóttir (2014). Fifty six years later, in 1688, the Swedish Empire reached it's wealth peak, after which costs got larger until they exceeded wealth in 1712. Observed collapse occurred between 1732 and 1750.

Empire	Discovery peak	Resource Peak	Wealth Peak	Cost > Wealth	Collapse
Swedish	1520	1632	1688	1712	1732-1750

The biomass-backed system was sustainable as long as the forests were not overharvested, which did not occur until the middle of the 19th century, a time when many Swedes (1.3 million) left for America. During this time (1800-1850) the population had increased at a time when property prices were sky high and people started overharvesting the forests.

Source: SIFI

Today many experts estimate that Sweden has regained a forest area similar to that of the early 19th century, before the massive deforestation took place. Some 27,528,000 hectares, or 67% of the country is forested. However, it is a completely different type of forest. Only a few percentages (17%) of the old forest has been preserved, the rest is planted forest with much lower diversity of species and ages. Our forests are thus less resilient to shocks and disturbances, for example to climatic changes, something people hadn’t really noticed until the massive forest fire that broke out in Västmanland in 2014.

What if the AMOC collapsed?

Climate change can give rise to abrupt and unexpected outcomes in the Earth system. Last week, a new article in Nature Scientific Reports claimed that a collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) could lead to a rapid cooling in the Northern Hemisphere, and that this cooling in turn could obliterate global warming for a period of 15-20 years. Only to revert to a warming pattern some 40 years later.

According to professor Sybren Drijfhout, his model showed that “The planet earth recovers from the AMOC collapse in about 40 years when global warming continues at present-day rates, but near the eastern boundary of the North Atlantic (including the British Isles) it takes more than a century before temperature is back to normal”.

Temperature anomaly in degrees Celsius after 95 years from the onset of an AMOC collapse. Source: Drijfhout (2015)

What is so scary about this study is that the effect of atmospheric cooling due to an AMOC collapse is associated with heat flow from the atmosphere into the oceans, which has actually occurred during the last 15 years. A well known fact to many scientists but somewhat unclear to the public which has been bombarded with climate deniers "warming hiatus" nonsense.

According to Drijfhout, when there is a net cooling effect heat flows from the oceans to the atmosphere but when there is net warming effect then this energy flow is reversed. In other words, the world’s oceans have acted as giant heat sinks, counteracting the greenhouse effect in regards to atmospheric temperatures, for the last decade. But this period is now over, according to Drijfhout. The oceans are again releasing heat, amongst others due to shifting ocean and wind patterns and a strong El Niño.

We need to talk about energy and population

I was listening to the latest Radio Ecoshock show, featuring Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich, when I realized that I haven’t really mentioned the population problem as much as I should in this blog. Indeed, the topic is problematic because people don’t like to talk about it and most environmental scientists have even given up speaking about it since most feel that “there is nothing we can do about it”. To some extent that’s correct, we cannot force people to have fewer kids (or we don't want to do that).

However, by voluntarily lowering energy use per capita it could lead to fewer kids, and it's better to plan for such a future than to be forced into lowering ones energy usage by “other means” (poverty, famine, war etc.). Throughout history, the expansion of the human population resulted from a steadily growing energy supply. But this increase came from finite fossil energy, that have (2006) or is about to peak, globally (2015-2020). My contention is that an average human living a western lifestyle, of massive over consumption, could lower his/her energy use and still have a perfectly okay life.

From Ape to Colossus

According to William R. Catton (2009) calculations the 3 million humans around 35,000 B.C. only used enough energy (food and wood for fire) to be equivalent to Common Dolphins.

Credit: Chris_huh (CC-BY-SA 3.0)

In 8,000 B.C., when there were an estimated 8 million people who made some use of animal power, wind, and river currents each human was on average equivalent to a somewhat larger Atlantic Humpbacked Dolphin.

Credit: Chris_huh (CC-BY-SA 3.0)

By 1500 A.D. there were 350 million humans, each the average energy equivalent to the still larger Risso’s Dolphin.

Credit: Chris_huh (CC-BY-SA 3.0)

In 1800 A.D., as the Industrial Revolution was just beginning to exploit fossil energy there were almost 1 billion humans, each on average now the energy-converting equivalent to a Beluga Whale.

Credit: Chris_huh (CC-BY-SA 3.0)

From this point on many of the world’s people, especially the rich, would as fossil fuel users become “colossal” in terms of energy use. By 2000 A.D. the human population reached 6 billion with an average per capita energy use of more than a dozen times that of our old ancestors. By this time, an average American were using as much energy as a full grown Sperm Whale. Only there were 300 million of them.

Credit: Kurzon (CC-BY-SA 3.0)

And finally, by 2009 A.D, Catton estimated that an average American used as much energy as a 41 ton heavy dinosaur. Turiasauris is among the largest dinosaurs known at 36-39 m in length and with a weight of 40-48 tonnes.

Credit: Matthew Martyniuk (CC-BY-SA 4.0)

Source: Armstrong Economics

People in Europe are getting fed up with the elite. Rising resource costs, austerity, bank bail-outs, tax rate hikes and massive corruption of governments has led to a shattering European Union. Of course there are many different reasons for the increasing decentralisation trend in Europe, but my perspective is that the low ranked members of society has started coalitions to demand that the high ranked members of society share a larger part of their natural resources with the rest. As we all know, economic inequality is at an all time high with half of the worlds total capital in the hands of the top 1%, according to Oxfam.

As we can see in the map above there are several so called "separatist" movements popping up all over Europe. As the global resource pie starts to shrink there will be winners and losers, the weakest suffering first. And this is what we see with the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain) countries suffering, all time high youth unemployment, increasing refugee flows and homelessness. The trend towards decentralisation is the same as a break up of nations, or collapse of society, controlled by centralised corrupt or ineffective governments. Politicians have not understood or accepted that the Earth is finite and that debts have only postponed the harsh reality of resource depletion and economic down turn. Instead they have promoted perpetually borrowing year-after-year (for the last 30 years) despite that science tells us that we can never pay those loans back.

Now when the global economy is turning down, governments are going to attack ordinary people much more aggressively (increasing taxes, cutting benefits, slashing jobs, negative interest rates etc). Unfortunately most governments will think that if they can only increase taxes they will survive another election cycle. They do not understand that massive deflation, and rapidly rising unemployment, is what kills nations. Some politicians will think about starting international war to shift blame, create a diversion for their own population and to steal resources. Just think about what is happening in Syria right now, its a total mess.

So really it is no wonder that people are getting fed up with the political elite, in Europe and elsewhere, and are trying to return to smaller more local types of decision-making and trading of essential resources (food, water, housing etc). It is what one would expect realising that natural resources are scarce, expensive, and becoming more so. Only a steadily increasing supply of energy can maintain a complex society with a wealthy elite, but when the supply of energy starts falling and the elite gets richer on the backs of ordinary people we can expect social unrest and break up into smaller, simpler groups. I think this is whats happening right now.

Credit: Lamiot (CC-BY-SA 3.0)

Ecological regime shifts

Human pressure on the planet's ecosystems have in some cases lead to gradual changes but more often it has lead to surprising, large and persistent ecological regime shifts. Such shifts challenges environmental stewardship because it leads to substantial changes in ecosystem services at the same time as these shifts are hard to predict and reverse.

A new study in PLOS now indicates that the most common drivers to ecological regime shifts include: climate change, agriculture and fishing. Aquatic systems, such as kelp forests, have been most affected by regime shifts. The good news, however, is that 62% of identified drivers can be managed at local or national scales, while only 38% can only be managed internationally.

Source: Rocha et al. (2015)

Food production and energy consumption major drivers

According to the study, food production and climate change are key drivers of regime shifts that are coupled with one another and have the potential to lead to large-scale cascading effects. Food production relates to a number of negative drivers such as resource depletion, pollution, habitat destruction, and deforestation which have the potential to be managed locally or regionally. While climate change drivers needs to be managed internationally.

Most drivers of ecological change are increasing along with the exponential growth of the world's economy. So while reducing local drivers of ecosystem change can build resilience to continued global change over the short term, global changes will eventually overwhelm local management. Indicating that it is necessary but insufficient to act only on a local to regional scale.

The Swedish Parliament in Stockholm. Photo credit: Christian Gidlöf (CC-BY-SA 3.0)

Swedish Politics

Since the parliamentary election, 14th of September this year, Swedish politics has been in constant turmoil. The prime minister declared re-elections only one month ago. A decision that has been widely critcized by both the left and the right. Today, six parties (S, Mp, M, Fp, C, Kd) held a press conference to present a deal struck over block party lines to negotiate on three main topics, namely pensions, energy, and swedish defence politics. Prime minister, Stefan Löfven, also said that there won't be a re-election in March 2015 due to this new deal which makes it possible for a minority coalition to rule in parliament.

What does this mean for Swedish politics?

It looks like Swedish politics have entered a new era of six party politics. This has come about since the xenophobic Sweden Democrats (Sd) became the third largest party in Swedish politics, which created three blocs instead of two, making it difficult to rule in a minority position. This new deal, that covers a period of 7 years, makes it possible for a minority coalition to rule in parliament and get their budget passed. It also makes it impossible to break out parts of a budget, like the left did during last election term when the Alliance ruled in parliament. For voters this means that it matters less which party you voted for, but rather for which bloc you voted for. This deal has excluded the left party (V) and the Sweden Democrats (Sd). It is difficult to know what Swedes think about all this, but it has become increasinly clear that political contempt has risen during this fall/winter. Sd has called for a declaration of no confidence of prime minister Stefan Löfven but for that to pass they would need a majority in parliament, which is unlikely now that this deal has been struck.

Greater energy availability corresponds with greater quality of life. Source: Lambert et al. (2013)

Alternative energy technologies

Economic progress and wealth of society strongly depends on the best choice of energy supply techniques. Like with any living organism, societies needs energy to perform work. Before the industrial revolution we relied on horsepower, wood, wind and human labor. These forms of energy were, however, very inefficient because of their low energy density. It was not until we discovered coal and invented the stream engine that the revolution started and societal metabolism went up. Since then, humanity has been addicted to fossil fuels to propel our societies forward. Now, however, its becoming a real problem because the Earth is not as big as we thought. Fossil fuel extraction and pollution on a massive scale have caused our climate to change and we are running into limits of what the Earth can provide in terms of cheap and abundant natural resources. So we look to alternative technologies for solutions to this predicament. But as we know from the German case this issue is not without its challenges. We need a measurment that that can establish what alternative are most effective in terms of providing a net surplus of energy to society while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Energy return on energy invested

The energy return on (energy) investment (EROI) is an important measure that describes the overall life-cycle efficiency of energy supply techniques, independent of economical and political considerations. The EROI answers the simple question “how much useful (net) energy do we obtain for certain effort to make this energy available” (Weißbach et al. 2013). As we know, energy and matter are never consumed or generated but always just converted. There is always a flow of materials (fuel, materials for construction, maintenance) driven by the “invested” energy with the result of making the “returned” energy available. This means that to calculate net energy of a particular supply technique, also known as carrier, one has to include all the energy it takes to produce electricity - from the extraction of resources to the construction and maintenance of the plant, as well as expected lifetime. Furthermore, because many so called renewable carriers are intermittent they usually require back-up plants or storage that can buffer for when they aren't generating enough electricity at times when people need it. Weißbach et al. 2013 have chosen to include this in their EROI analysis, few others do. Break-even has an EROI of 1. But that would be pointless as you would have a plant but couldn’t run it. The higher the EROI the higher the return on investment.

As the graph above shows, solar photovoltaics and biogas from corn require so much energy that there is very little net energy provided to society, you put in 1 and get 3.9 or 3.5 back (even worse if you include the buffering). That’s not enough to run a complex society on. Wind onshore and hydropower, however, perform much better and give a return of 19 and 49 respectively. Natural gas and coal fired power plants give 28 and 30 in net energy. And nuclear has a value of 75, calculated with a 60 year lifetime. Solar thermal in the Sahara would also give enough net energy to be useful.

Energy Money Return on Investment

Now that we know which electricity producing technologies offer most in terms of net energy we can turn to monetary cost. But first note that not all energy is created equal. Electrical energy is very useful, because it can immediately do work. Heat and chemical energy are less useful because it's harder to get work out of them. By calculating the exergy, the available energy to do work, equivalent we can get energy money return on investment (EMROI). This is done by weighting both the energy inputs and energy output by a factor of 3 when the energy type is electrical. As shown in the graph below.

Because all these carriers produce electricity as output, but not all inputs are electric, the EMROI of all sources is higher than their EROI. This is one step further towards monetizing the EROI by allowing for the greater monetary value of electricity compared to other energy types. We can see that hydro, nuclear, natural gas and solar in the desert have high EMROI. However, EMROI is just a “best case” scenario for monetary return on investment. Note that the economic threshold has gone up to. The idea is that in e.g. the US, a kWh of energy cost about 10 cents but it produces about 70 cents worth of GDP, a ratio of 7 to 1. If we do the same computation in exergy terms, the ratio is 16 to 1. That means the fully monetary return on investment of exergy, for the economy as a whole, is 16. A similar ratio can be seen for other countries which leads to the conclusion that the thresholds are 7 for EROI and 16 for EMROI, assuming OECD-like energy consuming technology. For lower developed countries thresholds might be smaller, thus making also less efficient energies like biomass economic.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions

By looking at historical development rates of low-CO2 electricity production among different high-income countries we can try to figure out what techniques have worked well previously. Below is a chart showing OECD countries population size and generation of kWh per capita per year.

Renewables (left) and nuclear (right). Source: Davour et al. (2014)

Overall we can see that only a few countries have succeeded to build low-CO2 electricity production with a rate of 300kWh/cap/year, which is the needed improvement speed to stay below the Kyoto Protocol 2 C degrees limit. One should note that no country have made it above the 300kWh/cap/year without the help of nuclear. We can see that Swedish nuclear development reached the highest level of 700 kWh/cap/year. Mean development rate only reached 120 kWh/cap/year between 1982 and 1992. When it comes to renewable electricity production, Denmark has the highest with about 160 kWh/cap/year. Closely followed by Sweden. Spain and Germany reached levels of 120 kWh/cap/year. We can see that Sweden has a top position in development rate of low-CO2 electricity production, both with nuclear and renewable energy. If the rest of the world would implement nuclear at the same rate as Sweden did, it would take 25 years to replace all existing fossil fuels (Davour et al. 2014). It is very improbable that this will happen, and perhaps isn't recommendable, but the example show how important the inclusion of nuclear into the energy mix is for future low-CO2 electricity production.

Discussion

This is just one out of many studies that have looked at EROIs for various energy carriers. Because there is no universally accepted methodology one should be careful about taking any numbers for granted until reading the literature. These numbers are however in line with other studies, except in the case of nuclear. Previous studies have shown extremely varied numbers for nuclear. This could be because, since the 1980s when EROI measurements began, EROI for nuclear has been rising rapidly as the industry has switched from gas-diffusion enrichment of uranium to centrifuge (which is 35 times more energy efficient). The World Nuclear Association projects that there will be no more diffusion enrichment anywhere in the world by 2017. Moreover, there are other processes and a next generation of nuclear power plants, called Gen-IV designs, that don’t use enrichment at all which would give them much higher EROI. And Gen-IV models can't have a melt-down. The Chinese have 300 engineers working on a liquid-cooled thorium reactor right now. So if you wondered why climate scientists like James Hansen are pro-nuclear, this is one reason.

Data from Davour et al. 2014

Yes wind is fine if it can be grid-buffered against a non-fossil generating source and heavily subsidised. And yes we would need more hydro but many of the worlds rivers are already utilized and it can have massive effects on ecosystems and the hydrological cycle.

So if we want to eliminate fossil fuels from electricity production and if we want to manage that transition without wrecking the economy, nuclear may have to be part of the energy mix. I therefore think that we should support our Swedish scientists in their wish to develop a Gen-IV lead-cooled test reactor that would reuse nuclear waste, minimizing the half life from 100 000 to 1000 years, sparing future generations the worries (Davour et al. 2014). Unfortunately the Swedish government has not been able to make any clear decisions regarding our future energy system, and the future of nuclear research, despite the fact that many Swedes accept nuclear power and don't want to see eary decomission.

Share story

Share story

Share story

Share story

Share story

Cycle of adaptive change

A time of crisis

Share story

Debt = theft from future generations

Difference between purely financial and energy-induced collapse

Share story

Responses to resource scarcity

Worrying Trends 2015

October – Outlook from a Swedish perspective

Share story

How forests and metals changed the country

Share story

What if the AMOC collapsed?

Share story

We need to talk about energy and population

From Ape to Colossus

Share story

Share story

Ecological regime shifts

Food production and energy consumption major drivers

Share story

Swedish Politics

What does this mean for Swedish politics?

Share story

Alternative energy technologies

Energy return on energy invested

Energy Money Return on Investment

Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Discussion

Share story

Popular Posts

Real-time Earth

Tags

Blogroll

Archives