Category: (Certified 100% Denial-Free™)

Supply & Demand

Demand isn’t what we want, it’s what we can afford.

Supply isn’t what we need, it’s what’s available.

Everything we depend on depends on energy.

Renewable energy depends on non-renewable energy.

The supply of anything non-renewable must peak and then decline.

Energy decline begins as falling EROI with rising debt to support demand and supply.

Then interest rates fall to zero or negative because growth is not possible with low EROI.

We are here.

Then something really bad happens because we allowed debt to get so high.

We should be reducing debt and using what wealth we have left to prepare.

It’s not that complicated.

Why wasn’t this discussed in the presidential debate?

Denial.

What could be more important?

Maybe climate change but denial prevented that from being discussed too.

ngeni-there-aint-such-as-thing-as-a-free-lunch

By Gail Zawacki: The Waste Land

My new favorite piece by Gail Zawacki.

A few ideas that stood out for me:

  • Much of what we view as nature is not natural.
  • Humans are an invasive species and we deny this reality.
  • Ozone pollution continues to be a huge problem that we deny.
  • Drought is not killing trees. Human air pollution is killing trees, and dead trees are contributing to drought.
Most often, writing on a blog feels to have no more effect than idly dropping a pebble in the ocean, and watching the tiny ripples disappear; lately it seems that climate heating has gone exponential, and in my imagination I anticipate the moment I will hear an official NASA announcement on the radio – that it’s too late to do anything about climate change because irreversible amplifying feedbacks have taken over and there’s nothing left but to listen to the orchestra play on the deck.

“There ought to be a word that expresses in a few syllables the totality of ecocide – not just the horror in recognizing the physical manifestations of looming extinction, but the ensuing pain upon realizing the futility and meaninglessness that has been wrought by human folly, hubris, stupidity and blindness.  But I don’t know what it is.”

https://witsendnj.blogspot.ca/2016/09/the-waste-land.html

By Nate Hagens: The Speech that should have been given at the Republican National Convention

https://www.facebook.com/nathan.j.hagens/posts/10155010081133496

Greetings conservatives, Americans and conservative Americans.

Welcome to Cleveland!

There are many speakers here this week who will tell us what we want to hear, because it fires us up and makes us feels good. I’m going to give a different speech, one that lays out the context of our reality if we want to Make America Great Again. Suffice it to say we are no longer a shining beacon on the hill, to those in other countries or to other generations in our own.

America has been great before, but if was under a different era, different culture, and different physical backdrop. When our great Constitution was signed we had a little over 2 million citizens – now we have over 2 million people who work at the Post Office! and our population is 325 million. Though this is about 4% of the total global population, we use 25% of the oil, 50% of the toys and 50% of the medical prescriptions. We now have more bartenders and waitresses than manufacturing employees. Most people are miserable and just hanging on. 50% of our citizens would be totally broke within 3 months if they lost their jobs. We have the highest prison population in the world. For the first time in our countries history parents expect their children will not have as good of lives as they did. I expect Mr. Trump will highlight some of these problems – the list of scary facts is pretty long so it could be a long night.

There will be those here that blame these things on President Obama, or the Muslims, or foreigners or Wall St. bankers or white cops or black men. There will be those here who will shout that Hillary Clinton will make things worse and that a Republican is our only chance. I’m sure that next week at the DNC the people there will be blaming us for our nations problems, and plead that a Democratic President is our only hope. They are wrong. Just like we are wrong. That’s what humans do – when our circumstances are worse than the recent past, we look to put the blame on others. Sure there are some unsavory characters on Wall St, in the Democratic party, and in Iran – but so too are there such types in our own party and even in this building.

If you look closely at the demographics of Democrats and Republicans you discover a basic truth: we are all quite similar in caring about the things that matter: our children, safety of our neighborhoods, clean air to breathe and water to drink, and meaningful educations and vocations. Instead we tend to focus on how we are different than the other party and rally and get fired up about our superiority and better ideas. We are – pretty much all of us – angry, frustrated, and scared about the future, but deep down we are also able to work hard, sacrifice, help each other and be the good people that Americans can be. But in our blaming of others we miss the real reasons for our malaise, and thus are pursuing the wrong pathways if we are to ‘make America great again’.

Lets be honest. The phrase ‘the American dream’ has seeped into our psyche. We are a special people – driven, ambitious, hardworking, creative, etc. But without discovering and having access to the most resource rich country in the world, our attributes alone would have attained less lofty outcomes. 1 barrel of oil, which we currently only have to pay $50 for, contains the work potential of a strong American man working for 10 years. The united states has used more oil in the last 10 years, the last 50 years and since the dawn of time than any other nation. If we add natural gas and coal which have similar properties, 90% of the work done in our society is actually done by fossils – but these fossils are not unlimited and the easiest and best have long been found, pulled out and burned. The cost that our energy companies pay to extract these has been going up 17% a year for almost 2 decades. One-third of oil production is now unconventional and is dependent on high prices >$80/barrel. In the period from 2005 to 2013, oil and gas investments increased by 60% yet the oil supply increased by only 6%.

We certainly have a lot of it left – but its more costly, and since we use so much of it, this cost increase ripples through our societies and reduces wages, increases the cost of basic goods and makes our economy grow slower. You might think that technology is more important than energy. Technology has given us some amazing things – but almost all of them need to be plugged in. Without energy, the great technology just sits there. Without technology but with plenty of energy, well that puts us squarely back in the 19th century.

We have used the first half? The first 2/3? of Americas energy endowment. Wind and solar are viable and mature technologies but a world run on renewable tech will look very different than today’s world. Instead of the natural conservative response to this situation being…well, ‘conservation’ we are eager to drill more holes and pull out every last hydrocarbon molecule hiding near the source rock, which is what we are doing with the shale oil and gas technology. We are feeding our faces with our seed corn resources, Republicans and Democrats alike, not worrying about being able to pay the bill, or what we will build the future with. Basically, the American Dream has been predicated on high quality, inexpensive natural resources, particularly fossil energy. Given the natural resource reality of the world – and our nation at present – we need to send some of the great thinkers in this room into a sweat lodge on a Vision Quest!

Finally, before I am booed off the stage, let me bring up what, as conservatives, we should be caring about and shouting about and being active about way more than Hillary Clinton and the democrats. Eleven score and seven years ago, our Constitution came into being. It was a fresh set of guidelines for a new country, full of open lands and resources, bright and independent spirits, and people yearning to be free. Our Constitution came much later than the Magna Carta, which came much later than the 10 Commandments, which came much much later than the Code of Hammurabi, the first known document dealing with rules and principles for humans to get along with other humans. Nowhere in any of these great historical documents is any language that protects the future, other species, other generations, or our common ecosystems. At the dawn of the agricultural revolution, human beings, our pets and our livestock comprised less than 1/10 of 1% of terrestrial biomass. Now we are over 98%! We are losing animal and insect species faster than any time of our planets history. 40% of insects – gone in last 40 years. Since I’ve been alive, we now have 50% fewer wild animals than when I was born. What a terrible thing to state at a convention where we should be celebrating our values and our accomplishments. And these facts do not even factor in the impacts to oceans and ecosystems from the additional carbon we are putting in the air from the burning of our fossil wealth.

Most of our own people deny or downplay this is happening, because it requires difficult choices, bold thinking, sacrifice and creativity. Can we rally around those traits, or instead be led by fear, apathy and ignorance? For, my fellow republicans and citizens of this great nation, that is what it comes down to. We face unprecedented challenges, to growth, to safety, to our environment, our children and to our future. Instead of leading by example, sharing, caring, going the extra mile to help our neighbor, and tightening our belts, we have become complacent, surly, and occasionally violent, expecting that if only the “other people” will change their ways that things will get back to the way they were. I have news for you my friends who are alive with me at this wondrous and perilous time. There’s an intermediate step if we want to make America great again. We first have to Make America Good.

In 5 months Obama will no longer be President, something many of you have been waiting for, for a long time. But whether Mr. Trump or Mrs. Clinton wins, their job will primarily be to put out short-term fires (and in the process create new longer term ones). Real change in the next 4 years will not come from a new president but from a new outlook, new ethic and new strength of our citizenry. We cannot see this clearly yet, our gut tells us this is so. Vote for whoever you want to in November. But then come home and be the change you want to see in your homes, in your cities, at your jobs and with your families. Games over gadgets, nature over neglect, family over Facebook, conservation over consumption.

Lets Make America Good.

By Alice Friedemann: An Interview on Energy

Alice Friedemann has one of the best big picture understandings of energy in the world and runs the web site http://energyskeptic.com which provides an excellent library of energy related information.

Alice has just published a book that looks at society’s dependence on trucks and the diesel that powers them.

Here is an excellent interview with Alice by Chris Martenson.

And another by James Howard Kunstler.

What would a wise society do?

A wise society would choose some short-term pain in exchange for much less future pain.

A wise society would understand that the foundation of the cliff it is climbing is crumbling and that it should start climbing down to reduce future harm.

A wise society would move slowly and deliberately as it climbed down to avoid falling.

A wise society would use some of the following techniques to climb down:

  1. Educate citizens on what is going on and why.
    • The goal is to minimize responses like panic or blame that can cause a breakdown of law and order or war; and to increase social cohesion and cooperation.
  2. Implement population reduction policies.
    • The goal is to achieve a humane population reduction before nature forces an inhumane population reduction. Given the severity of human overshoot we may not be able to out-race nature however, as Albert Bartlett said, every problem on earth improves with fewer people, so we should do what we can.
  3. Hold referendums to allow citizens to set priorities for reduced government spending.
    • The goal is to engage and empower citizens in difficult decisions that will have to be made. We need to move away from traditional and divisive left vs. right politics into pragmatic resource husbandry.
  4. Reduce government spending until expenditures are a little less than tax revenues.
    • The goal is to configure a government that can function effectively through a prolonged economic contraction punctuated with occasional shocks, and that offers services its citizens can afford.
  5. Model the availability of key resources taking into account the increasing cost of production caused by depletion, and declining demand (what people can afford) caused by falling incomes, declining debt, and decreasing government spending.
    • The goal is to understand the shape of our Seneca curve which is needed for the next point.
  6. Implement policies to proactively reduce the consumption of key resources a little faster than the models predict will occur in a free market.
    • The aim is to maintain social order by controlling the decline rather than being controlled by the decline.
  7.  Prepare fair rationing policies and mechanisms.
    • The goal is to be prepared for possible supply disruptions.
  8. Increase the interest rate enough to cause a steady decline in debt.
    • The aim is to climb down to a lower and safer elevation.
  9. Hold a referendum to decide a maximum reasonable wealth gap between the average and the rich. Tax excess wealth from the rich to pay down public debt. There are 3 justifications for this policy:
    • In a shrinking economy the wealth gap between rich and poor will naturally tend to widen through no fault of the poor or skill of the rich. This is already occurring and will accelerate as the economy contracts.
    • A too wide wealth gap is unhealthy and dangerous for a society. Think French revolution.
    • Paying down public debt with excess wealth benefits everyone, rich and poor, because it helps to stabilize the money system in a shrinking economy.
    • Note that the excess wealth should not be redistributed to the poor because this will accelerate our problems by increasing inflation, resource depletion, and CO2 emissions.
  10. Implement an aggressive luxury consumption tax.
    • In our new world, conservation is good and gluttony is bad.
  11. Place a tariff on imported food and use the funds to support small-scale local food production.
    • The goal is to build resiliency to global food supply shocks that might result from a financial or energy crisis, or climate change damage to crop productivity.
  12. Prohibit the development of farm land or the sale of land to non-residents.
    • This policy recognizes that in the long run the most valuable asset a country will have is its arable land.
  13. Encourage soil restoration.
    • As fossil energy derived fertilizers become scarce we will once again have to rely on organic practices for soil fertility. We have depleted most soils. It will take time to rebuild them. We should start as soon as possible.
  14. Plant trees.
    • Planting trees is one of the few things we can do to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. In addition, wood will be a very valuable future resource.
  15. Protect and restore watersheds.
    • Water is the only thing more important to life than food.
  16. Encourage schools to teach skills required in a less complex society.
    • Much of what is taught today will not be useful at our destination.

I realize that denial and other human behaviors make it highly unlikely we will do any of the above.

I also realize that some of the ideas require more thought to ensure a good balance between increased short-term pain vs. decreased long-term pain.

I wrote this to demonstrate that we are not without means to influence the future in a positive direction.

By Adam Taggart: Flight to Safety

Sobering data on our bubbles…

http://www.peakprosperity.com/blog/98985/fortunes-will-made-lost-when-capital-flees-safety

Little did I realize when creating the short video below how prescient it would quickly become in the wake of last night’s Brexit vote…

Its message is simple: there’s a preponderance of data that shows the world’s major asset markets are dangerously overvalued. And when these asset bubbles start to burst, the ‘safe haven’ markets that investment capital will try to flee to are ridiculously small. Investors who do not start moving their capital in advance of crisis will be forced to pay much higher prices for safety — or may find they can’t get into these haven assets at any price.

 

On the Wealth of Citizens: An EU Perspective

Those Who Study History

 

The UK voted to leave the EU yesterday.

What’s really going on?

In an industrialized world with abundant resources citizens typically prosper in economies of all sizes.

As populations rise faster than finite resources, the growth rate of per-capita resources slows and eventually must decline. Over time it becomes more difficult to increase the wealth of citizens. In a resource constrained world there are two methods available to grow the wealth of citizens: efficiency and debt.

The first method available to grow the wealth of citizens is to increase the efficiency of producing and using resources. We have done an excellent job of improving efficiency:

  • We optimized the type of energy we use for each application such as using coal and hydro instead of oil to generate electricity, and using oil instead of coal or horses for transportation.
  • We learned how to squeeze oil from sand and rock, how to drill for oil in mile deep oceans, and how to mine coal from the surface with giant machines.
  • We optimized our machines such as switching to lighter fuel-efficient cars, using heat pumps, and abandoning supersonic air travel.
  • We learned how to convert oil and natural gas into cheap and durable materials like plastic.
  • We used electronics and computers to more efficiently control just about everything.
  • We optimized communication with the internet and cell phones.
  • We reduced waste such as insulating our homes.
  • We recycled energy intensive materials such as aluminum cans.
  • We optimized the productivity of our arable land with Haber-Bosch factories that convert natural gas into nitrogen fertilizer, by replacing horses and rain with diesel powered tractors and pumped irrigation, and by growing mono-crops.
  • We optimized the cost of calories by manufacturing high-fructose corn syrup and vegetable oils, and by operating concentrated animal feeding operations.
  • We optimized the harvest of our oceans with powerful ships that net and scrape everything.
  • We optimized the efficiency of global trade with agreements between many countries.
  • We optimized manufacturing by moving it to locations with the lowest labor and energy costs, and the fewest pollution regulations.
  • We optimized shipping with standard containers and ships and trucks to carry them.
  • We optimized distribution to consumers with Walmart and Amazon.

The laws of thermodynamics and the cost of technology and transport mandate a limit to efficiency gains. We are approaching the limits to efficiency improvement.

The second method available to grow the wealth of citizens is to borrow resources from the future. This amazing trick is done with debt. Cash and credit behave the same when spent. Credit however commits us to produce wealth in the future to repay it. This future wealth represents yet to be produced resources. Hence debt’s magic of letting us spend future resources now.

We started using debt in the 80’s to support the wealth of citizens and total debt has grown exponentially since. There are limits to how much debt can be carried by a citizen or government. Money available for living equals income minus interest payments plus any change in debt plus any change in savings.

The combination of stagnating or falling income due to declining per-capita resources and/or rising interest payments eventually imposes a limit on the total debt an individual or government can carry. There are three methods for extending this limit on debt.

The first method for extending debt is to increase the size of economic organizations. Size matters to debt. The larger an economy is the more internal and external resources it can control, the more taxes it can collect, the larger military it can afford, the more confidence and fear it can inspire, and as a consequence, the more credit it can generate. A good example is the USA and the privileges it enjoys from having the world’s reserve currency.

As the wealth of citizens became increasingly dependent on debt there was pressure to increase the size of economic organizations. This in large part explains the formation of the EU. The majority of European countries were keen to join the EU because it promised them access to more debt. Imagine, for example, how much debt and purchasing power an independent Italy with its own currency could have compared to today as a member of the EU.

The second method for extending debt is to reduce the interest rate. We have steadily reduced the interest rate since the early 90’s. We reached the limit of 0% shortly after the 2008 crisis and the interest rate has remained at 0% for an unprecedented 90 months. Some countries are experimenting with negative interest rates however it seems unlikely that this technique will work without dramatic and improbable changes to the rules of money and banking.

The third and final method for extending debt is to print and give money to citizens and/or governments. Most countries have not yet used this method because it reduces confidence in a currency and risks hyperinflation that destroys wealth and can cause war as happened with Germany after WWI. There will be a strong temptation to try this method in the future because it can work well for a period of time. For example, it took 10 years for hyperinflation to take hold after money printing started in Zimbabwe. A politician forced to choose between riots now and hyperinflation 10 years later might well choose to print money.

As an aside, I leave the reader with a question to ponder about the dark side of debt. What will happen if the depletion of finite resources and climate change prevents us from producing the future resources our debts commit us to? The answer to this question explains why I frequently call for reduced public debt.

In summary, a resource constrained world has two methods for supporting the wealth of citizens, efficiency and debt, and as explained above, we are already at fundamental limits for both efficiency and debt.

What must happen next, and what is already starting to happen, is that the wealth of citizens will decrease. This will create social unrest, and given our genetic denial and the difficulty of understanding our complex world, citizens will seek someone to blame.

Yesterday UK citizens blamed the EU. Because most UK citizens do not understand the underlying forces that are causing their hardship they probably have made things worse for themselves, at least in the short-term. Longer term, when there is insufficient affordable oil to support long distance trade, all communities will have to re-localize to survive.

Other independence movements within Europe are building momentum for similar reasons. A primary message of Donald Trump is that “others” are to blame for the hardship of US citizens.

A recurring theme on this blog is that some form of civilization collapse is inevitable and not too many years away. If the majority of citizens do not understand and/or deny what is going on the collapse will be much worse than it needs to be.

We still have sufficient resources to prepare a softer landing zone.

The first step is an adult conversation about what’s really going on.

By Gail Tverberg: China: Is peak coal part of its problem?

Gail widens her lens in this essay to consider coal.

https://ourfiniteworld.com/2016/06/20/china-is-peak-coal-part-of-its-problem/

As a bonus Gail provides a nice historical summary of energy prices and debt…

In “normal” times, a small increase in demand will increase production of fossil fuels by several percentage points–generally enough to handle the rising demand. Prices can then fall back again and there is no long-term rise in prices. This situation occurred for quite a long time prior to about 1970.

After about 1970, we found that it became more difficult to raise production levels of energy products, without permanently raising prices. US oil production began to decline in 1970. This started an energy crisis that has been simmering beneath the surface for 45 years. Various workarounds for our energy shortage problem were tried, such as adding nuclear, drilling for oil in new areas such as the North Sea, and building more energy efficient cars. Another approach used was reducing interest rates, to make high-priced homes, cars and factories more affordable.

By the late 1990s, even these workarounds were no longer providing the benefit needed. Another idea was tried: encourage more international trade. This would allow the world access to untapped energy sources, including coal, in the less developed parts of the world, such as China and India.

This, too, worked for a while, but resource depletion tended to continue to raise the cost of energy extraction. Also, the competition with low-cost labor in India, China, and other countries tended to hold down the wages of the less-educated workers in the developed countries. Higher prices at the same time that wages for some of the workers were depressed is, of course, a bad mismatch.

One way of “fixing” the problem was with cheaper debt, and more debt, so that consumers could buy homes and cars with lower incomes.  This fix of more debt stopped working in 2008, as repayment on “subprime” debt faltered, and all fossil fuel prices collapsed.

To “re-inflate” the world economy, world leaders began to try to add even more debt. They did this by fixing interest rates even lower, starting in late 2008, using a program called Quantitative Easing (QE). This program was successful in raising commodity prices again, although its effect seemed to diminish with time. China’s huge growth in debt during this period helped as well.

Energy prices turned downward again in mid-2014, when the United States discontinued its QE program, and China (under new leadership) decided not to continue increasing debt as quickly as before. The result was a second sharp drop in commodity prices, without a corresponding drop in the cost of producing these fossil fuels. This shift was devastating from the point of view of energy supply producers.

Gail concludes by making the case that Seneca will trump Hubbert and provides some insight into why most analysts are in denial.

Future coal production is clearly a function of both the amount of resources available and future prices. If there are no resources available, it is pretty clear that no resources can be extracted.

What most researchers have not understood is that future prices are important as well. We can’t expect that prices will rise indefinitely, because low-paid workers, especially, find themselves in a squeeze. They find homes and cars increasingly unaffordable, unless the government can somehow manipulate interest rates down to never heard of levels. Because of this lack of understanding of the role of prices, most of today’s models don’t consider the possibility that price levels may cut back production, at what seems to be an early date relative to the amount of resources in the ground.

Part of the confusion comes from the view economists have regarding prices, innovation, and substitution. Economists seem to be firmly convinced that prices will always rise to fix the problem of future shortages, but their models do not seem to take into account the major role that energy plays in the economy, and the lack of available substitutes. Certainly, the history of energy prices does not support this claim.

If I am correct in saying that prices cannot rise indefinitely, then all three of the fossil fuels are likely to peak, more or less simultaneously, when prices can no longer stay high enough to enable extraction. The downslope after the peak will be based on financial outcomes, such as the bankruptcies of coal operators, not on the exhaustion of reserves or resources in the ground. This dynamic can be expected to produce a much sharper downturn than modeled by the Hubbert Curve.

If analysts consider the possibility that prices will never again rise very high for very long, they realize such a low-price scenario would be a catastrophe. That is why we hear very little about this possibility.

Conclusion

It appears likely that China’s coal production has “peaked” and has begun to decline. This is especially likely if energy prices stay low, or never rise very high for very long.

If I am correct about energy prices not rising high enough in the future, all fossil fuels may reach peak production more or less simultaneously in the not too distant future. Widespread debt defaults seem likely if this happens.

If we are, in fact, reaching peak coal, even before peak oil, this is disconcerting for those who believe that the Hubbert Model is the only way of viewing the world. Maybe we are expecting too much from the model; maybe we need a model that considers prices, and how prices depend on wages and rising debt. Falling energy prices are especially bad for the system; they seem to lead to debt defaults.

Denial is Layered: What is Your Blind Spot?

Denial seems to come in layers.

It is common to break through one layer of denial to see a portion of reality but to then have another layer of denial block an even more important aspect of reality.

For example:

  • Many environmental activists fly to long distance conferences where they condemn fossil energy companies, promote green growth, and ignore population reduction.
  • Most bankers understand all aspects of wealth except what creates it.
  • Most climate scientists believe we can switch to renewable energy without harming the economy despite abundant physics to the contrary.
  • All climate models that predict a livable planet assume carbon capture despite zero evidence that we can scale or afford this technology.
  • Many vegans want to avoid killing despite the fact that all life depends on the death of other life.
  • Many vegetarians think grains are sustainable.
  • Many people try to be green by recycling and buying a hybrid car.
  • Enlightened governments try to address climate change by spending money on the problem without realizing CO2 emitted is proportional to money spent.
  • Many citizens in collapsing societies have large families and assume corrupt politicians are the cause of their problems.
  • The new enlightened Pope has not yet buried any of the Vatican’s wealth.
  • Many atheists are spiritual.
  • Most religions think other religions are wacky.

Denial of denial is a strong force as demonstrated by the very small number of people interested in Varki’s denial theory, and by the strong emotional response discussing it evokes.

Since I claim to understand what is actually going on an obvious question to ask myself is what am I in denial about?

A friend thinks I am in denial about what motivates me. I think I am seeking truth. She thinks I am seeking status. I hope she is not right.

My best guess is that I may be in denial on two points.

First, I may be wrong to believe that we have any ability to influence the outcome.

Life is governed by the laws of physics and evolution. We seem to be doing what the universe and our genes “want” which is to replicate and degrade the energy gradient as quickly as possible.

I like to think we have free will but we may be just along for the ride.

Second, my chance of surviving the upcoming bottleneck might be improved if I was in a state of denial and accumulating wealth as quickly as possible despite the negative effect of this on the planet.

It makes me happier and more functional to think we can influence the outcome and that I am helping.

My feelings are illustrative of why denial evolved in the first place.

Denial increases our reproductive fitness by enabling an optimistic high intelligence that can out-compete other life for finite resources, while ignoring unpleasant things it is capable of understanding that might otherwise cause depression and reduced reproductive fitness.

Perhaps I am in denial about other things. Or perhaps because I can speculate on my own denial I am in fact not in denial at all and am a rare mutant without the denial gene. Many events in my life suggest there may be some truth to this speculation.

Readers are encouraged to speculate and to comment on their own experiences.

book review: Our Renewable Future by Richard Heinberg and David Fridley

A new book titled Our Renewable Future by Richard Heinberg and David Fridley is available to read online for free here.

The book is an excellent primer on energy and does a nice job of summarizing the challenges we face as fossil energy depletes.

Heinberg’s style is to present an intelligent fact-based view of the challenges while simultaneously offering positive things we could choose to do to make the future less bad. He avoids predicting pain or collapse although having followed him for years I think this is likely a politically correct veneer. He also tends to ignore the effect of de-growth on our debt-based economy and the resulting small amount of wealth we will have available for investment.

I like the fact that the book uses a wide lens and discusses things often ignored like high temperature industrial processes that cannot run on renewable energy (concrete, metal, and silicon chip production, for example) and discusses the use of fossil energy as feedstocks (fertilizer needed to feed 7 billion, for example). I also like that it discusses honestly the need to reduce our population.

If you’d like a calm intelligent summary of our predicament with lots of space to draw your own conclusions this book a great place to start.

As an aside, I remember David Fridley from an excellent talk he gave in 2007 on the Myths of Biofuels. It’s still relevant and worth watching here.