The Transition Movement discussion

Discussion of "Energy As Master Resource"

I haven't completed this chapter yet, but not far to go.

It's a great topic, but I have found the text very uneven. Aside from some of the Intro material and the EROI stuff, the long section called Economics: The Failed Revolution just didn't strike me as very useful, simply because of the language and tone. I thought it was too general, too vague, too happily optimistic (once you got near to the end of it), too dependent on going way back (100 years or more) to get to the basis of what was being said. I think what was being discussed is very important, but I would hope to find more down-to-earth, application oriented material elsewhere, perhaps in one of the references.

I'li leave it at that for now. I hope someone can cheer me up somewhat about my rather "down" take on this.

Don't think I can cheer you up! I found Table 7-1 really interesting, though the ranges are so large for some of the energy sources, I am not sure how much I trust the figures. It certainly makes it clearer to me why we rely so much on oil and coal.

Erica wrote: "Don't think I can cheer you up! I found Table 7-1 really interesting, though the ranges are so large for some of the energy sources, I am not sure how much I trust the figures. It certainly makes..."

I think what the large ranges between high and low estimates indicate is that different people draw the line at different places when estimating the "energy input" needed to obtain the output energy. This could be for a number of different reasons. These difficult questions are discussed a little in the two paragraphs beginning near the bottom of page 78 with "In calculating EROI, the boundaries ..."

Erica, you're right that the coal and oil figures really do explain why we are where we are. But as the EROI figures for these fossil fuels (particularly oil) continue to move lower over the coming decades (the "easy" stuff becoming more and more used up) the problems facing every segment of modern civilization will become at some point inescapable - first they will have to be talked about instead of swept under the carpet, and then they will have to be addressed in some meaningful way.

Yes I too found the early part of the chapter not so much difficult as perhaps problematic. Classical or orthodox economics is certainly not a science so I agree there but I find the energy explanation of debt and the creation of money as, well not entirely convincing. Debt and loans actually do create 'money (or specie)' but not value as such.
The real crux of the chapter that I have no qualms about is the notion that at a certain point the finding and exploitation of fossil fuels (particularly oil) will become problematic.
I have also often thought if our civilization only realises at the end of the easy fossil fuel period that we need to invest in renewable energy then we really have had it. Starting from scratch trying to build up wind or solar energy capacity would necessitate cruel consumer shortages. Well cruel in the sense that unlimited desires have been virtually matched by unlimited production. I don't think coping with this politically is impossible: it would just be undesirable. The format would be a type of Fascism rather than say something like the planned war austerity of war time Britain. I do not think many western societies are as cohesive as they were 70 years ago thanks to neoliberalism. The reaction of the public to being sold a pup for the last 30 years will be rather savage.

Rob, I agree that the longer we wait to start on a new path, the more difficult it will become to find that path, to proceed down it in an appropriate manner, and to ultimately find the ending that we're looking for.

I think there are enough people, companies, and organizations in the world today (many even in the U.S.!, including WorldWatch) that the general outlines of the path are becoming clearer, and more and more are sort of starting to trundle along in the right direction. It's still up in the air whether this will ultimately be too little to late, or whether we might be able to come out okay "by the skin of our teeth".

Your reference to war time Britain is interesting. Lester Brown, in his series of Plan B books, has repeatedly brought up the example of how the U.S. radically reoriented its industrial setup once it landed in the second World War.

Roosevelt called the heads of the car companies together (GM, Chrysler, Ford, etc) and simply told them that they weren't going to be making automobiles for a while, the production lines would start churning out jeeps, trucks, tanks, anything they were able to make that related directly to the war effort.

People today who know nothing of this no doubt find it hard to believe that it was well nigh impossible to buy a private automobile in the U.S. during the war, simply because there were virtually none being made.

Brown's point (and he is correct, but day-dreaming) is that if a similar thing were done today, the production and installation of the infrastructure required to convert the U.S. to renewable solar and wind power could be done much faster than anyone thinks.

The problem (the reason that he's day dreaming) as I see it is that in 1941-2 the U.S. was facing a clear and present enemy. Today, despite the fact that the problem we face is probably more of an existential threat than the Axis ever was, it's a threat that lies over the horizon, a threat that is denied (or at least swept under the rug) by too many, and basically the proverbial elephant in the room that people just don't want to think about.

One of the things about this chapter that I found irritating (and there were many) is the problem of Tom Murphy's "Energy Trap" that the author brings up in the last full paragraph on page 80: that in order to build a renewable energy infrastructure, we would need to divert a large portion of our current energy supply away from its current uses, and that the way to do this cannot be visualized at all clearly.

This assumes (no doubt correctly) that the U.S. (or developed world) consumer would object to having less energy to drive with, less energy to cool their homes with, less energy to consume with. As he puts it on the middle of page 81

Refraining from energy expenditure on consumption today in order to use that energy to invest in the infrastructure we need to ensure energy consumption 10, 20, and 50 years into the future ... will require a kind of sacrifice and political will that does not come easily to representative democracies and for which there is scant historical precedent.

The problem I have with this viewpoint is that it ignores "the market" entirely. I can't believe that if companies geared up to start building this infrastructure, and could raise the capital to do it, that somehow the energy needed to do the job would be denied to them. No, what would happen is that additional energy capacity would be produced (with admittedly consequent increase in GHG emissions), and/or the price of energy would rise. Then, as "the market" is supposed to work in capitalism, people would begin to conserve, cut back on their energy use, buy more fuel efficient cars, adjust their thermostats, etc.

The whole problem, the way its talked about, seems to be presented in a way that can only be solved by "state planning", and if that "planning" cannot be done in a way that would be acceptable in a representative democracy,then there is no solution to the Energy Trap.

Basically it seems like a straw man to me. I could be wrong.

I think where he is coming from is if we use up all the cheap energy (cheap in the sense that we don't need much energy to produce energy) now and want to convert over to renewables when we only have renewables left as an option then we are in a deep hole.
The state does or can lead in the economy. Germany, Australia and the U.S. are all capitalist countries but it is only Germany that has created the incentives to go towards 100% renewable. It is about 30% (I think). On some days in the past year the whole grid only used renewables.

Bugmeharder wrote: "This energy, in principle, is the basis of all power sources in our modern world. And for this very reason, I started looking for energy sources that will help me save or increase it. I recently ju..."

Remove this idiot's (Bugmeharder) post. If you're reduced to trying to sell on Goodreads, you have no business selling anything because you're an idiot, definitely not a professional salesperson, and only wasting your time. Poorly spent use of your time.

As the group is largely inactive, the spam may get removed more quickly if it's reported to GR. If a few of us flag it that's better, as it can be hit and miss, whether they deal with flags.