Truckin'

I said let those truckers roll
    -C W Wall (Convoy)
.

We've got truckers on the CB

Richard Pryor on the Video

      - Jackson Brown (Stay) 

[Important Notice :    The Society for the Study of Runaway Trains is sponsoring two community fora at the West Valley Community Center in Willamina dealing with emergency preparedness.  This Thursday the 18th will be a showing of "Unprepared",  the OPB show on earthquakes.  On the 25th , emergency personnel will give presentations and answer questions]

Greetings

       Thanks to just in time delivery, and small pantries, we are considered to be be " nine meals from anarchy" .   If the trucks aren't rolling by three days after an emergency things get difficult.

       The "big one" will certainly make it difficult to keep those trucks rolling, but it's worth remembering in that the big one is not the only event that could have an effect.   A quick look through the newspaper shows us some of the potential hazards.   Suppose the truckers get sick, or their a areas under quarantine.  see 12 diseases Climate Change will make worse  Suppose the electric grid suffers some sort of hiccup, and the oil pumps don't works.  see US unprepared for cyber attack on grid;   Solar flare could knock out grid for months  Or suppose the mid east falls into war related chaos, and exports are curtailed.  see NATO member Turkey warns Russia in Syria .   

       But, let's just focus on oil supplies for now.   Oil supply disruptions can cause other disruptions. Some of your may remember the "truckers strikes" in the 1970's , when a oil supplies were curtailed and rationing was imposed.   Interestingly in 1973 the US was importing 35% of its oil,  Today it imports 43%

       Last week, the price went below $30.    How can that happen?   At that price most energy companies are loosing money.   Some of them are going broke  ( see some-bankrupt-oil-and-gas-drillers-can-t-give-their-assets-away).   Some of their banks may also be taking a hit.   

       Even Saudi Arabia, whose cost of production is among the lowest, is in trouble.    Oil revenues no longer cover their expenditures, so they are dipping into savings.   At the rate they are going, they'll be broke by   in five years, They are talking about an idea to sell their assets via an IPO.    

      OK, so this can't go on.   Either the price will rise to a point where extractors can cover costs, or some of them will stop extracting.    In the past we have generally had  enough "cheap oil" to power the economy, and to give the oil industry  enough profit to keep drilling.      Currently oil companies are slashing investment.      In the longer term this could lead to supply problems and a sharp rise in oil prices. See e.g. Why crude prices could hit $130 in 2017

         Which brings us to trucks.  And to a new book  by Alice Friedemann, " When Trucks Stop Running So Does Civilization.  Energy and The Future of Transportation.  Ms Friedemann operates the blog "Energy Skeptic, which contains a tremendous wealth of information about our energy situation.  

      The higher price for diesel  would be a problem for the trucking industry which was  designed for and  built on cheap oil.   She says

>> "It is almost impossible to exaggerate the importance of our transportation system. Take a deep breath and think about this: the United States is locked-into $1.11 trillion dollars of transportation vehicles supported by $4.62 trillion of transportation infrastructure comprising 12 % of all the wealth in the nation (U.S. Commerce 2012). Ships, locomotives, and trucks with diesel engines can last up to 40 years and travel a million miles. It would take decades to replace them.  ( p 37)

>>     "Currently, the nation relies on a fleet of ten million trucks. Phasing over to a non-oil diesel fuel would require modifying this fleet as well as the fuel distribution system that feeds 160,000 service stations. Even if this were technically feasible, how much time, money, and energy would it take do this, or, alternatively, to build an electrified transportation system with millions of miles of overhead wires for trucks and locomotives  ( p 29)

 In this book, she reviews the alternatives, starting with bio fuels, hydrogen, and electricity, none of which are currently  feasible. .  Even expansion of rail traffic is problematic, due to the expense and lack of capital.    The real only alternative is converting trucks to  natural gas.   Which means major retro fitting of existing trucks. An expensive prospect  that may not pay for itself over the life of the truck...

         Clearly, we can expect some changes.   As oil becomes more expensive, so will everything else.  Because everything that travels, travels thanks to oil.

          So, the next time you see a trucker, give him ( or her) a wave!   She may be carrying tomorrow's dinner.

        And you might also give a thought to your local foodshed.  It might come in handy.

Nothing but net

Good time Charlie ' s
Got the blues
      - Danny O'Keefe

Will he ever return?
     -Kingston Trio (Charlie on the MTA)

Greetings

      I was unable to attend Charles Hall's presentation at Linfield.   Happily the presentation was taped and is available  here.    Dr Hall is no doubt familiar to you all.   He essentially created a new field of energy analysis, that of net energy, or EROI.        

         His presentation was designed for the undergraduates in attendance, and therefore provides a nice primer, for anyone unfamiliar with the field.   I found it interesting on a number of levels.   First,  I found it quite amusing when he took  a few pokes at Portland ' s claim to be a "sustainable" city, noting the large number of automobiles .  The city obviously consumes a great deal of energy,   but how much does it produce?  Where does it get its food?

   ( Speaking of food , here are some interesting items.  A recent study finds that Portland could survive on what could be grown within 50 miles.   But its a different story when you look at what is actually grown.  see here and here

"Our research team found out that currently, the agricultural production in the highly fertile Willamette Valley does not meet the dietary needs of the local inhabitants for not only staples such as grains and oils but any of the USDA’s six food groups: grains, vegetables, fruits, dairy, meat and beans, and oils.

In 2008, Willamette Valley agriculture production yields would not have been able to feed the local population in any of the USDA food categories. If the population had tried to eat local foods it would only have been able to meet 67 percent of the annual grains requirement, 10 percent of vegetable needs, 24 percent of fruits, 59 percent of dairy, 58 percent of meat and beans, and none of the dietary oil requirements.

Beyond not satisfying the needs of local markets, much of the valley’s harvest is exported. While the region’s local food culture is being promoted and demand is increasing, its growth depends partly on readily available, locally grown staples.")

      Back to Dr Hall

       If I were to summarize the talk, I would say the main focus was on diminishing returns, which is to say the fact that we have already exploited the easiest and cheapest resources.   We are now exploiting more difficult and more expensive resources, - that is resources with a lower Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROI).   "Less bang for the buck" has implications for investment in energy production.  See here,  and Dr David Murphy's paper , (The implications of declining energy return on investment of oil production"

       It also has implications for society at large.   We have gotten so used to high EROI fuels, to the point that we have been able to ignore that fact that energy actually costs energy.  Its been so cheap that we have been able to treat it as free.    Hall argues that our current economic models basically ignore energy altogether, when in reality energy is the key, the "sine qua non", of all life, of the biosphere, and of the economic system of which it is a subset.

       But we will no longer have the luxury, of ignoring energy costs, and EROI.  For instance. climate change is an energy problem.  Our current energy system is poisoning the biosphere.  The obvious solution is to move to wind and solar.   But, wind and solar have lower EROI than coal, and oil.  (If they had a higher EROI, we would have moved to them already).   How low?   It is hard to come up with a hard EROI number for wind and solar.  For one things, they are quite variable depending on where you site the facility, and how many prime locations there are.  Hall's own study of a solar facility in Spain, concludes that this facility only has an EROI of 2.5:1.  see this summary and review of his book.  (In this article, 45 studies are reviewed finding a mean value of 10:1 for solar ; and 18:1 for wind)   .  If one includes any storage needed to address intermittency, these numbers could be reduced by half or more.  See here.  

       These numbers are very inexact, but they give us an idea of what the future holds.  More energy will be required to produce the energy we use.  And there will be less energy left over for all the other things that society has grown to expect - agriculture, transportation, recreational shopping and opera.  :>).   According to Hall, in order to have all that stuff , society's  energy system must have a EROI of 14:1

      Hall doesn't actually address it, but there is one more aspect that is even more tricky.   How do we get to this new renewable energy system.    What does it take for a system to reproduce itself?   How fast can we get there?

      Here is an interesting study for energy planners : Deriving an Improved Dynamic EROI to Provide Better Information for Energy Planners, by two authors, one from the Argonne Labs, the other the World Bank.   They note that EROI provides a metric which measures energy over the life of the project.  They note in order to model the build out of wind and solar,  the timing of when the energy is spent, and when it is produced also needs to be taken into account.     Wind and solar are "front loaded",  most of the energy expended occurs in year one, while output is over 20-30 years.  They try to model the what it would look like for a windmill to provide energy for society, while it also "saved up" enough energy to produce another windmill.  They find, it could not produce the "next" windmill until close to end of its life - 28 years -  making a rapid "grow out" of renewable power (from renewable power) a very iffy proposition.   see also an interesting series of posts 

      This issue is similar to Dr. Tom Murphy's idea of a "Energy Trap" .   He imagines a world with declining fossil resources, and thus each year, less and less fossil energy is available to society.  (An alternative scenario might be a society that decides it wants to reduce its carbon output, and therefore agrees to a declining use of fossil energy)   Society decides to engage in a rapid build out of wind and solar.  But the build out itself consumes energy, and the energy cost is relatively high, because the costs of wind and solar are "front loaded" .  He notes that during the build out period, society must get by on less and less energy, something that is politically unlikely.

"Many of us have great hopes for our energy future that involve a transition to a gleaming renewable energy infrastructure, but we need to realize that we face a serious bottleneck in its implementation. The up-front energy investment in renewable energy infrastructures has not been visible as a hurdle thus far, as we have had surplus energy to invest (and smartly, at that; if only we had started in earnest earlier!). Against a backdrop of energy decline—which I feel will be the only motivator strong enough to make us serious about a replacement path—we may find ourselves paralyzed by the Trap.

"In the parallel world of economics, an energy decline likely spells deep recession. The substantial financial investment needed to carry out an energy replacement crash program will be hard to scrape together in tough times, especially given that we are unlikely to converge on the “right” solution into which we sink our bucks.

Politically, the Energy Trap is a killer. In my lifetime, I have not witnessed in our political system the adult behavior that would be needed to buckle down for a long-term goal involving short-term sacrifice.

It's not easy delivering bad news.  The rest of us have a tendency to "shoot the messenger".  Here is another energy transition blogger, noting that problem  from here

 I’ll state my position as clearly as I can here: an interest in critically assessing the capacity for renewable energy systems to directly substitute for incumbent energy systems should not be conflated with “being opposed to renewable energy”. I myself am a long-time proponent for and supporter of a transition to renewably-powered societies. Having taken the time to be fairly broadly and deeply informed in this area, it is apparent that there are significant uncertainties relating to the forms that such societies might take, especially given the tight coupling between current globally-dominant societal forms, and the characteristics of their primary energy sources. It’s apparent to me that humanity stands a better chance of developing future societies supportive of high life quality if these uncertainties are taken seriously, rather than being discounted or ignored. The question that most interests me here is:

What forms might future renewably-powered societies take, if they are to enable humans and other life forms to live well together?

And following from this, how might we best pursue the process of transition towards such future societies? 

Good questions

Teach your children well

But let us not talk falsely now

the hour is getting late

-Bob Dylan

You say you've got  real solution

we' d all like to see the plan

-The Beatles

Greetings

       I just saw a new presentation by Nate Hagens.   It's short version of a course he taught at the University of Minnesota called  Reality 101.    Got me thinking.   Suppose you were going to give some 18 year-olds an idea of what's in store for them.  What would you say?

          Strangely enough he never mentions Overshoot,  or Footprint.  But he does give an overview of the economy, energy, climate, extinctions  and the crowding out of wildlife.   He calls it The Great Acceleration, and displays a vary of graphic indicators noting that there are "hockey sticks everywhere".  He suggests we will be seeing things never seen before.  And  of course this is already happening.  Things  like a 50 degree temperature spike at the North Pole.  Things like climate change as a "disease muliplier", such as the Zika virus

As of today, authorities in Brazil, Colombia, Jamaica, El Salvador and Venezuela were urging women to avoid getting pregnant… It is unthinkable. Or rather, it is something out of a science fiction story, the absolute core of a dystopian future. — Bill McKibben in a recent statement on global warming and the now pandemic Zika virus. 

        As for the the economy, he believes we are near the end of growth, and the beginning of a deflationary depression.  He points out that in the US , growth has been over for the bottom 95% of us since 2000, when the median household income peaked.  He expects more poverty, noting that even now, most (63%) Americans don't have enough emergency saving to handle s $500 car repair bill, or $1000 medical emergency.   So, his advice is to prepare for LESS:   Less Energy, Stuff and Stimulation, and recommends focusing on more important things, like nature, friends and family.

        He expects the cost of energy to rise significantly,  He doesn't accept the mainstream view, which is that we can continue to live our high energy lifestyle based on renewable power.   Hagens says, of course build as much renewable power as you can, but recognize that wind and solar are not a panacea.  Even with the incredible growth , wind and solar are not replacing fossil fuels, but are merely increasing total energy consumption.  And despite their growth, they still only represent around 3% of total world energy use  And wind and solar only impact the electricity market, which is less than 20% of our energy use.  He says "no combination of  fossil fuels and renewable energy will maintain economic growth.".  Eventually,of course, we will be forced to move to a system of all or nearly all renewable power, but he estimates we'll have only 1/3 to 1/2  the power we have now.   Have to learn to "cook when the sun shines".  

       This view is echoed by Richard Heinberg, (see Can we have our climate and eat it too?, who notes that any attempt to transition to renewable power will result in much less available energy, especially if we attempt the transition called for to keep temperature growth near 2 degrees.

"It is unclear how much energy will be available to society at the end of the transition: there are many variables (including rates of investment and the capabilities of renewable energy technology without fossil fuels to back them up and to power their manufacture, at least in the early stages). Nevertheless, given all the challenges involved, it would be prudent to assume that people in wealthy industrialized countries will have less energy (even taking into account efficiencies in power generation and energy usage) than they would otherwise have, assuming a continuation of historic growth trends.

This conclusion is hard to avoid when considering the speed and scale of reduction in emissions actually required to avert climate catastrophe. As climate scientist Kevin Anderson points out in a recent Nature Geoscience paper:

According to the IPCC’s Synthesis Report, no more than 1,000 billion tonnes (1,000 Gt) of CO2 can be emitted between 2011 and 2100 for a 66% chance (or better) of remaining below 2 °C of warming (over preindustrial times)… However, between 2011 and 2014 CO2 emissions from energy production alone amounted to about 140 Gt of CO2… [Subtracting realistic emissions budgets for deforestation and cement production,] …the remaining budget for energy-only emissions over the period 2015–2100, for a ‘likely’ chance of staying below 2 °C, is about 650 Gt of CO2.

That 650 gigatons of carbon amounts to less than 19 years of continued business-as-usual emissions from global fossil energy use. The notion that the world could make a complete transition to alternative energy sources, using only that six-year fossil energy budget, and without significant reduction in overall energy use, might be characterized as optimism on a scale that stretches credulity."

   And even if we could,  what would be the environmental effect?

Heinberg says:

"According to the Global Footprint Network’s Living Planet Report 2014, the amount of productive land and sea available to each person on Earth in order to live in a way that’s ecologically sustainable is 1.7 global hectares. The current per capita ecological footprint in the United States is 6.8 global hectares. Asking whether renewable energy could enable Americans to maintain their current lifestyle is therefore equivalent to asking whether renewable energy can keep us living unsustainably. The clear answer is: only temporarily, if at all . . . so why attempt the impossible? We should aim for a sustainable level of energy and material consumption, which on average is significantly lower than at present.

Efforts to pre-adapt to shrinking energy supplies have understandably gotten a lot less attention from activists than campaigns to leave fossil fuels in the ground, or to promote renewable energy projects. But if we don’t give equal thought to this bundle of problems, we will eventually be caught short and there will be significant economic and political fallout."

       Is this the "reality" which most young people are expecting?  Probably not. Because,  most people they tune out such information.  Hagens also addresses this "cognitive dissonance",  which he defines as "believing something that is totally contrary to reality".  He explains that it is a well known  in psychology as way of reducing stress.     

       He devotes  some time to similar "biases" which have been useful through out our evolutionary history, but which are now making it difficult to see objectively.     So we we see the world through tinted glasses.  In that sense we are all "delusional".     That we are easily influenced by authority, by charismatic people, by peer pressure,and  by our own bias towards optimism  (all the children are above average).  We are driven to "keep up with the Joneses"  These biases are built in "features",  that by virtue of our new situation, they have become "bugs".

      So, if you've got an 18 year old around the house, you may want to watch this video together, and talk it over.  Then, take a walk in the woods, you'll both feel better