Re: Supposing Some of the 5 Billion Object?


"Bret Cahill" <BretCahill@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1120410901.051257.85640@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Found this on alt.environment.
>
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>
> Oil and People
>
>
> First published July 2005; article no. 573
>
>
> The population of the World expanded six-fold in parallel with oil
> production during the First Half of the Age of Oil. William Stanton,
> author of The Rapid Growth of Human Population 1750-2000, contributes
> the following analysis of how population will have to return to pre-Oil
> Age levels. Let us hope that it does not come to this, but the options
> explained do have a certain chilling logic.
>
>
> Reducing Population in step with Oil Depletion
>
>
> Recent articles in the ASPO Newsletter have agreed that the explosion
> of world population from about 0.6 billion in 1750 to 6.4 billion today
> was initiated and sustained by the shift from renewable energy to
> fossil fuel energy in the Industrial Revolution. There is agreement
> that the progressive exhaustion of fossil fuel reserves will reverse
> the process, though there is uncertainty as to what a sustainable
> global population would be.
>
>
> In this time of energy abundance, and the complacency it engenders, the
> vast majority of the general public assumes that what the future holds
> is "more of the same". They argue, if pushed, that the expertise
> inherited by post-fossil-fuel scientists and engineers will allow a
> smooth transition into a new kind of energy-rich world in which
> renewable generators will produce as much energy as fossil fuels do
> now. Such a view is untenable because it ignores the fact that almost
> all materials essential to modern civilization will be orders of
> magnitude more costly, and scarce, when they have to be produced using
> renewable energy instead of fossil fuels.
>
>
> In 2150, for example, a wind turbine constructed of steel, concrete and
> plastic may not be able to generate, during its lifetime, as much
> renewable energy as would have been used up in creating it. Imagine
> mining, refining and smelting the metal ores, quarrying and
> transporting the rock, growing the biomass; fabricating the component
> parts, and erecting and maintaining the structure, using only the
> trickle of electricity produced by another similar turbine. Vast
> engineering projects such as constructing the first Airbus A380
> airliner (Bowie 2005), using only renewable energy from start to
> finish, would be unthinkable (to say nothing of flying the plane
> without oil!).
>
>
> If, in this article, I discuss ways in which a global population
> reduction of some 6 billion people is likely to take place during the
> 21st Century
>
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>
> Cheney nuking anyone who gets between Halliburton and any remaining oil
> fields should take care of a lot of 'em.
>
>
> Bret Cahill

I don't buy it. It's true that the population has increased dramatically
during that period and continues to increase world wide today. But, the
driving engine has been technology not energy. Technology allowed much
greater food production and food transportation fueling the population
increase. Energy use and development is a result of technology not the other
way around. We did not get technology because we had energy, we developed
energy sources because we advanced technology. Without technology there
would have been no fossil fuel development. It is now technology that will
take us out of the petroleum age just as it took us out of the "wood" age in
the late 19th century. In this very group are discussions of ITER fusion
research project and there are recent articles on methane hydrates, renewed
interest in fission reactors, plus solar and wind plants. Bio-fuels are
beginning to be sold and most of the gasoline used in the US contains 10% or
more ethanol. So we are coming to the end of the petroleum age and it is
technology that is the engine behind it making it possible.

The fact that the earths population is way too large to be sustained over
the long run is another issue. The large population is made possible by
technology and energy but technology and available energy did not cause it.
In fact, the most technological societies that use the most energy have
actually reduced or controlled their populations in recent times. The
population increases are out of control where technology is primitve and
where energy use is low by comparison. These primitive societies are
vulnerable to a population crash by starvation disease, famine and other
factors. The fact that we are coming out of the petroleum age has little to
do with it.
Bob


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