There’s a post over at The Oil Drum that highlights the importance of producing more energy and its limits:
Growth has become such a mainstay of our existence that we take its continuation as a given. Growth brings many positive benefits, such as cars, television, air travel, and iGadgets. Quality of life improves, health care improves, and, aside from a proliferation of passwords to remember, life tends to become more convenient over time. Growth also brings with it a promise of the future, giving reason to invest in future development in anticipation of a return on the investment. Growth is then the basis for interest rates, loans, and the finance industry.
Because growth has been with us for “countless†generations—meaning that everyone we ever met or our grandparents ever met has experienced it—growth is central to our narrative of who we are and what we do. We therefore have a difficult time imagining a different trajectory.
This post provides a striking example of the impossibility of continued growth at current rates—even within familiar timescales. For a matter of convenience, we lower the energy growth rate from 2.9% to 2.3% per year so that we see a factor of ten increase every 100 years. We start the clock today, with a global rate of energy use of 12 terawatts (meaning that the average world citizen has a 2,000 W share of the total pie). We will begin with semi-practical assessments, and then in stages let our imaginations run wild—even then finding that we hit limits sooner than we might think. I will admit from the start that the assumptions underlying this analysis are deeply flawed. But that becomes the whole point, in the end.
I seriously doubt that we can accmplish the kind of growth we’ll need in power generation by trying to hold it constant or even reduce it while utilizing the energy we do produce more efficiently, however vital that is. We’ll need to conserve, increase efficiency, and produce more energy from a wide variety of sources, including oil and natural gas as well as solar, wind, and other renewable sources. Not just pick one option but “all of the above”.
Note, too, the relationship between the 2.9% energy growth and the 2.9% GDP growth that the U. S. has experienced throughout its history. Perhaps it’s just a coincidence but even if it is I think the prospects for its indefinite continuation are no better.
My quick and easy plan to simultaneously produce energy and cut health care costs:
1) Stationary bicycle-powered dynamo.
You could probably light a home with high-efficiency bulbs riding just a couple hours a day. You might have a bit of a problem baking, but then again, that would just be an additional health benefit.
But we should also think outside the home. We have a million people locked up in prisons. Is there some reason they can’t ride a stationary cycle? How about spin classes? All those lycra-clad mommies riding away for dear life and the power goes to waste!
Anyone know how I can apply for a federal grant?
One more reason to update the electric grid. I think there is more to be gained by conservation than you, apparently, do, but we clearly need a lot more. I have also long thought that water will become a more important issue, which will likely involve energy also.
Steve
I think there’s real potential for conservation, particularly in the U. S. where the process is about where many of the nations of Europe were 25 or 30 years ago. There’s still relatively low-hanging fruit to be grabbed in that area and we should be grabbing it with all due haste.
However, I don’t think that the psychology of conservation as opposed to the psychology of expansion and growth will serve us particularly well. I can’t imagine a society conserving its way to greatness. I think it’s an inherently backward-looking view and genuinely needs to be applied in combination with a growth strategy.
One thing to remember: both in Europe and the U. S. a considerable amount of the “conservation” is phony. Too much of what has been accomplished has been accomplished by exporting heavy industry to China where it become intractable.
Lol michael, if you find an autistic to do the math you’ll find that bikes as car replacements are about 100x more efficient than the lossy conversion to electricity and back to work.
Pedal 30 min to save $2 in gas, or 2 cents in electricity.
Dave, Passive Haus works.
Pardon, passivhaus.
Of course it does. In temperate climates like those that prevail in most of Europe and I’m for them where they’re practical. The experience in Northern Europe (still significantly more temperate than much of the U. S.) is that they’re significantly more expensive to build and consequently less likely to be cost effective.
Remember, even northern Germany is quite temperate compared to most of the U. S. north of the Mason-Dixon line and east of the Sierra. I lived in northern Germany and even 30 years ago houses without central heating were practical. Try living practically anywhere in the Midwest or Plains states without central heating.
You guys have it rough in the central north, but the population center of the country is much lower. You know, don’t dismiss the 50 million households which could be converted over coming decades.
Also, I realize that Amory Lovins is not the most charismatic individual, but I think he’s always had the math, and has shown that efficiency has been the low hanging fruit in energy for a long time.
Basically when you talked about narratives up top you were talking about self-image and self-imagination. I just came down off the mountain , and got 50 MPG again. A lot of people made the same trip in our group with cars which were much less efficient. And yet we did the same trip, the same camp, the same hike.
Or think of the numskulls who want incandescent bulbs pried out of their “cold dead fingers.” There is some self-imagination for you.
Which is why I’ve favored raising the gas tax here for the last 30 years. I strongly suspect that we’d realize more efficiency by lifestyle changes coupled to sprawl reduction than we will by going to EVs and hybrids. And then, of course, there are the production issues and environmental concerns of the batteries themselves.
And according to this world climate map, the bulk of the US compares favorably to Germany:
http://www.climate-charts.com/World-Climate-Maps.html
FWIW – 96,000 miles and running like new. Even I am surprised at the lack of degradation. If there are any production issues, at least they can be amortized over long life.
JP, don’t tell me you went 50 mph down a mountain with a basket of goods.
C’mon here. I’m still complaining about son #1 taking my 1997 Ford Escort Wagon.
Actually I’d have to run back to the car to get my final MPG, but it was 3 adults and camping gear. A personal “best” stuffing the Prius full. You lose MPG climbing to 5000 ft, but get it back then you come down. So I’m talking round-trip from sea level.
… last I noticed it was at 46 and climbing on the road home.
Average temperature is hooey. Nowhere in Germany does it routinely get below 20°F and above 90°F.
Dave, are you making the “because it doesn’t work everywhere, it works nowhere” argument?
… don’t know where 20/90 comes from.
Here’s something that’s hopefully useful for the discussion.
Also, it seems to me that the cost of energy affects its growth rate. The simple fact is that energy is cheap enough that conservation isn’t much valued. If it weren’t for minimum building codes, there would be a lot of people who would gladly trade $10k to insulate a new house into stainless steel appliances.
When energy gets scare, prices will go up and then the big changes will begin but will take decades. Things like codes and especially zoning have huge impacts.
I’m about to make news.
I’m actually 300 years old (clean livin’ I guess….and no desire to trump it in the news), and I used to publish, long before “Oil Drum,” “Wood Fire Pit,” ‘ceptin it was sent to subscribers by horse, sometimes by Indian buddies, or sympathetic wolves lookin’ for doggie bites, and not the internet.
Anyway, I predicted 200 years ago in “Wood Fire Pit” that future growth was simply impossible because energy production couldn’t keep up with society. I was a teensy bit wrong on the timin,’ I guess. Not figger’n on coal, an’ awl, an gassy stuff an sech.
I’ve even heard about some guy called Adam who makes lot’s of energy. Some Monarch from France, or sumthin’.
But I know this all is only com’n at the expense of catastrophic global warm’n…….uh, although that’s takin’ a dern sight longer than I predicted fer that too..heh…but I digress. But I got my canned goods…..
No, I’m making the “climatic conditions influence the cost-effectiveness so what makes sense in France or Germany doesn’t necessarily make sense in the U. S.” argument. One size doesn’t necessarily fit all. It might make it in the more temperate areas here like California, Oregon, Washington, the Mid Atlantic states.
Average temperatures tell you nothing because the same average can be arrived at if the temperature is 70 all of the time or if the temperature is 100 half the time and 40 the rest of the time but it makes a tremendous difference in what it take to build a PassivHaus.
Anybody who’s ever been to Europe must surely have noticed how temperate the climate is relative to the U. S. Madrid or Rome aren’t nearly as hot as Miami or Houston. The climate most similar to Germany’s in the U. S. is that of Michigan or upstate New York. But Michigan regularly sees temperatures of 10 below and New York gets as hot as Madrid in the summer.
Additionally, the auto fleet turns over about every 20 years while the housing stock takes more than a century. I strongly suspect we won’t be building a lot of new houses for a while. The low-hanging fruit here is transport.
That’s why I think we should stop subsidizing cars, highways, and sprawl.
Dave,
Agree, but you can’t address sprawl without addressing housing. For a long time we’ve incentivized people to commute to work with automobiles. It’s a hard problem to solve on a national level because zoning is done locally.
One of the many reasons that nationalizing every problem is a flawed strategy.
Now you’re pulling a Drew on me Dave.
You’ve been to Europe, and felt the climate with your skin. Nothing else matters.
That Passive House works in Canada would mean nothing at all to you:
http://www.passivebuildings.ca/
We’re talking about different things. You’re talking about whether they can physically be made to work. I don’t dispute that. I’m talking about whether they’re financially practical. The link you’ve provided doesn’t speak to that.
John,
There are a lot of efficient house designs out there that work in a variety of climates. The problem is that most people are willing to trade reduced energy efficiency for square footage, or granite countertops, or a host of other things when building a house. Very few people are willing to spend the tens-of-thousands it costs to maximize efficiency, many builders are unfamiliar with the building techniques required and so are unable to build to the design. As long as energy is cheap, and payback on efficiencies is measured in decades, we are going to be stuck with the same code minimum crappy houses we’ve got all over the country.
I’m pretty sure I’ve pointed you to Canadian passiv houses before, and yet we had to run through this climate and 20/90 BS before you claimed it wasn’t about practicality.
Forget it.
Andy, I agreed with what you wrote above, particularly that builders care less about energy bills than buyers. They can BS an efficiency claim and be good. It is an agency issue.
BTW Andy, I’m sure we agree that many Americans perceive heating and cooling as anything but “cheap.”
John,
Sure there are a lot of people who don’t consider heating/cooling cheap. I’m talking about relative expense though. People buying new houses generally want code minimum so they can spend their money in upgrades in other areas. They are trading 50+ years of higher utility payments for some other benefit. People renting or buying used don’t have that choice so they are more conscious about utility costs. Of course, retrofitting efficiency is even more expensive, though some people do it. I read an article in one of my trade magazines about turning an old house into a very efficient house. Cost was about $50k and the result was that energy use was reduced by about 75%. The payoff for that investment was something like 40 years.
I’m glad there wasn’t this kind of hand wringing when we were far more dependent on whale oil. There probably wouldn’t be any whales left, of if there were they’d be part of some sort of government run program to ensure the future supply of whale oil.