The End of the Industrial Interval

[TennesseeWalker]

Good friends of Democratic Underground:

The recent blackouts in the Northeast, while most likely caused by neglect and corporate greed, as well as misunderstandings on the part of others, are nevertheless previews of coming attractions.

I don't normally promote books, but I recently finished reading "The Party's Over" by Richard Heinberg. It is a well written and easy to understand overview of the era of industrialization, our reliance on fossil fuels, and what it means to our world IN THE NEAR FUTURE.

With all the attention now being focused on energy (properly, in my estimation) I would suggest that those who are very interested in this topic go over to www.museletter.com.

There, you will find an introduciton to the problems that currently bedevil us, as well as some solutions, which will be hard for the rest of the world to stomach. It is IMPERATIVE that this information be placed into public debate. We will have to do what he is suggesting sooner than later, and I would rather prepare for the inevitable instead of having it forced upon me.

Any thoughts? Has anyone else read this book, or am I merely playing Chicken Little?

[RainDog]

1. thanks for the info

I'll check it out.

[J_Q_Higgins]

2. My thoughts

The website was down, but I looked at google's cache of the homepage, plus the google cache of another page on the same website with a lenthy deecription of the book. I also read some customer reviews at amazon.com.

But guess what?

We can manufacture as much oil as we want, by turning garbage into oil at a cost of $15 per barrel:

http://www.discover.com/may_03/gthere.html?article=featoil.html

So I guess that solves that problem.

By the way, ever since people started using oil about 140 years ago, people have said that it was going to run out in 10 or 20 years.

They have always been wrong.

No one knows how much oil is left.

The truth is that if the oil really was running out, we would see major increases in the price of oil futures commodities. And the price of futures commodities influences the current price.

The price of oil is the single most accurate accumulation of all of the participants, including buyers, sellers, investors, environmentalists, scientists, engineers, etc. The price takes into account all of the known information from everyone. So, if the price isn't shooting up, then we aren't running out.

Remember, the people who sell oil are greedy. They will always charge as high a price as the market will bear. So if the price is low, then that means that supplies are huge, and we aren't running out.

If we were running out of oil, then the price would shoot up. This would encourage voluntary conservation. (No need for CAFE standards on automobiles. No need for government mandated energy effieciency of appliances. The rising price of oil is the only thing we need.) And as the price went up, people would seek out cheaper substitutes. And there are many possible substitues. The only reason that we use oil now is because it is cheap. If something cheaper was available, we would use that instead.

Chicken Little, you ask? Well, yes. But that can be cured with a little Economics 101. Read about the "function of prices." Learn why economics is defined as being "the study of the allocation of scarce resources which have alternative uses."

Finally, anytime I hear a person say, "The world will end unless you do exactly what I say," I know that the person's real agenda is to have power and control over other people. It doesn't matter if the person is a religious extremist, a political extremist, or an environmental extremist.

I do agree that his ideas should be brought out into the open, because people need to understand why his ideas are in error.

Anyway, since we can manfacure as much oil as we would ever want for $15 a barrel, his whole point is moot anyway.

[treepig]

3. the 'anything-into-oil' technology described in discover

was discussed in a lengthy thread not long ago. since the thread has since dissappeared, here's a recap of some the points (mostly from memory, so any correction of the nitty gritty details would be appreciated).

point #1. we can't really get "as much oil as we would ever want" from this technology. apparently, if all garbage was turned into oil this way, that would just about replace the amount of oil currently being imported. and using all garbage would require recycling efforts far beyond the scope of anything imaginable (but perhaps people would change their behavior when confronted with giving up their suv?). the proposition of specifically growing biomass for this process holds some promise, but with the growing world population food production might have to take precedence.

point #2. this technology creates a number of rather nasty co-products (hydrochloric acid?) for which markets would have to be developed, or waste-disposal schemes devised.

point #3. indomitable democratic underground conspiracy theorists uncovered halliburton-bfee ties to the people developing this technology, and that pretty much ended any serious discussion here on the du forums. after all why would these types be interested in $15 barrel/oil (and a 100% mark-up) when they were in position to acquire $1/barrel iraqi oil and get their 3000% markup? they must just be trying to buy-up this technology and deep-six it, along with those 200 mpg carburetors!

[J_Q_Higgins]

4. Thanks for the recap.

we can't really get "as much oil as we would ever want" from this technology. apparently, if all garbage was turned into oil this way, that would just about replace the amount of oil currently being imported.

Acording to the article:

"Just converting all the U.S. agricultural waste into oil and gas would yield the energy equivalent of 4 billion barrels of oil annually. In 2001 the United States imported 4.2 billion barrels of oil."

So that's just the argicultural waste.

So if we also used houshold waste, lawn waste, industrial waste, medical waste, cars, refrigerators, televisions, and computers, we'd get a lot more.

and using all garbage would require recycling efforts far beyond the scope of anything imaginable

Actually, I think it would be easier than current recycling, because right now, people have to seperate their trash. But with thermal depolymerization, you could just mix everythying in together.

Maybe they could even mine old landfills as a valuable resource.

this technology creates a number of rather nasty co-products (hydrochloric acid?) for which markets would have to be developed, or waste-disposal schemes devised.

The article states:

"Polyvinyl chloride, or PVC—the stuff of house siding, wallpapers, and plastic pipes—yields hydrochloric acid, a relatively benign and industrially valuable chemical used to make cleaners and solvents. "That's what's so great about making water a friend," says Appel. "The hydrogen in water combines with the chlorine in PVC to make it safe. If you burn PVC , you get dioxin—very toxic.""

So this is a substantial improvement in protecting the enviornment.

It seems to me that this wins in every way - *if* the article is true. And I've been reading this magazine for a long time, and it tends to be quite reliable.

But ultimately, we wil have to wait and see.

[treepig]

5. the article is a bit vague on some important concepts

such as the definition of 'agricultural waste' - if you do a google search you'll find that there are already many uses for agricultural waste, so would of of these existing uses all have to be renounced to supply the new technology? or is the 'waste' apparently available for conversion into the 4 billion barrels of oil per year above and beyond the currently used waste?

furthermore the math is a bit fuzzy. for example they claim a 175 pound person can be turned into 38 pounds of oil (have they actually done this experiment?) while 200 tons of turkey waste supplies 600 barrels of oil. extrapolating to 200 tons of people, you'd then only get ~ 300 barrels of oil instead of the 600 with turkeys - which conversion efficiency is correct? or are turkeys just a better feedstock?

now on the topic of feedstocks, you propose everything could be mixed together and not need to be separated. i can see why you have this impression from parts of the article such as this one:

"In a little trailer next to the plant, Appel picks up a handful of one-gallon plastic bags sent by a potential customer in Japan. The first is full of ground-up appliances, each piece no larger than a pea. "Put a computer and a refrigerator into a grinder, and that's what you get," he says, shaking the bag. "It's PVC, wood, fiberglass, metal, just a mess of different things. This process handles mixed waste beautifully."

however, elsewhere it describes how inorganic matter even from turkeys has to be diverted from the oil conversion process, therefore it doesn't make a lot of sense to be feeding ground-up refrigerators into the plant (i guess it would serve to strip the plastics from the metal, and then the metal could be recycled elsewhere). regardless, once again quoting from the article:

"Experimentation revealed that different waste streams require different cooking and coking times and yield different finished products. "It's a two-step process, and you do more in step one or step two depending on what you are processing," Terry Adams says."

this sentence would seem to support the notion that you just can't feed any old garbage into the process and expect it to work well - instead the process (and products) have to be finely tuned to the exact garbage mixture being put in. perhaps incoming garbage could be tested on a truck by truck basis to determine its composition and the the plant could be adjusted on a real time basis for optimal production. however, to achieve economical, highthroughput operation, i suspect careful separation of different types of garbage would have to occur far upstream.

i'm sure all these points are fairly minor in the big scheme of things, but nevertheless need to be carefully considered.

[J_Q_Higgins]

6. Those are excellent points that you raise.

Maybe they'll only use it for certain tpyes of agricultural waste. I know the waste from the hog factory farms would be a prime candidate. They did a segment on "60 Minutes" about how the waste is dumped into the water and is wreaking havoc with the enviornment and the people who live nearby. Much better to turn that waste into oil.

I guess we'll have to wait and see. In 10 years we should know a lot more.

[treepig]

7. fecal waste from hog (and chicken) farms should be a no-brainer

from what i understand, there's no good use, or even disposal strategy, for this type of agricultural waste. so building these plants would seem like a win-win proposition all the way around.

the only drawback i can see right now is financial. assuming the plant operates 365 days a year, it'd produce 219,000 barrels of oil.
with a $15/barrel production cost, if they get $20/barrel, that's $1,095,000 profit per year, or a 5.48% return on a $20,000,000 investment (the cost of the plant). i'm not a financial person, but i'd imagine that would be a marginal return and would not attract alot of investors for a 'risky' new technology.

sure, crude oil has been at $30/barrel for a while (giving a 16.4% return on investment, plus there are a few side products) - but apparently investors are wary of the Saudi's ability to pump massive amounts of crude oil just for long enough to drive down prices to kill off any attempts at development of alternate sources (the context i'm refering to has to do with efforst to develop the alberta tarsands, but similar considerations probably apply here).

nevertheless, i don't see why states (or farmer's co-ops or whatever with the appropriate tax incentives) couldn't pull together $20m here and there to invest in this technology as a save-the-chesapeake-bay-from-chicken-shit maneuver (for example) if nothing else.

[J_Q_Higgins]

8. Another idea.

I'm a very strong supporter of property rights, and I view the kind of pollution that was portrayed in the "60 Minutes" segment as a major violation of property rights.

The government should require the giant hog farms to use thermal depolymerization, unless the farm operators can come up with a better solution for the waste.

[treepig]

9. too late to edit again,

but here's some information i meant to include earlier:

uh-oh environmental trouble is afoot in maryland . . .

Across the Delmarva Peninsula, nearly 1 billion chickens are raised by farmers who are contracted by poultry corporations. The corporations deliver the birds or eggs to growers, provide the feed and collect the animals for slaughter.

But they leave the farmers with the tons of manure produced by the birds. Though farmers historically have used the waste -- a combination of litter and dung -- as fertilizer, it has become an increasing liability, and poultry companies have disavowed responsibility for it.

As the number of birds raised on the Eastern Shore has surpassed the capacity of the cropland to absorb their manure, the waste has often washed into waterways, fueling algae blooms that choke the water of oxygen and light.

democratic governor glendening to the rescue?

In 1997, scientists linked farm runoff to an outbreak of toxic algae that was blamed for killing hundreds of thousands of fish on the Eastern Shore. Then-Gov. Parris N. Glendening shut down parts of three rivers and began a campaign in the legislature to limit agricultural use of chicken manure as fertilizer.

As part of that effort, Glendening sought to have Maryland become the first state to hold poultry processors responsible for overseeing disposal of the birds' waste

doesn't sound like something industry would be in favor of . . . fortunately they have a plan:

Poultry industry interests contributed about $150,000 to Ehrlich's campaign (cut)

yippee - the poultry industry's scheme worked!

June 15, 2003 - CropChoice news: Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. announced yesterday that the state would abandon rules that hold such poultry giants as Tyson Foods and Perdue Farms Inc. accountable for pollution caused by chicken waste flushing into the Chesapeake Bay.

info from - http://www.newfarm.org/news/060103/0620/MD_water.shtml

my analysis - if everyone involved would just get there heads out of their asses they could solve this problem AND make some money using the 'anything into oil technology' - plus with the recent closing of black & decker plants, the eastern shore of maryland desperately needs some industry (and probably has qualified personel in place to run these plants). too bad we don't live in a rational world.