Peak Oil, Population, and the Permanent Portfolio

[stone]

Adam, I just don't believe that not enough stuff to go around idea. Stuff seems to me to mostly just be the consequence of productive manpower and that potentially increases in proportion to the population. To my mind poverty is poverty. Isn't it just a consequence of mal-administration often on a global scale ie what we do here creates poverty elsewhere and vice versa?

[AdamA]

Adam, I just don't believe that not enough stuff to go around idea. Stuff seems to me to mostly just be the consequence of productive manpower and that potentially increases in proportion to the population. To my mind poverty is poverty. Isn't it just a consequence of mal-administration often on a global scale ie what we do here creates poverty elsewhere and vice versa?

Yeah...I hear ya, and you could definitely be right.

I just think there's a difference between things like, say, farming, that permanently increase the planets carrying capacity, and things like fossil fuels that do so temporarily (at least in my opinion). 

We can't grow our population forever and expect our productive manpower to keep up, can we?

[MediumTex]

I just think there's a difference between things like, say, farming, that permanently increase the planets carrying capacity, and things like fossil fuels that do so temporarily (at least in my opinion).  

A smart person once said that modern agriculture is basically the process of converting fossil fuels into food.

If that is true, does farming as it is practiced today really increase the planet's carrying capacity?

[stone]

Adam, I do agree with you that population size creates many problems but I also think it is important not to be complacent about real causes for poverty that could be addressed if they were honestly faced up to. Population growth is often actually fueled by poverty. In very affluent places, the population typically stabilizes.

I also don't see fossil fuels as the only challenge. We also use "fossil water" from underground aquifers.

[stone]

Some farming advances do help a lot I guess such as the new no till techniques but a lot of 20th century farming methods caused soil loss. That can make farming very non-sustainable. Just look at Haiti.

[stone]

Some small scale low energy farming methods actually can be very high yield. Perhaps some modern farming uses fossil fuels intensively more to save labour then to increase yields?

[AdamA]

I just think there's a difference between things like, say, farming, that permanently increase the planets carrying capacity, and things like fossil fuels that do so temporarily (at least in my opinion).  

A smart person once said that modern agriculture is basically the process of converting fossil fuels into food.

If that is true, does farming as it is practiced today really increase the planet's carrying capacity?

I agree with you.  I mean in the more primitive sense.  i.e., planting seeds instead of wandering around searching for edible food.

That would probably have been more sustainable--obviously not with 7 billion people on the planet, but maybe 30,000 years ago when we started doing it.  

[stone]

Adam, I've seen it argued that farming was humanities greatest mistake and we all do much better from hunter gathering (more food security, better diet, less effort required etc) .

Perhaps farming mainly aids big government .

[AdamA]

Adam, I've seen it argued that farming was humanities greatest mistake and we all do much better from hunter gathering (more food security, better diet, less effort required etc) .

Perhaps farming mainly aids big government .

That's a very interesting point, and probably there's a lot of truth to it.

I wonder, though, if we would have survived as a species without farming.

[MediumTex]

Adam, I've seen it argued that farming was humanities greatest mistake and we all do much better from hunter gathering (more food security, better diet, less effort required etc) .

Perhaps farming mainly aids big government .

That's a very interesting point, and probably there's a lot of truth to it.

I wonder, though, if we would have survived as a species without farming.

Most definitely, though there would be fewer of us and we probably wouldn't all have Apple products to keep us from getting bored.

[stone]

I think a more pertinant point is can we survive as a species with farming. We survived very well for 100000 years without it and we are facing "challenges" after 5000 years with it.

Adam, I've seen it argued that farming was humanities greatest mistake and we all do much better from hunter gathering (more food security, better diet, less effort required etc) .

Perhaps farming mainly aids big government .

That's a very interesting point, and probably there's a lot of truth to it.

I wonder, though, if we would have survived as a species without farming.

[AdamA]

...and we probably wouldn't all have Apple products to keep us from getting bored.

Good point.  Our need for entertainment is probably more important that a lot of us realize.

[stone]

I wish I could find it again but I'm sure that I read something that estimated that the UK population actually fell after the advent of farming and that an astonishingly high population density was maintained by hunter gathering. I guess when we see hunter gathering today it is often in quite extreme environments that make survival hard.

Don't they have campfire singalongs and such like for entertainment?

[AdamA]

I guess when we see hunter gathering today it is often in quite extreme environments that make survival hard.

I was just under the impression that we were struggling to survive as a species prior to the discovery, but my anthropology background may have few holes.

Don't they have campfire singalongs and such like for entertainment?

Campfires are the product of big government. 

[BearBones]

ok, oK, OK! Farming and hunting-gathering is not a huge part of my portfolio, right now. I've got transactions waiting, pending your answers to my original questions...

[MediumTex]

You might take a look at Daniel Quinn's "Ishmael" if you want a more subtle perspective on the topics we are discussing above.

It's an interesting book with some really big ideas in it, among them that the advent of agriculture was actually the beginning of humanity's fall from grace.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishmael_%28novel%29

[MachineGhost]

I am assuming that you were referring to this thread:
http://gyroscopicinvesting.com/forum/ht ... 5#msg24315
Just looked it over again. Looks like MT, Doodle, Adam, and I are all agreeing that this is an important issue. No one willing to bet on any specific economic scenario or any one of the assets in the PP, though? How boring. Where's Clive when you need someone to stir things up?!

Problems are opportunities in disguise.  So you could buy Westport, manufacturer of natural gas engines, for the VP.

And uranium is still pretty cheap too.

MG

[AdamA]

And uranium is still pretty cheap too.

MG

Why do you think uranium is cheap?

[MachineGhost]

Why do you think uranium is cheap?

It tanked due to the Japanese tsunami and the supply/demand situation is favorable in the long-term.

MG

[stone]

Adam A, when you say struggling to survive as a species I think that idea might underscore a lot of our current problems. Doesn't the entire biosphere consist of lifeforms in a DEADLOCKED struggle with each other. If any creature ever "wins" that struggle even momentarily then you get something like an algal bloom or those plagues of mice in Australia. I think it is very significant that such "wins" tend to be restricted to exotic species introduced into an ecosystem that has yet to adapt so as to successfully accommodate them. I think it would be foolish for us to imagine that we don't have to fit into our world.

[Figuring It Out]

I can't wrap my head around it enough to speak intelligently on this topic yet, but thoughts swirl through my mind constantly! A couple books that are super-interesting that I've read recently: Why Your World Is About To Get A Whole Lot Smaller; The End of Growth; The Town That Food Saved.

[MachineGhost]

BP announced in its annual energy outlook this week that the U.S. will likely be completely free of foreign oil by 2030.

MG

[MediumTex]

BP announced in its annual energy outlook this week that the U.S. will likely be completely free of foreign oil by 2030.

MG

It looks like BP is diversifying into comedy.

[MachineGhost]

It looks like BP is diversifying into comedy.

BP's claim seems to be based on data such as in this article:

Americans Gaining Energy Independence With U.S. as Top Producer
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/201 ... ducer.html

Noteworthy: The U.S. has reversed a two-decade-long decline in energy independence, increasing the proportion of demand met from domestic sources over the last six years to an estimated 81 percent through the first 10 months of 2011, according to data compiled by Bloomberg from the U.S. Department of Energy. That would be the highest level since 1992.

MG

[MediumTex]

It looks like BP is diversifying into comedy.

BP's claim seems to be based on data such as in this article:

Americans Gaining Energy Independence With U.S. as Top Producer
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/201 ... ducer.html

Noteworthy: The U.S. has reversed a two-decade-long decline in energy independence, increasing the proportion of demand met from domestic sources over the last six years to an estimated 81 percent through the first 10 months of 2011, according to data compiled by Bloomberg from the U.S. Department of Energy. That would be the highest level since 1992.

MG

What does this trendline suggest?



What BP is talking about is just noise.  No country that is 40 years past its peak in oil production is ever going to be expected to do much more than slow the decline rate.

All of the new production coming online may offset decline rates of existing fields for a while, but the trend is always down when you get this far past the production peak.  That's the whole peak oil theory.

BP knows this.

The chart below shows what the U.S. production profile would have looked like without Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico.  This chart shows two interesting things: first, Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico helped slow the decline in U.S. production a lot, and, second, Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico production were not able to reverse the broad downward U.S. trend due to depletion of existing fields. 

If you back out Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico, look how symmetrical that production curve looks.  This is exactly what the peak oil theory suggests will happen to every region over the course of the exploration-development-production-depletion cycle.