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What does Sustainability Mean for Energy?
Gail Tverberg, The Oil Drum
What makes energy sustainable? I think each of us has our own idea, and the various ideas are not entirely the same.
[VENN DIAGRAM]
To be sustainable, clearly the fuel supply must be adequate–not run out shortly. If we are concerned about climate change, a sustainable source of energy production should not add much carbon to the atmosphere, either. We are running short on fresh water, so a sustainable fuel must not put a burden on the water supply. Furthermore, it is becoming more and more clear that the system of international trade that underlies our high-tech system will not hold together indefinitely. Because of this, an energy source that depends heavily on imported raw materials or parts, or is dependent on our whole high-tech way of life, is not likely to continue very long.
Ideally, any energy source we want to emphasize in the future will meet all of these criteria, and additionally, will be inexpensive to produce. The problem is that it is very difficult to find fuels that meet all these criteria.
Future Investment
This last criterion, being inexpensive to produce, is becoming more and more important. With the credit unwind, the amount of money available for investment has already dropped. The credit unwind is not yet over, so I expect that the amount of money available for investment will continue to drop in the future, perhaps something like this:
(12 March 2009)
The Earth’s Moment, Unveiled
Adam Frank, (blog), Discover Magazine
… A number of discussions after my book talks centered on the need to find a broader context for science, one that can assist in marshaling our collective will to deal with the coming challenges. In the midst of these musings came Thomas Friedman’s recent column in the New York Times. Friedman surveys the landscape of economic freefall and asks if, perhaps, this is not simply another cycle:
What if the crisis of 2008 represents something much more fundamental than a deep recession? What if it’s telling us that the whole growth model we created over the last 50 years is simply unsustainable economically and ecologically and that 2008 was when we hit the wall— when Mother Nature and the market both said: “No more.”
“No more” for sure.
Friedman is picking up on a theme that people like Bill McKibben and James Kunstler have been touching on for a while. The party is over, and we are standing on the edge of something new and different and very uncertain. What comes next is likely to be some kind of fundamental change. It might be very, very bad or, if we are smart and fearless and flexible, it might lead to something more sustaining on a wide variety of levels.
…The link Friedman doesn’t directly draw in the piece is the one that fascinates me most when I think about science and its context. Over the last 100 years, we rapidly constructed a world-girdling empire of commerce tied together by webs of electromagnetic radiation, information processing machinery, and 10,000 mile long supply chains. In just 100 years, our burgeoning scientific capacity let us burn through 100 million years of stored solar energy in the form of fossil fuels. Now, it seems, the unintended consequences of all that science and its daughter technologies are snapping back on us. What do we do now? What can we do?
We should not just expect science to provide answers to the mess we are in. There will have to be more to it than that, as we still have to decide which science to deploy and then, harder still, find the collective strength—the mythologies of urgency and action—to implement the change. This is a domain that we will all be confronting sooner rather than later. For now, Friedman’s column demonstrates something simpler at work. What is most striking about this moment is that its singular nature may finally be becoming clear.
Adam Frank is a professor of astrophysics at the University of Rochester who studies star formation and stellar death using supercomputers. His new book, “The Constant Fire, Beyond the Science vs. Religion Debate,” has just been published. He will be joining Reality Base to post an ongoing discussion of science and religion—you can read his previous posts here, and find more of his thoughts on science and the human prospect at the Constant Fire blog.
(10 March 2009)
Successful relocalization means that you stop growing…
Christopher Ryan, AICP; The Localizer Blog
As relocalization efforts blossom globally, the discussions within local volunteer groups range from how to develop local food movements, alternative energy and conservation measures to climate change activities and the establishment of local currencies. Certainly such efforts reflect the need for these groups to maintain positive energies and attitudes by proactively engaging in project oriented activities that result in some visible outcome and are a building block for a positive future.
Less common, although an underlying current in the foundational framework of most organizers and initiators, is the understanding that growth as we know it in all forms must cease. This understanding is informed by the works and words of such renown thinkers originating with Thomas Malthus and more recently voiced by people like Paul Ehrlich, Garrett Hardin, Barry Commoner, Edward Abbey, William Catton, Jr., and….(drum roll please) possibly even New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman. Catton, in his classic book Overshoot, refers to a fundamental shift by humanity away “from a self-perpetuating way of life that relied on the circularity of natural biogeochemical processes, to a way of life that was ultimately self-terminating because it relied on linear chemical transformations.”
… So where is this discussion taking place? In the mainstream media? In the hallowed halls of Congress or in the White House? In corporate boardrooms? In the Elks Club, Kiwanis, or Lions Club or local Chambers of Commerce? Nope. How about in business lunches? professional workshops and seminars? Christmas parties? Not likely. So where might we find the conversations and speeches calling out the growth model as our most likely cause of demise? Some small pockets of academia might have the courage to broach this subject in the classroom–provided they have tenure. Local activists might discuss the concept of growth with like-minded members of their cohort but would want to gain a level of comfort before engaging the subject. There’s little question that discussing non-normative issues with normatively embedded people is risky. I recently conducted a survey on the Web aimed at getting a general feel for what specific concerns people had over speaking out about about sensitive issues like growth and population. As expected, a large percentage of respondents were concerned over possible sanctions like social isolation or economic backlash. Other significant reasons for not speaking out included wishing to keep the peace or being in inappropriate settings. So there’s no question that self-preserving behavior is a good explanation for keeping silent. But if the growth paradigm is to be successfully retired, alternative norms and values need to be aggressively circulated in the public domain. Concerns over sanctions or preserving the peace are legitimate but strategic thinking could lead to creative ways to engage the subject without creating such intense conflict.
Most essentially, discussions at the local level should consider growth as a key issue to address. If local growth is desired, the questions to entertain are how much and at what point should growth be terminated? What is the community vision for the future and at what level of development should sustainability be achieved? If you can’t ask these tentative and basic foundational questions, a steady-state economy isn’t possible. Realistically, any residual growth should be a highly strategic and planned endeavor that seeks to fill local gaps that will enable the community to become more resilient. This could include generating more independent local businesses that market essential commodities like hardware, locally grown food, housewares, or dry goods. Seeking traditional “see what sticks to the wall” economic development in the form of office parks, subdivisions, or big box stores selling salad shooters and plastic trinkets made overseas is irresponsible local development and wasteful to the extreme. It moves the community further away from a needed and desired steady-state, locally resilient model.
(16 March 2009)
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