Alley Oop & Graphing Peak Oil

I've been thinking that the bell curve is a poor tool for communicating the problem of peak oil. It contains the information we need -- the volume of the planet's oil reserves, and whether we can expect to have more or less of it as we move along the curve -- but that's the area under the curve, and my habit, cultivated when Mr. Wassisname showed me how to graph mathematical functions, is to look at the line on the paper.

A graph like the one above would be more effective. If I were a citizen of the Jurassic Period, trying to plan an economy dependent upon the size of the dinosaur herd, this would give me a better intuitive understanding than the same information displayed as bell curves.

Me and all the other Alley Oops have our caveman enterprises in the dinosaur economy. I want to try something new and stegosaur-dependent in the late Jurassic. If I want to count on enough stegosaurs, I'll have to count on several business failures among the other stego-businesses.

Trolley Tracks, Jon Freise, & Peak Oil

It would seem like a literary device, if it weren't something you can see half a dozen blocks from here, at the corner of Cedar Avenue and 35th Street: One of Minneapolis' many potholes, this one revealing the original brick paving and a rail from the 60 year-defunct trolley system.

A week ago I interviewed neighbor Jon Freise for the neighborhood newspaper, Corcoran News. I had heard Jon present an explanation of peak oil at the Corcoran Park building in February, and was eager to include him in my series of portraits of interesting neighbors. (Jon told me about the pothole; it's by his house.)

During our conversation, I quoted Wes Jackson to Jon as having said that those of us who conserve are making it easier for the profligate by not bidding against them in the de facto energy auction. Jon thought about this for a while, and responded that it's an accurate observation, but the rich bastards are not the only ones who need cheap oil. Operations that feed the elderly and the sick, people who have to get to work where there's no public transportation, and energy-intensive services upon which even the most conservative among us rely are examples of functions that we would not want to bid against.

M. King Hubbert

In terms of human history, the episode of fossil fuels is a very brief epoch.

                                                                       M. King Hubbert

Marion King Hubbert was a geologist whose life spanned from the year the Wright Brothers first flew at Kitty Hawk to the collapse of the Soviet Union. A native Texan, Hubbert received his BS, MS, and PhD from the University of Chicago, and worked for Shell Oil from 1943 until 1964, was a research geophysicist for the US Geological Survey, and taught at Columbia University, Stanford, and UC Berkeley.

In 1956, Hubbert ssuggested that production in a geographic area -- ranging from a single oil field to the planet -- will follow a bell curve, and predicted that production in the United States would peak around 1970, which proved to be the case. Later he predicted a global peak around 1995, a little earlier than what happend, but close. The so-called Hubbert Curve is based on historical trends rather than estimates of reserves and consumption. Subsequent researchers have found similar curves in fisheries.

Hubbert also showed that rock in the Earth's crust is plastic -- it changes shape under pressure -- and formulated the correct statement for Darcy's Law, which describes the relationship between the rate flow of a fluid through a permeable medium and permeability, area, pressure drop, viscosity, and length.

He was a Technocrat, a founder of a Depression-era movement that advocated that scientists and engineers, not politicians, coordinate the economy. Hubbert believed in an economy in which goods and services were priced according to the energy consumed in their production.

Wealth, Slavery, And Tuberculosis

John C. Calhoun died of tuberculosis in 1850. TB was shown to be contagious in 1869, and the responsible bacterium identified in 1882. Quarantining infected people reduced the incidence of the disease, and a vaccine was first used on humans in 1921. Streptomycin, developed in 1944, and subsequent antibiotics, Isoniazid and Rifampin improved results and hastened recovery.

Calhoun said, "I hold then, that there never has yet existed a wealthy and civilized society in which one portion of the community did not, in point of fact, live on the labor of the other." Six years after his death, Edwin Drake drilled the first oil well near Titusville, Pennsylvania. In the subsequent century and a half, fossil wealth, and the technology it allowed, more than replaced the emancipated slaves.  High quality fuels and powerful technology have fed more people, made more comfortable, and spared more from disease than Calhoun could have imagined. We can condescendingly understand his apology for slavery as coming from someone without our advantages.

And yet, at this moment of peak human wealth, some of us still live on the labor of others, people starve, and we foul our planetary nest. Frightening, when you think that we are near the limits of growth, and must soon do better with less. Absent an unprecedented technological save -- or saves -- we can expect relative impoverishment, post peak. We can't bathe in the same river twice, so slavery as Calhoun understood it probably isn't in our future, but we must anticipate that decreased wealth will tempt us, or our descendants, to thrive at each other's expense, and plan to avoid it.

Richard Heinberg, Short Version

I forgot to put on my hat the Saturday of the big wet snowstorm, and walked to South High for the Neighborhood Sustainability Networking Fair, “Building Resilient Communities: Preparing Together for an Changed World.” I was thinking I wouldn’t mind if the world waited a couple of years to change, but I do have ideas about how I’d like it to be, so I went looking for allies.

Alliance for Sustainability organized the event: vendor displays (energy conservation, gardening, electric cars, environmental justice, local food), topical and neighborhood discussions, and keynote speaker Richard Heinberg. Heinberg is a journalist, Senior Fellow at the  Post Carbon Institute, and author of The Party’s Over and other books about scarce oil and its economic consequences. His talk gave the day its subtitle, “Preparing Together for a Changed World.”

Heinberg’s a sturdy sixty-year old with spectacles and wispy sandy hair. He spoke for about an hour, with slides of diagrams and pictures to dramatize his remarks.

We’re living at a critical moment in history. Heinberg’s case runs something like this: The US and the world have a debt that we can never retire. The housing bubble that burst in 2008 was four times as large as any before. The bail out cost in the trillions, compared to The Vietnam War’s $600 some billion price tag. US productivity has nearly doubled since 1975, but household income has stayed flat, with households compensating with debt. All this debt assumes growth, but the end of oil, with no adequate alternatives ready, assures us there will be no more growth. Heinberg quoted Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, that the economy is resetting to a lower level of spending and consuming. (I would refer skeptics to Saul Griffith, who has calculated that the world would need an area the size of Australia, “Renewistan,” devoted to alternatives, including nuclear, to replace all but a fifth or sixth of our current fossil fuel use.)

Heinberg says it is up to us to invent a new normal, imagining how we’d like to see the world in 2050 (I’ll be 101), and filling in the steps from here to there. He had a list of areas to work on. We need to emphasize what is positive: community, satisfaction from honest work, intergenerational solidarity, cooperation, free time, happiness, artistry, and beauty in the built environment. We need to reduce spending and consumption, grow our own food, get to know our neighbors, and imagine the best-case scenario. This crisis is our opportunity.

Our communities need resilience:

    * Redundancy in critical systems, in other words different ways and places to get what we need, and to get around, so we can endure loss of one or some parts;
    * Dispersed system control points, meaning, I think, that commerce and government get spread around, not eliminated;
    * Dispersed inventories: no more big-box bargains, but more work and less vulnerability to disaster;
    * Balanced feedback loops, for instance concentrated wealth would not be able to organize to further concentrate.

Yeah, but, like the widower said at the funeral, what am I gonna do tonight? We need conservation and activism. There’s no excuse not to insulate our houses. Neighborhoods can afford what individuals can’t, so we can share expensive tools. We can relearn the skills that got our parents and grandparents through the Great Depression and war rationing, gardening, canning,
different kinds of repair. Walk, ride bikes, get away from the fastest and cheapest. Pay attention to the block clubs. Get to know Corcoran GROWS. Buy locally, Tom said, in his WalMart jeans and sweatshirt, sipping a cup of Colombian coffee.

In the medium term, we need better rail, cellphone and GPS facilitated ride sharing, local food processing, some way of getting people and businesses into idle buildings, local currencies, and neighborhood economic laboratories, which could also be sites for car sharing, credit union, job center, and clinic.

After Richard Heinberg’s presentation, came the topical breakout sessions, then we met with people from our neighborhoods.

I chose local food because of our household’s almond business. That was a useful choice. Community Table Cooperative was soliciting ideas from local food processors, and I got to brainstorm about how that organization could help us thrive. There was a hazel nut grower from Lake City in my group, and it was good to exchange names with him, since we’ve talked about using local hazels in addition to Californian almonds. (Another member of my group -- somebody I think I recognized from way back in my weatherization days -- told me I should realize that I’m an elder, and I said “Speak for yourself, brother.” I think the world is finally catching up with me.)

The neighborhood session was less immediately profitable, but sitting down and sharing ideas about what we’d like to see in Corcoran forty years from now was fun. I think we made progress.

Richard Heinberg Notes, 9/16

Richard Heinberg: “Preparing Together for a Changed World”

Richard Heinberg was keynote speaker for November 13’s Transition Towns and Neighborhood Sustainability Fair, sponsored by Alliance for Sustainability, and at South High. Heinberg is a journalist, Senior Fellow at the  Post Carbon Institute, and author of The Party’s Over and other books about scarce oil and its economic consequences.His talk was titled “Preparing Together for a Changed World.”

Heinberg’s a sturdy sixty-year old with spectacles and whispy sandy hair. He spoke for about an hour, with slides of graphs and photos to dramatize his remarks.

2008’s economic crash is ongoing. The housing bubble was four times as big as any previous bubbles, and when it collapsed, $50 trillion dollars disappeared. We’re not in a recovery. Parodying commentators who speculate about the shape of the recovery, Heinberg said we are in an “L-shaped” recovery. “It is up to us to invent a new normal.”

Heinberg said that the total cost of the bailout is $8.5 trillion. I’m sure this number is somehow meaningful, but SourceWatch says government and the Fed together disbursed $4.86 trillion, with a maximum at-risk of $13.86 trillion, and $1.93 trillion outstanding as of September.Sorry to make your eyes glaze, but I wanted to be scrupulous, since I’m with Heinberg.

It’s big money. World War II cost us $3.2 trillion, and Vietnam came in at a bargain $670 billion. To give us perspective, Heinberg included a series of graphics, with a trillion dollars being what looked like a football field coverd by warehouse pallets of bundled hundred dollar bills.

Productivity has increased steadily, with household income keeping pace until 1975. Since then productivity has nearly doubled, but household income has remained flat. We’ve increased household debt since then, but we’re about maxed out, and people can’t buy stuff if they don’t have money. Heinberg quoted Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, that the economy is resetting to a lower level of spending and consuming.

Economic theory depends on the belief that the economy will grow. Heinberg had a number of graphs illustrating spending and consumption, all of which were J-shaped. Until the mid or late nineteenth century everything sloped up gradually. Then every trend Heinberg graphed spiked. This is when we invented our economic theories, assuming that the volcano of wealth would continue. Compund interest, fractional reserve banking, and debt leverage require growth for monetary health.

We built a growth economy because of easy energy. In 1850, 65% of work was done by animals, 15% by people, and 20% by fuel. The first oil well, near Titusville, PA, was drilled in 1856. After 1865, human and animal work began to be replaced by fuel. Since 1970, virtually all work is done by fuel.

Heinberg referenced Shell geologist, and MIT and UCLA professor, M. K. Hubbert, who predicted peaks and decline in oil discovery and production for the United States and the world. So far, Hubbert has proved prescient. The US has already seen both peaks, and the world saw a discovery peak in 1964, with the production peak probably now, give or take five years.

We pumped the easiest oil first. Heinberg illustrated this with side-by-side photos of a nineteenth century oil well, looking like a set for Gunsmoke, and a deep water oil platform. Deep water oil and tar sand oil are marginal sources, it takes large fractions of the energy they yield to go get them.

Charles Schlumberger, the World Bank’s principal air transport specialist believes there will be a gradual disappearance of commercial aviation. No more body scans. Peak oil means peak food, because agriculture now has a seven-to-one calorie ratio: seven calories inot the tractor, semi, etc., and one into your mouth.

Conventional wisdom has it that when the price of oil makes it unavailable, a competitor will replace it. We are “searching for a miracle.” There is no credible alternative energy scenario that makes up for a loss of fossil fuels. We have choices between planning the life we want post-oil and responding to crisis. Either scenario can be top-down from government, or bottom up grass-roots organizing. How do the grass roots design post-oil life? Conservation and activism; envision 2050, then “backcast” the way to get there. We need to shoot for a mix of fuels that can continue and a partly (which parts?) de-industrialized economy for 2075. “We need to be driven by vision, not crisis.”

Our communities need resilience:

    * Redundancy in critical systems;
    * Dispersed system control points;
    * Dispersed inventories;
    * Balanced feedback loops;

Co-operative power: “Neighborhoods can afford what individuals can’t;”

Rail;

Cellphone- and GPS-facilitated ride-sharing;

Local food processing;

Organized squatting: some way of getting people and businesses into idle buildings;

Behavior change away from cheapest and fastest;

Neighborhood watches;

Bicycle transport;

Community currencies;

Transition towns, the movement of which Corcoran GROWS is part;

Community economic laboratories: One-stop for car share, food co-op, credit union, job center, free clinic, etc.

We need to emphasize what is positive, community, satisfaction from honest work, intergenerational solidarity, cooperation, free time, happiness, artistry, and beauty in the built environment. We need to reduce spending and consumption, grow our own food, get to know our neighbors, and imagine the best-case scenario. This crisis is our opportunity.

After Richard Heinberg’s presentation, there were break-out sessions about transition towns, solar heat and power, electric vehicles, how to enjoy more and spend less, local food, and more, including youth groups. Late in the afternoon, we met with people from our neighborhoods.

I chose local food because of our household almond business. It was useful because Community Table Coperative was soliciting ideas from local food processors, and I got to brainstorm about how that organization could help us thrive. There was a hazel nut grower from Lake City in my group, and it was good to exchange names with him, since we’ve talked about baking local hazels in addition to California almonds.

The neighborhood session was less immediately profitable, but sitting down and sharing ideas about what we’d like to see in Corcoran forty years from now was fun. I think we made progress.

Theory Of This Moment In History

 Northeast Minneapolis is the big-shouldered part of town, where rail yards rub shoulders with supper clubs, the homes of  hard-working, no-nonsense Slavs, and oddly enough artist's studios and galleries. I went there earlier this evening to take photos for what follows, and wound up feeling Antonionesque.


There is human progress. People who looked like us dwelt in Africa a couple hundred thousand years ago. We started walking out of Africa about 70 thousand years ago, had language, games, trade, music, and painting 20 thousand years after that, and made it to the Americas 15 thousand or so years before our time. Agriculture appeared independently in Eurasia, Asia, and the Americas six to ten thousand years ago, and spread rapidly (by conquest) from each center. We wrote four thousand years ago, and alloyed bronze five hundred years later.

The organization of various empires shortly after that, and the institution of various religions observed today, between 1000BCE, and the Common Era, indicates that societies had wealth they could divert from survival to the propagation of their existential points of view.

Societies adapt to circumstances, and their adaptations are complex and linked. Pull one lever, and pull all the levers that help it do its job and the ones that it’s supposed to help. While circumstances remain the same, this is good; when circumstances change, societies find it difficult to adapt, because the necessary changes interfere with adaptations to adaptations, and the members are reluctant to allow what looks like chaos and loss. Consequently, with the stakes never higher, societies find it nearly impossible to intervene in the most effective of systems theorist Donella Meadow’s ten places to intervene in a system (paradigms), and settle for the easiest (numbers). Rome began to evacuate Britain in 383 CE, and civiliztion napped, albeit uncomfortably, for the next four hundred years. Then Charlemagne began consolidating a Frankish Empire.

Around a thousand years ago, European frontier outposts became the cities that we know, and the capitals began large public works like bridges. Coincidentally, this was about when India began using zero as a place holder in computation.

In the mid-fourteenth century, the Black Death reduced world population by about a fifth (and Europe’s by up to 60%). There is modern speculation that the smaller population’s lowered need for combustion contributed to a global cooling called the “Little Ice Age” in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In spite of the population crisis and the cold, the Little Ice Age hosted the Renaissance, a time of artistic flowering, technological innovation (streetlights, movable type, firearms), and European global exploration.

European colonization of the globe, particularly the Americas, increased its wealth, not so much by allowing Europe to import materials, but by giving it new, sparsely settled continents into which its population could expand. (This is definitely a Euro-centric narrative, partly because European-American history is what I know, but mostly because Europe and America have been the dynamic, if not always wise, actors in the globalization of the last half millennium.)

European deforestation forced a switch from charcoal to the higher quality -- but more difficult to produce -- fuel, coal, in the early to mid-eighteenth century. This began the Industrial Revolution.

The nineteenth century was a period of feverish technological innovation, one innovation being the oil well in 1856. Oil is a higher quality fuel than coal, and allowed automobiles and flight.

Innovation continued through the twentieth century and persists, but much of the twentieth century’s gifts have cultivated a comprehensive and detailed understanding of ourselves, our world, and our place in the world, that contradicts both inherited and intuitive understandings (the periodic table, evolution versus Genesis, relativity and quantum physics versus Newton, connectedness versus reductionism).

We have not been perfect at providing for every human being, but in spite of a steep increase in the number of people, the twentieth century saw a higher percentage of human beings fed, and fed better, than ever before in history. Archeological evidence (Steven LeBlanc’s Constant Battles) also shows that it was a period of relative peace, measured by percentage of population to die violently, in spite of two world wars, various proxy wars, decolonization, and many civil wars and revolutions.  (Assuming 100 million deaths as the result of WWII and Stalinism together, this is four-point-something percent of the planet's 1940 population of 2.3 billion; contemporary stone age hunters lose a quarter of adult males, five percent of adult females, and some children to warfare; there are no noble savages.)Technological optimists believe that our science and engineering, such as hybrid grain, fertilizers, and pesticides, have been responsible. People ate, who otherwise wouldn’t have eaten, because of the Green Revolution, improvements in communication, manufacturing, transportation, and so on.

But it was the high-quality fuels that made the innovations possible, and that allow us to continue to use them. We turn oil into food, and we live at the culmination of more than one thousand years of economic expansion. We have walked on the Moon, and freed ourselves from smallpox. We wiped out smallpox! High quality fuels, and Europe’s increased carrying capacity, acquired by annexing the Americas and Australia, have given us prosperity, understanding, and luxury. Maybe we got a counter-intuitive boost from the plague, too.

We have filled the continents; there are no more frontiers. From now on, the high-quality fuels will become harder to get, and more harmful to use. You might say that we have converted coal and oil into food and knowledge. Now we confront the world’s carrying capacity for ourselves. Populations don’t survive confrontation with carrying capacity for long. Circumstances are changing, and we face collapse. Twenty-first century civilization is more complex and full of linkages than any of our extinct predecessors. It's never been harder to do the right thing. Each of us has more to lose, understanding requires tough intellectual work, and there's an attitude at large that we have an existential right to believe any dumb thing we want to.

Progress must continue;  I think something in our character demands it; but progress must be in finding ways to mimic the relationships we witness in nature, and in linking with them. The wealth that will allow us to continue will come from ways that our genius can use those relationships without damaging the whole, not from appropriating and squandering irreplaceable fossil capital. Everyone’s life will change, yours and mine painfully. It will be better. For the first time in billions of years of life, a species with full understanding will fill its ecological niche, one that it designed! (The paradox or irony is merely apparent; our new complexity would be increasingly aligned with the broadest and most enduring system known.)

And we get bragging points for doing what none (USSR, Czechoslovakia, and South Africa have made essays at it) have done: changing our society's basic paradigms.

Minimum Wage Up to $7.25

The minimum wage goes up today to $7.25 an hour.

Argument in favor: Could you live on fifteen grand per year?

Argument opposed: Increased labor costs mean employers will hire fewer workers.

There doesn’t seem to be a consensus regarding the opposition argument. Could there be a fair study? Employers aware of the argument might vote by using fewer workers.

Something that should humble everybody working or employing or both is that we’d all be sunk if the oil dried up. Few, if any, modern enterprises can say they create wealth, when we depend on the irreplaceable combustibles we find in the ground. There's no room for complacency, especially among those of us to whom much is given.