5 ms·

One thing that is astonishingly glossed over again and again is energy. There is no activity, no economy of any sort without energy. Energy availability therefo

by wazoox 9y ago

One thing that is astonishingly glossed over again and again is energy. There is no activity, no economy of any sort without energy. Energy availability therefore is absolutely central to any economic activity. Energy availability is not infinite, or infinitely elastic to demand. You cannot either infinitely yield more output from a given amount of energy. In last resort, we could say that all money is an energy debt (every dollar amounts to some energy quantity that varies). Making untenable promises by printing large amounts of money doesn't change this (promising that in 20 years, we'll have x% more energy than today doesn't help making this actually happen). In a finite world, you can't grow economy infinitely, period. Frigging laws of physics. See for instance https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/07/can-economic-growth-last/ https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/07/can-economic-growth-last/ Or start here for more https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/post-index/ https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/post-index/

dsr_ 9y ago
Energy availability is effectively infinite if you can plan for what you need and invest in the necessary infrastructure. Total insolation for the Earth is around 170 petawatts. If you need more than 1% of that, space-based solar will be cost-effective. The long-term problem with energy is getting rid of your waste.
- wazoox 9y ago
  Apparently you didn't make the effort to read the article I linked to. You're talking the usual, wishful-thinking nonsense that'll bring us into the entropy wall full speed, real soon now.
- jamoes 9y ago
  Yep, this is exactly the point economist Julian Simon made in his essay, "Can the Supply of Natural Resources - Especially Energy - Really Be Infinite? Yes!" [1] This exert from the conclusion sums up his argument well: > Incredible as it may seem at first, the term "finite" is not only inappropriate but is downright misleading when applied to natural resources, from both the practical and philosophical points of view. As with many important arguments, the finiteness issue is "just semantic." Yet the semantics of resource scarcity muddle public discussion and bring about wrongheaded policy decisions. [1] http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/TCHAR03A.txt http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/TCHAR0...
  - wazoox 9y ago
    This is utter BS. It relies on bad analogies and not physical reality. The example given (copper) is absurd; recycling implies using energy (and disposal of waste heat), therefore you substitute a resource (copper ore) for another (used copper and energy). The analysis supposes that every resource is substitutable (they aren't), and that energy is infinite (it isn't).
- cherenkoray 9y ago
  Any energy usage creates waste heat. This is relevant on a planetary scale as well as for biological organisms. Mammals, for example (and, in essence, all living beings), produce heat by their metabolism. The need to get rid if it, for example the human body temperature must not exceed something like 39 ° C. Otherwise, the metabolism breaks down, and we die. Mammals are able to cool down in a somewhat warmer environment which is by evaporation. Evaporation shifts the maximum bearable environmental temperature a bit up to 48°C or 50°C. More specifically, evaporation only works if the temperature of the sweaty skin is above the dew point of the surrounding air[4]. When it is hotter, the dew point rises above said 39 °C [5], and what happens is that hot humid air condenses on our skin, heating the body up[1]. We can survive of up to 50°C, with difficulty, for a few short hours - then it's game over[2]. Places with such conditions just become inhabitable, and the Northern parts of the Persian Gulf and India are already pretty close to that. On the planetary scale, no, even if we had nuclear fusion and could increase the global energy output by a factor of twenty, we would have difficulties. The waste heat normally goes away by warming the planet and going into space as infrared radiation. But there is a thing called greenhouse effect[3], which causes the surface temperature to increase more than the temperature of the clouds. And human activity is not negligible if you do the math. The problem is now there is no effective method for transporting excess heat into space. This is also a problem in the International Space Station[6]. The trouble is now that exactly the same effect happens on the somewhat bigger spheric space station we are living on. That wonderful blue marble we call Earth. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_heat_waves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_heat_waves [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperthermia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperthermia [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dew_point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dew_point [5] http://dpcalc.org/ http://dpcalc.org/ [6] https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/ast21mar_1/ https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/a...
saas_co_de 9y ago
> Frigging laws of physics I seem to remember something about nothing being created or destroyed and only transformed but maybe I am wrong.
- Erlangolem 9y ago
  You’re right, but the transformation is subject to the 2nd law of thermodynamics. The useful work you can do is diminished, and you’re left with entropy. Energy is neither created nor destroyed, but we don’t care about how much waste heat we have available, because nothing can be done with it.
- cherenkoray 9y ago
  Glad I can help. He is referring to the Second Law of Thermodynamics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics
stephen_g 9y ago
Steve Keen is doing some interesting stuff incorporating energy into economics - here's some of his older stuff - http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/2016/08/19/incorporating-energy-into-production-functions/ http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/2016/08/19/incorporating-... - if you google a bit I think he's developed that further (probably some of his lectures which are available on YouTube are where the newer stuff would be - I'm not sure if he's published much of it yet)
TheCoelacanth 9y ago
We don't know for sure that the universe isn't infinite, but we do know that it is at least tens of billions of light years across. We aren't going to run into actual laws of physics making growth impossible for a long fucking time.
- Meegul 9y ago
  Only provided we leave earth and we harvest energy in a more efficient way. One of the reasons I'm supportive of renewable energy is not for environmental reasons; rather, that it's energy that would otherwise have been lost. Extracting hydrocarbons removes the total amount left, but extracting energy from sunlight doesn't lower the amount of sunlight that'll be emitted. Renewables are a responsible long-term energy play, and not just for the planet's health.
- wazoox 9y ago
  Yeah sure, if we suppose that we have nearly infinite resources (energy and material and science to propel billions of humans off the Earth and across the galaxy), we have no short-term resource problem. However we're already constrained (average OECD countries energy availability has been falling since 2006), so you can't exactly hand-wave the problem away.
cherenkoray 9y ago
I think this is an important point. And I believe what we observe supports that: In 2008, we not only had a financial crisis but even before that an extreme peak in oil prices which caused a drastic reduction in the demand on cars and a crisis in the car industry. Also, the policy of "cheap money" makes fossil energy production and especially expensive modes of oil extraction cheaper, because these are extremely capital-intensive enterprises. There is also a gap in effectiveness of resource allocation cased by the glossing over the importance of energy: Our society makes labour expensive, by putting taxes on it, while energy is made cheap. If you think about is, human labour contributes to society, it is desirable so it should be taxed as little as possible - ideally, no tax on labour at all. Contrarily, using fossil energy sources takes away from humanity, both the fossil resources itself and the dwindling capacity of the planet's atmosphere to absorb CO2. Consequently, one should shift taxes from labour to energy usage. That would of course require to levy import taxes on energy-intensive goods like steel or aluminium. But that's totally doable. The result of such a tax system would be a dramatic acceleration of energy-saving technology and renewable energy usage. Exactly what we need to slow down global warning.
pywh 9y ago
Grantham on finite growth: https://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2012/11/Grantham%20letter%20Nov%2020.pdf https://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/i... Grantham on finite resources: http://www.theravinaproject.org/JGLetterALL_1Q11.pdf http://www.theravinaproject.org/JGLetterALL_1Q11.pdf There was a nifty quote in Green Mars. Think it went something like "need to shift from sustainable development to sustainable prosperity". And just for giggles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTUY16CkS-k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTUY16CkS-k

by wazoox 9y ago

dsr_ 9y ago

Energy availability is effectively infinite if you can plan for what you need and invest in the necessary infrastructure. Total insolation for the Earth is around 170 petawatts. If you need more than 1% of that, space-based solar will be cost-effective. The long-term problem with energy is getting rid of your waste.

wazoox 9y ago
Apparently you didn't make the effort to read the article I linked to. You're talking the usual, wishful-thinking nonsense that'll bring us into the entropy wall full speed, real soon now.
jamoes 9y ago
Yep, this is exactly the point economist Julian Simon made in his essay, "Can the Supply of Natural Resources - Especially Energy - Really Be Infinite? Yes!" [1] This exert from the conclusion sums up his argument well: > Incredible as it may seem at first, the term "finite" is not only inappropriate but is downright misleading when applied to natural resources, from both the practical and philosophical points of view. As with many important arguments, the finiteness issue is "just semantic." Yet the semantics of resource scarcity muddle public discussion and bring about wrongheaded policy decisions. [1] http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/TCHAR03A.txt http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/TCHAR0...
- wazoox 9y ago
  This is utter BS. It relies on bad analogies and not physical reality. The example given (copper) is absurd; recycling implies using energy (and disposal of waste heat), therefore you substitute a resource (copper ore) for another (used copper and energy). The analysis supposes that every resource is substitutable (they aren't), and that energy is infinite (it isn't).
cherenkoray 9y ago
Any energy usage creates waste heat. This is relevant on a planetary scale as well as for biological organisms. Mammals, for example (and, in essence, all living beings), produce heat by their metabolism. The need to get rid if it, for example the human body temperature must not exceed something like 39 ° C. Otherwise, the metabolism breaks down, and we die. Mammals are able to cool down in a somewhat warmer environment which is by evaporation. Evaporation shifts the maximum bearable environmental temperature a bit up to 48°C or 50°C. More specifically, evaporation only works if the temperature of the sweaty skin is above the dew point of the surrounding air[4]. When it is hotter, the dew point rises above said 39 °C [5], and what happens is that hot humid air condenses on our skin, heating the body up[1]. We can survive of up to 50°C, with difficulty, for a few short hours - then it's game over[2]. Places with such conditions just become inhabitable, and the Northern parts of the Persian Gulf and India are already pretty close to that. On the planetary scale, no, even if we had nuclear fusion and could increase the global energy output by a factor of twenty, we would have difficulties. The waste heat normally goes away by warming the planet and going into space as infrared radiation. But there is a thing called greenhouse effect[3], which causes the surface temperature to increase more than the temperature of the clouds. And human activity is not negligible if you do the math. The problem is now there is no effective method for transporting excess heat into space. This is also a problem in the International Space Station[6]. The trouble is now that exactly the same effect happens on the somewhat bigger spheric space station we are living on. That wonderful blue marble we call Earth. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_heat_waves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_heat_waves [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperthermia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperthermia [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dew_point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dew_point [5] http://dpcalc.org/ http://dpcalc.org/ [6] https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/ast21mar_1/ https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/a...

saas_co_de 9y ago

> Frigging laws of physics I seem to remember something about nothing being created or destroyed and only transformed but maybe I am wrong.

Erlangolem 9y ago
You’re right, but the transformation is subject to the 2nd law of thermodynamics. The useful work you can do is diminished, and you’re left with entropy. Energy is neither created nor destroyed, but we don’t care about how much waste heat we have available, because nothing can be done with it.
cherenkoray 9y ago
Glad I can help. He is referring to the Second Law of Thermodynamics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics

stephen_g 9y ago

Steve Keen is doing some interesting stuff incorporating energy into economics - here's some of his older stuff - http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/2016/08/19/incorporating-energy-into-production-functions/ http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/2016/08/19/incorporating-... - if you google a bit I think he's developed that further (probably some of his lectures which are available on YouTube are where the newer stuff would be - I'm not sure if he's published much of it yet)

TheCoelacanth 9y ago

We don't know for sure that the universe isn't infinite, but we do know that it is at least tens of billions of light years across. We aren't going to run into actual laws of physics making growth impossible for a long fucking time.

Meegul 9y ago
Only provided we leave earth and we harvest energy in a more efficient way. One of the reasons I'm supportive of renewable energy is not for environmental reasons; rather, that it's energy that would otherwise have been lost. Extracting hydrocarbons removes the total amount left, but extracting energy from sunlight doesn't lower the amount of sunlight that'll be emitted. Renewables are a responsible long-term energy play, and not just for the planet's health.
wazoox 9y ago
Yeah sure, if we suppose that we have nearly infinite resources (energy and material and science to propel billions of humans off the Earth and across the galaxy), we have no short-term resource problem. However we're already constrained (average OECD countries energy availability has been falling since 2006), so you can't exactly hand-wave the problem away.

cherenkoray 9y ago

I think this is an important point. And I believe what we observe supports that: In 2008, we not only had a financial crisis but even before that an extreme peak in oil prices which caused a drastic reduction in the demand on cars and a crisis in the car industry. Also, the policy of "cheap money" makes fossil energy production and especially expensive modes of oil extraction cheaper, because these are extremely capital-intensive enterprises. There is also a gap in effectiveness of resource allocation cased by the glossing over the importance of energy: Our society makes labour expensive, by putting taxes on it, while energy is made cheap. If you think about is, human labour contributes to society, it is desirable so it should be taxed as little as possible - ideally, no tax on labour at all. Contrarily, using fossil energy sources takes away from humanity, both the fossil resources itself and the dwindling capacity of the planet's atmosphere to absorb CO2. Consequently, one should shift taxes from labour to energy usage. That would of course require to levy import taxes on energy-intensive goods like steel or aluminium. But that's totally doable. The result of such a tax system would be a dramatic acceleration of energy-saving technology and renewable energy usage. Exactly what we need to slow down global warning.

pywh 9y ago

Grantham on finite growth: https://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2012/11/Grantham%20letter%20Nov%2020.pdf https://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/i... Grantham on finite resources: http://www.theravinaproject.org/JGLetterALL_1Q11.pdf http://www.theravinaproject.org/JGLetterALL_1Q11.pdf There was a nifty quote in Green Mars. Think it went something like "need to shift from sustainable development to sustainable prosperity". And just for giggles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTUY16CkS-k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTUY16CkS-k