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Growth and the good times are over because the resources that provided that growth are dwindling. Peak oil is almost certainly behind us and everyone knows it,

Growth and the good times are over because the resources that provided that growth are dwindling. Peak oil is almost certainly behind us and everyone knows it, shifting their foreign policy accordingly. Recent events have laid bare that there's no facade of "manifest destiny" or ideology behind it... it's just naked aggression, scrambling for a bigger slice of the shrinking pie. If it were just a shrinking energy/resource base, we could muddle through and build a better political system. Same with climate change. And biodiversity loss. And chemical pollution. And global nuclear warfare. And the decay of social morality. All of these things are solvable in themselves, but in aggregate I think we're running into harsh economic realities that we might not be able to solve all of it at the same time.

toomuchtodo 1y ago
Not to go to far off topic, but from an energy perspective, I'm not worried. We're about to hit 1TW/year in global solar deployment, batteries are following fast behind that. My concern is what happens when stakeholders deeply entrenched in the petro economy start to fail (Russia, Middle East, etc), as well as the lagging impact of climate change; we're on escape trajectory with regards to clean energy and electrification, but climate change mitigation will still cost trillions, and the resulting climate changes will be felt by those existing over at least the next century (assuming humans discover an efficient, inexpensive greenhouse gas sequestration mechanism and a reversal can be engineered). Energy abundance is coming, but the transition and disruption will be messy. https://rmi.org/insight/x-change-the-race-to-the-top/ https://rmi.org/insight/x-change-the-race-to-the-top/ Demographics dynamics is where the pain will come from. https://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/our-research/dependency-and-depopulation-confronting-the-consequences-of-a-new-demographic-reality https://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/our-research/dependency-and-dep... https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-42657-6 https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-42657-6 https://www.cato.org/cato-journal/spring/summer-2018/demographics-their-implications-economy-policy https://www.cato.org/cato-journal/spring/summer-2018/demogra...
- perrygeo 1y ago
  Those machines don't provide energy, they simply capture it. We get our energy from solar radiation, either directly or stored in underground carbon bonds. We burned through our oil reserves, which represent the solar energy of millions of years of photosynthetic capacity, in a few centuries. And demand keeps growing. How do you intend to maintain and continue growing the energy supply without access to fossil fuels? Reverting to an annual energy budget determined by the sun is a fundamentally different game to having millions of years of energy at our match tip. It's the difference between living on a fixed income vs drawing down a savings account. And as we draw down our savings account (burn oil) to invest in our fixed income future (solar) we should not fool ourselves into thinking this means an infinite savings account. Whether we draw our savings to zero or plan wisely for fixed-income, either way we are looking at decreased energy availability, aka degrowth.
  - toomuchtodo 1y ago
    The Earth receives enough energy from the Sun in ~30 minutes to power humanity for a year. Electrification is highly efficient vs thermal losses with combustion. Half of marine traffic disappears if you're not shipping fossil fuels around. Etc, etc. Humanity can live within the energy budget available between solar energy received and geothermal energy available (imho). Certainly, we're going to bump into limits if we're exhausting total solar potential falling on the Earth and geothermal reserves, but that is a problem decades into the future at current electrical generation technology deployment rates. How much growth is required to achieve good lives for all? Insights from needs-based analysis - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2452292924000493 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S245229292... | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wdp.2024.100612 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wdp.2024.100612
    - perrygeo 1y ago
      True, the solar potential could theoretically cover what we lose from fossil fuels. We could building a dyson sphere around the sun. But the mere existence of energy is not the same thing as a proven economical way to capture it.
- vdupras 1y ago
  I'm still waiting for the solar-powered lithium mining trucks... Until then, solar panels are just stored fossil fuels.
  - toomuchtodo 1y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44101287 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44101287 (comment with citations on China being the first electrostate, how much energy is produced from low carbon sources) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44057045 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44057045 (comment with citations on automated, electrical heavy haul vehicles in China) Reminder to think in systems. Low carbon generation keeps pushing fossil generation out. Electric vehicles keep pushing combustion vehicles out. We’re still 10-15 years away still, but trajectories are clear.
    - vdupras 1y ago
      And yet, despite all these pushes, fossil fuel consumption has yet to show signs of ever going down. In relative terms? sure, but in absolute, we're still burning more dead dinosaurs than ever. EDIT: but I've got to say, I didn't know about those electric mining trucks. Those are pretty cool.
      - jf22 1y ago
        Can you share more about the "has yet to show signs of ever going down?" I'm not trying to say "source!" and make you prove anything. I'm genuinely interested. All the stats I'm aware of show fossil fuel usage going down but I'm sure there is more context to the data I'm missing.
        vdupras 1y ago
        I don't remember my exact source, and I admit that the situation might have changed in the last year, but here's what a quick "global energy usage over time by type" google search yielded: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-primary-energy https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-primary-energy

toomuchtodo 1y ago

Not to go to far off topic, but from an energy perspective, I'm not worried. We're about to hit 1TW/year in global solar deployment, batteries are following fast behind that. My concern is what happens when stakeholders deeply entrenched in the petro economy start to fail (Russia, Middle East, etc), as well as the lagging impact of climate change; we're on escape trajectory with regards to clean energy and electrification, but climate change mitigation will still cost trillions, and the resulting climate changes will be felt by those existing over at least the next century (assuming humans discover an efficient, inexpensive greenhouse gas sequestration mechanism and a reversal can be engineered). Energy abundance is coming, but the transition and disruption will be messy. https://rmi.org/insight/x-change-the-race-to-the-top/ https://rmi.org/insight/x-change-the-race-to-the-top/ Demographics dynamics is where the pain will come from. https://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/our-research/dependency-and-depopulation-confronting-the-consequences-of-a-new-demographic-reality https://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/our-research/dependency-and-dep... https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-42657-6 https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-42657-6 https://www.cato.org/cato-journal/spring/summer-2018/demographics-their-implications-economy-policy https://www.cato.org/cato-journal/spring/summer-2018/demogra...

perrygeo 1y ago
Those machines don't provide energy, they simply capture it. We get our energy from solar radiation, either directly or stored in underground carbon bonds. We burned through our oil reserves, which represent the solar energy of millions of years of photosynthetic capacity, in a few centuries. And demand keeps growing. How do you intend to maintain and continue growing the energy supply without access to fossil fuels? Reverting to an annual energy budget determined by the sun is a fundamentally different game to having millions of years of energy at our match tip. It's the difference between living on a fixed income vs drawing down a savings account. And as we draw down our savings account (burn oil) to invest in our fixed income future (solar) we should not fool ourselves into thinking this means an infinite savings account. Whether we draw our savings to zero or plan wisely for fixed-income, either way we are looking at decreased energy availability, aka degrowth.
- toomuchtodo 1y ago
  The Earth receives enough energy from the Sun in ~30 minutes to power humanity for a year. Electrification is highly efficient vs thermal losses with combustion. Half of marine traffic disappears if you're not shipping fossil fuels around. Etc, etc. Humanity can live within the energy budget available between solar energy received and geothermal energy available (imho). Certainly, we're going to bump into limits if we're exhausting total solar potential falling on the Earth and geothermal reserves, but that is a problem decades into the future at current electrical generation technology deployment rates. How much growth is required to achieve good lives for all? Insights from needs-based analysis - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2452292924000493 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S245229292... | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wdp.2024.100612 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wdp.2024.100612
  - perrygeo 1y ago
    True, the solar potential could theoretically cover what we lose from fossil fuels. We could building a dyson sphere around the sun. But the mere existence of energy is not the same thing as a proven economical way to capture it.
vdupras 1y ago
I'm still waiting for the solar-powered lithium mining trucks... Until then, solar panels are just stored fossil fuels.
- toomuchtodo 1y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44101287 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44101287 (comment with citations on China being the first electrostate, how much energy is produced from low carbon sources) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44057045 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44057045 (comment with citations on automated, electrical heavy haul vehicles in China) Reminder to think in systems. Low carbon generation keeps pushing fossil generation out. Electric vehicles keep pushing combustion vehicles out. We’re still 10-15 years away still, but trajectories are clear.
  - vdupras 1y ago
    And yet, despite all these pushes, fossil fuel consumption has yet to show signs of ever going down. In relative terms? sure, but in absolute, we're still burning more dead dinosaurs than ever. EDIT: but I've got to say, I didn't know about those electric mining trucks. Those are pretty cool.
    - jf22 1y ago
      Can you share more about the "has yet to show signs of ever going down?" I'm not trying to say "source!" and make you prove anything. I'm genuinely interested. All the stats I'm aware of show fossil fuel usage going down but I'm sure there is more context to the data I'm missing.
      - vdupras 1y ago
        I don't remember my exact source, and I admit that the situation might have changed in the last year, but here's what a quick "global energy usage over time by type" google search yielded: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-primary-energy https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-primary-energy