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Some of the confusion is primary and secondary effects. All finite resources in a growing economy have a similar shaped (plus or minus technology) peak. So th

by VLM 12y ago

Some of the confusion is primary and secondary effects. All finite resources in a growing economy have a similar shaped (plus or minus technology) peak. So that's phosphate rock fertilizer, oil, various grades of coal (anthracite is basically gone already). You can also peak infinite / renewable resources like northern atlantic cod which are basically extinct now. Or buffalo, etc. Its interestingly fractal in that the smaller graphs of small producers look the same as graphs for other small producers and the overall system-wide graph. So the graph of Texas oil which peaked in the early 70s looks about like Mexico's graph looks like the world graph, all peaking at different dates, which is interesting. As a secondary effect once you peak fertilizer and oil production, the secondary industries will peak. Refineries obviously follow oil production. But, modern industrial ag is heavily dependent on chemical fertilizer (which will peak) and oil (fuel, sprays, simple transport...) Colloquially "peak" seems to be confused (intentionally, by some?) with short term downward market fluctuations. So obviously they'll never, ever be a peak in oil production because the market cost fluctuated downward recently for a short period of time, LOL. For cars you need oil and iron, both of which you can eventually use up, so aside from all other arguments its possible. But a cultural or economic shift can mask that. So the wikipedia article is full of weird assertions that increasing the average GDP per capita must result in increased miles traveled because income inequality doesn't exist (LOL). Locally decreasing the number of "can afford a car" jobs from 2 million to 1.5 million will dramatically decrease road traffic, even if the average income for the area explodes because the 1% are richer than ever because its not like they're going to drive extra miles to celebrate. For literacy there doesn't seem to be an inherent finite resource we can use up to eliminate literacy. So traditional logistical peak doesn't seem possible. In the colloquial sense of peak meaning "a short term downturn" that is pretty trivial. So you've listed all three possibilities, a finite resource that can peak, a secondary industry that depends on peakable finite resources, and something that can't possibly have a logistical peak because there is no finite resource to exhaust.

vardump 12y ago
You pretty much nailed it. Just a small nitpick. I don't think lack of phosphates is going to be a bottleneck in our lifetimes. There's plenty of lower grade sources available. If nothing else, just recycling our excrement. All this doesn't mean our lives need to be less happy. We will need to do with less, unless major technological breakthroughs are on their way.
- VLM 12y ago
  "There's plenty of lower grade sources available." Energy intensity always goes up with lower grade sources. Its not just raw "jackhammer power" or whatever the material is pumped or drilled out with, but all the related costs of transport and especially labor. For example if you need to pay your employees enough to survive during an era of $400/barrel oil, then that resource may simply be un extractable. Too many economic projections are based on absolutely everything staying the way it is other than... (insert commodity) increasing price to 5 times current price. Well good luck not affecting everything else including especially process input materials. That ties in with the level of socioeconomic stability a resource needs. Perhaps that exotic shale refinery is theoretically economically exploitable at a mere $250/barrel oil, but there's a slight problem in that the society/culture/economy needs to be stable enough to build it and it won't be stable enough at $250, perhaps it needs to average well under $100/barrel to create the infrastructure and trained skilled workers required to build and operate the facility... So if the price is low enough for society to be stable enough to build and operate the plant, it won't work economically, and if the price is high enough to build and operate the plant financially, society and the greater economy will be in complete ruins so it can't be built or operated. In your example the only way to afford refining phosphate out of raw seawater or whatever would involve raising the price until everyone is dead of starvation, at which point there's little purpose in a perfectly operating plant other than as some sort of interstellar robotic art exhibit, or more realistically its hard to build a plant when a famine inspired nuclear war is happening overhead at the same time and the place you needed to order drill bits from on the other side of the planet just got nuked. This is aside from the aesthetic issues. So if there were 95% unemployment, then we'd have enough starving workers to, I donno, create a "chunnel" all the way under/across the atlantic ocean or something. With the obvious disadvantage that no matter how cool that mega project would be in theory all by itself, it requires 95% unemployement, of course, which isn't all that appealing when considered in toto. So the aesthetic issue is you might have to strip mine a national park or two when obtaining that low grade ore, perhaps. (Edited to add: And this is what collapse actually looks like. Real collapse, not hollywood.)
  - vardump 12y ago
    I was talking about phosphates. Not about oil.

by VLM 12y ago

vardump 12y ago

You pretty much nailed it. Just a small nitpick. I don't think lack of phosphates is going to be a bottleneck in our lifetimes. There's plenty of lower grade sources available. If nothing else, just recycling our excrement. All this doesn't mean our lives need to be less happy. We will need to do with less, unless major technological breakthroughs are on their way.

VLM 12y ago
"There's plenty of lower grade sources available." Energy intensity always goes up with lower grade sources. Its not just raw "jackhammer power" or whatever the material is pumped or drilled out with, but all the related costs of transport and especially labor. For example if you need to pay your employees enough to survive during an era of $400/barrel oil, then that resource may simply be un extractable. Too many economic projections are based on absolutely everything staying the way it is other than... (insert commodity) increasing price to 5 times current price. Well good luck not affecting everything else including especially process input materials. That ties in with the level of socioeconomic stability a resource needs. Perhaps that exotic shale refinery is theoretically economically exploitable at a mere $250/barrel oil, but there's a slight problem in that the society/culture/economy needs to be stable enough to build it and it won't be stable enough at $250, perhaps it needs to average well under $100/barrel to create the infrastructure and trained skilled workers required to build and operate the facility... So if the price is low enough for society to be stable enough to build and operate the plant, it won't work economically, and if the price is high enough to build and operate the plant financially, society and the greater economy will be in complete ruins so it can't be built or operated. In your example the only way to afford refining phosphate out of raw seawater or whatever would involve raising the price until everyone is dead of starvation, at which point there's little purpose in a perfectly operating plant other than as some sort of interstellar robotic art exhibit, or more realistically its hard to build a plant when a famine inspired nuclear war is happening overhead at the same time and the place you needed to order drill bits from on the other side of the planet just got nuked. This is aside from the aesthetic issues. So if there were 95% unemployment, then we'd have enough starving workers to, I donno, create a "chunnel" all the way under/across the atlantic ocean or something. With the obvious disadvantage that no matter how cool that mega project would be in theory all by itself, it requires 95% unemployement, of course, which isn't all that appealing when considered in toto. So the aesthetic issue is you might have to strip mine a national park or two when obtaining that low grade ore, perhaps. (Edited to add: And this is what collapse actually looks like. Real collapse, not hollywood.)
- vardump 12y ago
  I was talking about phosphates. Not about oil.