At 11:12 PM 10/7/97 -0700, Tom Walker wrote:
>>In other words, if it takes more energy to
>>find and recover a barrel of oil than the amount of energy
>>recovered, then it makes no sense to recover that oil
>>energy -- no matter how high the money price of energy.
>>Neither engineers nor economists can repeal the laws of
>>thermodynamics:
>
>However we can be assured that it will be government policy -- in the name
>of the free market -- to provide massive subsidies so that the oil will be
>recovered at higher energy cost than it provides. Although engineers and
>economists won't be able to repeal the laws of thermodynamics, they will be
>paid handsomely to write reports and media commentary that assure us that
>the laws of thermodynamics have been repealed by a rise in the Dow Jones
>Industrial Average.
Oil subsidies can only be provided if energy profits (not talking
about money here) can be diverted from somewhere else. It is
thermodynamically impossible to provide energy subsidies to ALL
sources of energy.
>Somehow, Jay, I doubt we're really talking about the future. Are we? We're
>talking about the present. Surely the fully-loaded energy cost of extracting
>a barrel of oil TODAY already exceeds the energy that can be produced by
>that barrel of oil. By "fully-loaded" I mean including those externalities
>like the cost of repairing the ecological and social devastation wrought by
>continuing a petrol dinosaur-economy. And when I say devastation, I don't
>just mean smoldering ruins, drug addicts, smog and oil slicks. The petrol
>devastation also includes such seemingly benign things as urban circulation
>patterns or international trade relationships that are now hard-wired to
>depend on an abundance of cheap energy.
I agree with you Tom. But by simply ignoring "externalities",
we can still recover oil today. This can continue UNTIL these
externalities reach a point where they simply overwhelm the human
social systems that are creating them -- the Tragedy of The Commons
writ large.
This is likely to occur sometime before 2030. See one scenario at:
http://dieoff.org/page5.htm
In America, we are powerless to save ourselves because we don't
have a political system that governs and directs the economic
system for the common good. In America, it's the other way around
-- everything is for sale.
Jay
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[ REQUIEM FOR MODERN POLITICS: The Tragedy of the Enlightenment
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