> >I see no hope, given the
> >political situation. So, famine, pestilence and wars will be the
> >ultimate limits to growth.
>
> Erik, why so hopeless? Haven't you noticed the popualtion is indeed
> stabilizing? Ever wonder why? If your curiosity should lead you to
> investigate, you would find the reason is not "famine, pestilence and wars".
> Fight fear with knowledge.
>
> -dl
It's been said that population in the developed nations is stabilizing
and that claim is repeated here. I see it a bit differently, as the
history in developing countries has not been the same. While India
and China are not yet what one would consider fully developed, their
populations have continued to increase. Together, just these two
massive nations amount to about 2.3 billion people. As their
development can be expected to continue and their energy per capita
increase accordingly, I suggest that we will see some real limits to
resource availability in the not too distant future. Already, we are
see reports of the competition for oil between these two nations and
the rest of the world.
I've been reading the posts on theoildrum.com of late and one of their
main themes has been what they call "Export Land" vs. "Import Land".
In this, they note that oil production and the impending Peak Oil
situation is not the real problem. Those few nations where the oil is
produced are also consumers and thus their exports can be expected to
decline faster than the rate of decline of their production, since
their internal consumption can be expected to increase. These
producing nations are amongst the developing nations and their
populations are also increasing.
Mexico and Indonesia are prime examples, with Mexico having been a
major source of U.S. imports. Even Iran now finds it necessary to cut
the cheap gasoline subsidy to it's growing population.
I've been intensely interested in the energy situation since the OPEC
Oil Embargo threw the U.S. into a mess back in 1973. As an engineer,
energy is my thing, so to speak. My bias, if you want to call it
that, is solar energy and I've known how to use it for more than 30
years. Yet, I've found almost no opportunity to do so, which I find
very depressing. Your choice in the energy world is nuclear, as
you've demonstrated many times. Back in 1974, nuclear generation was
projected to expand rapidly to something like 1,000 plants by 2000.
But, the nukes took a big hit after Three Mile Island and Chernobil,
with only 104 plants now in operation. If those 1,000 plants had been
built, how long would the uranium have lasted without reprocessing?
You want to be optimistic, so how many nukes would it take to power a
fully developed India and China, not to mention the other nations that
you apparently want to see brought up to Western levels of
development. Where's the fuel to come from for all those nuclear
power plants, without a recycling of fuel to recover the plutonium?
The next question is, what sort of world would we find ourselves in if
all that fuel were to be recycled and reprocessed? With all the bad
actors around, what level of security would be necessary to prevent
disruptions? I submit that a total government control of everybody's
life would be necessary to catch even the least important threat.
Such a system would make today's concerns about "terrorist's" seem
like a mild spring breeze. Personally, on this day of celebration of
American Freedom and Independence, I must say that I would oppose the
creation of any such system, which would of necessity destroy all
manner of freedoms that most Americans now take for granted. I do not
want to live in a such police state.
ES
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