Peak Everything, Overshoot, & Collapse

William Catton, Chapter 2 of Overshoot: The Tragic Story of Human Success

Posted on March 13, 2013 by energyskeptic

William Catton. 1980. Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change. University of Illinois Press.

Origins of Man’s Future

We are already living on an overloaded world. Our future will be a product of that fact; that fact is a product of our past. Our first order of business, then, is to make clear to ourselves how we got where we are and why our present situation entails a certain kind of future.

To this purpose, consider the information about the human saga assembled in the table below.

Taken a row at a time, this table tells an enormous (and enormously revealing) story. It is the story of a world that has again and again approached the condition of being saturated with human inhabitants, only to have the limit raised by human ingenuity.

The first several rounds of limit-raising were accomplished by a series of technological breakthroughs that took almost two million years. These breakthroughs enabled human populations repeatedly to take over for human use portions of the earth’s total life-supporting capacity that had previously supported other species. The most recent episode of limit-raising has had much more spectacular results, although it enlarged human carrying capacity by a fundamentally different method: the drawing down of finite reservoirs of materials that do not replace themselves within any human time frame. Thus its results cannot be permanent. This fact puts mankind out on a limb which the activities of modern life are busily sawing off.

Table 1 History of Major Technological Breakthroughs and Ensuing Population Increases

Table 1: History of Major Technological Breakthroughs and Ensuing Population Increases.
Date	World population in millions	Most advanced economic type	Limit-raising technology	Population increase	Generations elapsed	Increase per generation
2 million B.C.		hunting and gathering	use of fire, toolmaking		78,600
35,000 B.C.	3 ^a		spear-thrower, bow and arrow	167 %	1,080	0.09 %
8000 B.C.	8 ^b	horticultural	cultivation of plants	975 %	160	1.50 %
4000 B.C.	86 ^c		metallurgy (bronze)
3000 B.C.	?	agrarian	plow
1000 B.C.	?		iron tools	249 %	160	0.78 %
1 A.D.	300 ^d	………………..	………………..	…………. 12 %	…………. 55.9	…………. 0.20 %
1398 A.D.	336 ^e		hand fire-arms	188.4 %	16.1	6.80 %
1800 A.D.	969 ^f	industrial	fossil fueled machinery	41.5 %	2.6	14.28 %
1865 A.D.	1,371 ^g		antiseptic surgery et.
1975 A.D.	4000 ^h			191.1 %	4.4	27.55 %
[Added data, 26 August 2008]
2008 A.D. present future	6700	satellites	internet, globalisation limits…	67.5 %	1.32	table 1950 – 2050

In the Beginning

Some two million years ago, as represented in the first row of Table 1, creatures of another species – human, but not our kind of human – had evolved from pre-human ancestors by finding themselves more and more adapted to a place in the web of life somewhat different from the place their ancestors had occupied. They had discovered somehow that they could use (rather than merely avoid) fire; they could warm themselves with it, ward off predators with it, cook with it and thus render digestible certain organic substances that would not otherwise have been available to their bodies as nutrition. Whatever the world’s capacity had been for supporting their pre-human ancestors, there was now an additional place for the human descendants of those earlier creatures. Their human traits enabled them to live partly upon portions of the world’s substance not usable by their forebears.

These newly human beings had also begun to make and use simple tools. Moreover, they could teach their progeny how to make and use these artifacts. Each generation did not have to rediscover independently the techniques that had contributed to its parents’ survival. Still, the accumulation of adaptive culture would have been prodigiously slow at first, and for hundreds of thousands of years there could not have been very many of these creatures. Even with fire, tools, and traditions, these humans remained what their prehuman ancestors had been: consumers of naturally available foodstuffs obtained from wild sources by hunting and gathering.

There were no census bureaus in Paleolithic times, of course. But by knowing the dependence of early man upon wild food sources, we can make reasonable estimates of maximum feasible average population density, and can estimate the extent of the earth’s land area capable of supporting such hunters and gatherers. The important fact that emerges is that there could never have been very many millions of them. Nevertheless, these early humans were successful; they survived, reproduced, adapted, and continued evolving.

By the time almost 80,000 generations of human hunters and gatherers had lived, their biological and cultural responses to the selection pressures imposed by their spreading habitats had given rise to a descendant population with essentially the inheritable physical traits we see among men and women today. Thus by about 35,000 BC, the humans on earth were of our own species, Homo sapiens. Probably about three million of them were living by gathering and hunting.

Increased Hunting Proficiency

We cannot really say that three million was the maximum number the Earth could ever have supported in the manner in which they were then living. Still, we can be reasonably sure, from their slow attainment of even that number, that the earth’s carrying capacity for that kind of creature with that kind of lifestyle was not much greater than that figure. However, the gradually evolving cultures of Homo sapiens eventually increased the earth’s human carrying capacity.

About 35,000 BC, someone discovered how much harder and farther a spear could be thrown if the thrower effectively lengthened his arm by fitting the end of the spear into a socket in the end of a handheld stick. Someone else invented a way of propelling miniature spears (arrows) not only faster, but also in a manner that permitted line-of-sight aiming, by fitting their notched ends to a cord tied to the two ends of a springy stick. Using tools like the spear-thrower and the bow and arrow, humans became more proficient hunters, and more of the earth’s game animals became nourishment for human bodies.

With these technological breakthroughs, the worldwide population of Homo sapiens increased in a little over one thousand generations from about three million souls to about eight million. The total human biomass on earth had more than doubled. Still, most of the people in each of those thousand generations would have been utterly unaware of increase, for, as the entry in the far right-hand column of the table shows, each tribe was enlarged on the average by less than 1/10th of one percent during one generation – that is, during roughly the quarter century it took for each new parent to raise his own children and reach grandparent status.

Learning to Manage Nature

But the time came, eventually, for another major breakthrough and another enlargement of the earth’s human carrying capacity. Somewhere, some of the people who gathered wild seeds for grinding into flour observed that seeds spilled on moist earth near where the family carried on its activities sprouted into plants that grew at least as well as those in the wild. In time these plants would bear a new crop of seeds, conveniently harvestable. Homo sapiens went on to develop this discovery into techniques of plant cultivation, effecting a major transformation of the relation of our species to nature’s web of life. Henceforth, some of us were going to obtain nourishment from a humanly managed portion of the biotic community, rather than merely gathering the products of plant and animal species that we could use if we reached them before other consumer animals or invisible decomposer organisms.

This horticultural revolution, by which hunters and gatherers turned into farmers, was followed by a tenfold increase in the earth’s human population. This increase occurred in 1/6th as many generations as the previous increase phase. Such acceleration indicates that mankind’s daring to undertake the management of a portion of nature had again raised the earth’s human carrying capacity. Biologically, this species, with the remarkable capability of achieving cultural innovations, was proving a resounding success.

It began to be possible for a minuscule but increasing fraction of any human tribe to devote its time to activities other than obtaining sustenance. Human social organization could begin developing along more elaborate lines, and the fate of cultural innovation could further accelerate. Each increment of technology gave mankind a competitive edge in interspecific competition. Our species was well on its way to being the dominant member of the ecosystem.

Compound Interest

Note that, even after this horticultural acceleration of population growth, change would have remained almost unnoticeable to those living through it. The increment in an average generation was still a mere 1.5 percent. The starting population of 8 million was, in effect, multiplied in one generation by a factor of 1.015, and then that product was again multiplied in the next generation by 1.015, and so was that product, and so on. The “interest” of 1.5 percent on the initial “investment” was compounded by each generation – 160 times between 8000 BC and 4000 BC. Thus:

8, 000,000 x (1 + 0.015) to the 160th power = 86,000,000, approximately.

So the numbers shown in the “generations elapsed” column of Table 1 are more than just expressions of the time intervals between the dates shown in the first column; they must be read as exponents applied to multipliers that are derived from the figures in the last column. Even at low percentage rates of increase per generation, the “compound interest” pattern can produce great change when enough generations elapse.

As advancing human culture extended the niches available to mankind, recurrent surges of essentially exponential growth in numbers became possible. (The well-known “population explosion” of our own time was merely the most recent episode in a process that has been going on since antiquity.)

Tools, Organization, and Standard of Living

By about 4000 BC, stone and bone tools began to be augmented and then superseded by metal tools as Homo sapiens moved into what his history-writing descendants would one day label the Bronze Age. This enhancement of man’s tool kit was followed by further population increase. Metallurgy enhanced the ability of the human species to harvest nature’s products, rather than leaving them to be used by other consumer species. It also gave further impetus to the elaboration of a “division of labor” among increasingly specialized occupations. From here on, the growth of organization among humans would be an increasingly important factor in their dominance over the environment supporting them.

If cultural innovations were to cease, or if some ultimate limit proved impossible to transcend by cultural progress, exponential growth would give way to a curve of diminishing returns. Limited carrying capacity would reduce the rate of growth in successive generations. Eventually, as population approached carrying capacity, the growth rate would approach zero-of necessity. That is what “carrying capacity” means.

But innovations continued, and the ceiling was raised again. Around 3000 BC, man the cultivator of plants went in for an early version of “mass production”, tilling land in larger tracts than before. This was made possible by invention of the plow, which enabled the farmer to begin using non-human energy to turn over the soil – energy supplied by the muscles of an ox or a horse, though at first a plow was sometimes pulled by a slave or a wife (and had to be rather small). One farmer could manage more soil with this additional tool. But an agriculture that used draft animals had to use some of its land to raise crops to be eaten by those animals, so this new technology would not immediately raise human carrying capacity as dramatically as previous innovations had done.

There was also an alternative use for this particular increment in sustenance-producing power. A farmer with a plow and a draft animal could farm enough land to feed himself, the animal, his own family, and perhaps have a bit to spare. So some small but gradually increasing fraction of the population could now do things other than raise food. Human groups could opt for further elaboration of their lives, rather than for simple expansion of their numbers.

About 1000 BC, iron tools began to supplement and replace those made of bronze. Again, some of the carrying capacity increment was used to enhance, little by little, the standard of living of at least some groups.

The separate effects of these last several innovations upon population increase cannot be assessed, because usable estimates of population numbers at the times these new tools and techniques came into use are not available. But between the beginning of the Bronze Age and the birth of Christ (a date for which there does happen to be a more or less agreed upon population estimate) their cumulative effect was to expand the world’s human stock from about 86 million to about 300 million – an average rate of increase of about 3/4ths of one percent per generation. Slower increase continued for another millennium.

Firearms

Then came a different kind of breakthrough. Early in the 14th century firearms were invented, and were immediately put to military use. The first firearms were hardly portable, and hardly suitable for any non-military purpose. If they were to have any effect on carrying capacity, that effect had to be indirect. By changing the nature of warfare they would eventually change the nature of political organization, which would, in turn, alter the way human populations would relate themselves to the resources of the world around them.

Within three generations after these first firearms came into use, hand-carried firearms began to be made. Since these could have had some direct bearing upon human ability to harvest meat, they (rather than their more cumbersome military forerunners) are given a place in Table 1. In the next sixteen generations, we see a higher average rate of population increase than ever before. It is too high, in fact, to be solely due to improved game-harvesting efficiency. It came about quite differently.

The cumulative effects of human increase over the past two million years were becoming significant. The portions of the earth’s land surface available to those human tribes that had thus far experienced all of these technological breakthroughs were coming to be rather fully occupied by humans. But the tools and the knowledge available to these culturally most advanced segments of Homo sapiens were enabling (and causing) some men to leave the land and venture more and more daringly onto the sea. Less than a century after the invention of portable firearms, Europeans would discover lands they had not previously known existed. In the generations after that discovery, the Europeans’ superiority in weapons would enable them to take possession of whole new continents whose prior human inhabitants were much less numerous, because they were still living mostly at the Stone Age hunter-gatherer or early horticultural level.

Firearms did not enlarge the planet. However, they served to enlarge once again the carrying capacity of the world known to Europeans, by making available for settlement and exploitation a “virgin” hemisphere. The expansion of territory available for use by Europe’s already advanced means is the main reason why firearms can be said to have led to the unprecedented rate of increase in human numbers during this last portion of the agrarian period.

Abundance

I shall call the centuries that followed the sudden expansion of European man’s habitat by voyages of discovery the Age of Exuberance, for reasons to be spelled out in later chapters. During that age, man largely forgot that the world (that is, Europe) had once been saturated with population, and that life had been difficult for that reason. Discovery of the New World gave European man a markedly changed relationship to the resource base for civilized life. When Columbus set sail, there were roughly 24 acres of Europe per European. Life was a struggle to make the most of insufficient and unreliable resources. After Columbus stumbled upon the lands of an unsuspected hemisphere, and after monarchs and entrepreneurs began to make those lands available for European settlement and exploitation, a total of 120 acres of land per person was available in the expanded European habitat – five times the pre-Columbian figure!

Changelessness had always been the premise of Old World social systems. This sudden and impressive surplus of carrying capacity shattered that premise. In a habitat that now seemed limitless, life could be lived abundantly. The new premise of limidessness spawned new beliefs, new human relationships, and new behavior. Learning was advanced, and a growing fraction of the population became literate. There was a sufficient per capita increment of leisure to permit more exercise of ingenuity than ever before. Technology progressed, and technological advancement came to be the common meaning of the word “progress”.

But the aura of limitless opportunity had another effect: further acceleration of population growth. To go into some details not shown explicitly in Table 1, between 1650 and 1850, a mere two centuries, the world’s human population doubled. There had never before been such a huge increase in so short a time. It doubled again by 1930, in only eighty years. And the next doubling was to take only about forty-five years! As people and their resource-using implements became more numerous, the gap between carrying capacity and the resource-use load was inevitably closed, American land per American citizen shrank to a mere 11 acres – less than half the space available in Europe for each European just prior to Columbus’s revolutionizing voyage. Meanwhile, per capita resource appetites had grown tremendously. The Age of Exuberance was necessarily temporary; it undermined its own foundations.

Most of the people who were fortunate enough to live in that age misconstrued their good fortune. Characteristics of their world and their lives, due to a “limitlessness” that had to be of limited duration, were imagined to be permanent. The people of the Age of Exuberance looked back on the dismal lives of their forebears and pitied them for their “unrealistic” notions about the world, themselves, and the way human beings were meant to live. Instead of recognizing that reality itself had actually changed – and would eventually change again – they congratulated themselves for outgrowing the “superstitions” of ancestors who had seen a different world so differently. While they rejected the old premise of changelessness, they failed to see that their own belief in the permanence of limitlessness was also an overbelief, a superstition.

As the gap closed, conditions of life did change – of necessity. The world reentered an age of population pressure. Its characteristics had to resemble, in certain ways, the basic features of the Old World of pre-Columbian times. Except that now there were ever so many more human beings, all parts of the planet were in touch with each other, per capita impact on the biosphere had become enormously amplified by technology, depletion of many of the earth’s non-renewable resources was already far advanced – and the inhabitants of this post-exuberant world had acquired from the Age of Exuberance expectations of a perpetually expansive life.

The Takeover Method

The Europeans who began taking over the New World in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were not ecologists. Although they soon were compelled to realize that the Americas were not quite uninhabited, they were not prepared to recognize that these new lands really were, in an ecological sense, much more than “sparsely” inhabited. This second hemisphere was, in fact, essentially “full”. As we have seen, the world supported fewer people when they were at the hunter-gatherer level than when they advanced to the agrarian level. In the same way, a continent that was (ecologically speaking) “full” of hunters and gatherers was bound to seem almost empty to invaders coming from an agrarian culture and accustomed to that culture’s greater density of settlement.

Ethnocentrism prevented most Europeans from seeing themselves as they must have appeared to the Indians – as competitors for resources the Indians were already exploiting as fully as they knew how. Ecologically, these vast “new” lands did not have “plenty of room” for Indians plus Europeans, as the Europeans easily supposed. Indians living by hunting-gathering and by simple horticulture were going to be displaced by incoming hordes of Europeans practicing advanced agrarian life.

Even if there had been less ethnocentrism, and if principles of Christian compassion had sufficed to preclude all suspicion, hostility, and bloodshed in the interactions between “civilized” and “savage” peoples, total ignorance of the ecological implications of different levels of technology would have enabled the takeover to occur. Europeans were able to move to the New World with no pangs of conscience about relegating the native peoples to a shrinking fraction of these continents. The shrinking fraction afforded insufficient carrying capacity (when exploited by hunting and gathering or by primitive horticulture) to accommodate the number of Indians already generated by their previously more extensive environment. But neither the concept of carrying capacity nor its relation to stages of human culture was part of the European settlers’ mental equipment. So the displacement occurred.

Essentially the same displacement followed from the same ethnocentrism and ecological naivete when settlers from Europe invaded Australia and New Zealand. An approximation of this pattern also prevailed for a while as Europeans later took over the more or less temperate parts of Africa, although there a difference in the invader/native ratio eventually began to reverse the relationship with more numerous Africans eventually beginning to oust Europeans.

All over the world, Europeans had acted on the premise that it was only fair and reasonable for “unused” or “underused” lands (that is, lands being used by non-agrarian non-Europeans) to be “put to good use”. In the absence of ecological understanding, that premise had seemed utterly sound.

The takeover method of enlarging carrying capacity was far older than the Age of Exploration and the centuries of colonial expansion. Invading and usurping lands already occupied by others was essentially what mankind had been doing ever since first becoming human. Each enlargement of carrying capacity reviewed in the preceding pages consisted essentially of diverting some fraction of the earth’s life-supporting capacity from supporting other kinds of life to supporting our kind. Our pre-sapiens ancestors, with their simple stone tools and fire, took over for human use organic materials that would otherwise have been consumed by insects, carnivores, or bacteria. From about 10,000 years ago, our earliest horticulturalist ancestors began taking over land upon which to grow crops for human consumption. That land would otherwise have supported trees, shrubs, or wild grasses, and all the animals dependent thereon – but fewer humans. As the expanding generations replaced each other, Homo sapiens took over more and more of the surface of this planet, essentially at the expense of its other inhabitants. At first those displaced were creatures with teeth and claws instead of tools, with scales or feathers or fur instead of clothes.

In this takeover process, man was behaving as all creatures do. Each living species has won for itself a place in the web of life by adapting more effectively than some alternative form to a given role. What is true of a species is also true of a subdivision within a species. A given tract of land has greater carrying capacity for the subspecies that can extract more from it than for other portions of the species that happen to be less equipped to exploit it.

None of this is said for the sake of justifying displacement of American Indians (or Polynesians, Aborigines, or Africans) by Europeans. Recently aroused pangs of guilt have made European-descended Americans more conscious of the suffering of those who were displaced. Although guilt feelings cannot resurrect the Indians who were forced to yield their place to more powerfully equipped Europeans, perhaps such feelings can prompt us to think about matters we might otherwise have continued to neglect. By explaining this human displacement episode as a special case of the ecological principle of “competitive exclusion”, we can at least take note of how common the takeover process has been in the ecological history of the world. Then, having seen that, we should also be able to see how fundamentally different the takeover method was from another method by which human carrying capacity has been most recently stretched. Recognition of the difference is essential to understanding the human predicament.

The Drawdown Method

About 1800 AD, a new phase in the ecological history of humanity began. Carrying capacity was tremendously (but temporarily) augmented by a quite different method; takeover gave way to drawdown. A conspicuous and unprecedentedly large acceleration of human population increase got under way as Homo sapiens began to supersede agrarian living with industrial living.

Industrialization made use of fossil energy. Machinery powered by the combustion of coal, and later oil, enabled man to do things on a scale never before possible. New, large, elaborate tools could now be made, some of which enhanced the effectiveness of the farming that of course had to continue. Products of farm and factory could be transported in larger quantity for greater distances. Eventually the tapping of this “new” energy source resulted in the massive application of chemical fertilizers to agricultural lands. Yields per acre increased, and in time acreages applied to the growing of food for humans were substantially increased – first by eliminating draft animals and their requirements for pasture land, but also by reclaiming land through irrigation, et cetera.

This time mankind was not merely taking away from competitors an additional portion of the earth’s life-supporting capacity. (He was still doing this, and still not recognizing that this was what he had always done. But – worse – he was now also not recognizing the true nature of something else he was doing on a vast scale. So man was painting himself into a corner.) This time, the human carrying capacity of the planet was being supplemented by digging up energy that had been stored underground millions of years ago, captured from sunlight which fell upon the earth’s green plants long before this world had supported any mammals, let alone humans, or even pre-human primates. The solar energy had been captured by photosynthesis in plants that grew and died and were buried during the Carboniferous period, without the efforts of any farmers. (As we shall see in the next chapter, the fact that no farm labor had to be paid to raise the Carboniferous vegetation, and that no investments in farm machinery used to grow those prehistoric “crops” had to be amortized, et cetera, helped get us into our present predicament.)

Carrying capacity was this time being augmented by drawing down a finite reservoir of the remains of prehistoric organisms. This was therefore going to result in a temporary extension of carrying capacity; in contrast, previous enlargements had been essentially permanent, as well as cumulative.

Being impermanent, this rise in apparent carrying capacity begged one enormously important question: What happens if population, as usual, increases until it nearly fills this temporarily expanded set of opportunities, and then, because the expansion was only temporary, the world finds itself (like the Indians on their shrunken territories) with a population excess? What are the implications of a carrying capacity deficit for mankind’s future? What happens, for example, when supplies of oil become scarce, when tractor fuel becomes unavailable or prohibitively expensive, and when farmers again have to take 1/4th to 1/3rd of the land on which they now raise food for humans and convert it instead to raising feed for draft animals?

Such questions were not asked as long as we viewed our world with a pre-ecological paradigm. The myth of limitlessness dominated people’s minds. Had anyone conceived such implausible-seeming questions in the Age of Exuberance, the answer might have seemed equally incredible: post-exuberant nations and individuals would have a compulsive need to deny the facts so as to deny their own redundancy. (We shall examine such denial of the new reality in Part III of this book, and again in Part V).

Industrialization came about at a fast enough pace so that it enlarged per capita wealth and was not entirely devoted to enlarging population. In principle, any increase in carrying capacity – temporary or permanent – affords a choice between enabling the same number of individuals to live more lavishly or enabling a larger number of individuals to live at previous standards. When the enlargement of carrying capacity is modest and is spread over many generations, it tends to be used mainly to increase numbers; if it is enormous and comes so suddenly that human numbers just don’t rise at the same pace, it raises living standards. The European takeover of the New World had enlarged carrying capacity (for Europeans) just fast enough to begin having this salutary effect. By drawing down stores of exhaustible resources at an ever-quickening pace, industrialization (temporarily) augmented carrying capacity even faster, affording opportunity for quite a marked rise in prosperity and for a phenomenal acceleration of population increase. The welcome rise in prosperity reinforced the dangerous myth of limitlessness and obscured for a while the hazards inherent in the population increase.

Overshoot Aggravated

Scarcely more than two generations had tasted the fruits of industrialization when the growth of population was still further accelerated by truly effective death control. The role of micro-organisms in producing diseases was discovered. In 1865 the practice of antiseptic surgery began. It serves in Table 1 as a reasonable demarcation of the beginning of an era filled with related breakthroughs in medical technology: hygienic practices, vaccination, antibiotics, et cetera. The total effect of this recent series of achievements has been to emancipate mankind more and more from the life-curtailing effects of the invisible little creatures for which human tissues used to serve as sustenance. Like other prey species newly protected from their predators, we have been fruitful and have so multiplied that we have much more than “replenished” the earth with our kind.

These achievements in death control re-channeled the effects of industrialization; they increased the rate at which human population could increase. More of the unprecedentedly rapid rise in apparent carrying capacity resulting from industrial drawing down of resource stocks was devoted to supporting population growth, and less was devoted to supporting enhanced living standards, than might otherwise have been the case.

Death control was a real boon to the first three or four generations that experienced it. Increasingly, parents were spared bereavement during their child-rearing years, and people of all ages were spared the suffering and debilitation that infectious diseases used to inflict. Fewer children became orphaned. Fewer adults became widowed in the prime years of life.

But all these benefits helped us to overshoot permanent carrying capacity. For most people, as this was happening, “carrying capacity” remained an unknown phrase. The concept was absent from the paradigm by which people in the Age of Exuberance perceived and understood their world. Industrialism had given us a temporary increase in opportunities – a very dangerous blessing. Death control gave us a further rapid increase in population not based on a further rise in carrying capacity. Thus, in the seven generations since 1800, world population quadrupled, and mankind came into a really precarious situation.

The precariousness remained unseen by many. Looking back on a century or two of remarkable technical achievements, accompanied by growth of human numbers that was itself culturally defined as a kind of progress (as every town aspired to become a city), minds that had not yet learned the distinction between methods of boosting carrying capacity and methods of overshooting it foresaw no insurmountable difficulty in simply repeating past breakthroughs. It was imagined, for example, that “fast breeder reactors” and other technological eggs-not-yet-hatched could be counted on to provide further increments of carrying capacity whenever nature’s limits began to hurt. (This attitude will be given a suggestive name in Chapter 4 and explored further in Chapter 11.)

During World War II, the brashly American words of a popular song proclaimed: “We did it before, and we can do it again!” A generation after that conflict, we seemed to be taking a demilitarized version of that cliche as the basis for presupposing the supportability of further increases in the population-technology load upon finite environments. People displayed either persistent ignorance of the carrying capacity concept, or naive faith that carrying capacity could always be expanded, that limits could always be transcended. Such an assumption seemed to underlie the stubborn refusal of capitalists and Marxists alike to acknowledge that the myth of limitlessness had at last become obsolete. There was also the assumption that further advances in technology would necessarily enlarge carrying capacity, not reduce it. Enlargement of carrying capacity had been the role of technology in the past; however, we shall see (in Chapter 9) that there has been a reversal of this role in the industrial era. Technology has enlarged human appetites for natural resources, thus diminishing the number of us that a given environment can support.

Back to Hunting and Gathering

The breakthrough we call industrialism was fundamentally unlike earlier ones. It did not just take over for human use another portion of the web that had previously supported other forms of life. Instead, it went underground to extract carrying capacity supplements from a finite and depletable fund – a fund that was created and buried by nature, scores of millions of years before man came along. The drawdown method that we call industrialism relied for its increase of opportunities upon use of resources that are not renewed in an annual cycle of organic growth. To expect to “do it again” is to expect to find other exhaustible resources each time we use up a batch of them. Only once could the technologically most advanced nations of mankind discover a second hemisphere to relieve the pressure in a filled-up first hemisphere; nevertheless, modern industrial societies have continued to behave as if massive “exploration” efforts could forever continue to “discover” additional deposits of mineral materials and fossil fuels. In short, industrial life depends on a perpetual hunt for required substances. To take one example, in order to continue present rates of use of copper, the United States must each year find 250 million tons of ore (containing 0.8 percent copper) – more than a ton for each of us.

The mineral and fuel deposits upon which we are now so dependent were put into the earth by geological processes that happen only at a pace enormously slow by human standards. Since 8000 BC mankind has been taking over management of contemporary botanical processes, the source of sustenance materials that have renewal times much shorter than a human lifespan. Now we rely, as members of industrial societies, upon other substances with renewal times that may be thousands or even millions of times longer than a human lifespan. Their renewal is by geological processes; present stocks of them were put in place by operation of those processes over immensely long stretches of earth history. Mankind cannot realistically hope to assume management of prehistoric events, or to replenish the ores and fuels now being extracted so ravenously. Instead, we must face the fact that, after ten millennia of progress, Homo sapiens is “back at square one”. Industrialization committed us to living again, massively, as hunters and gatherers of substances which only nature can provide, and which occur only in limited quantity. A major oil company whose credit card has been a convenience to me in my travels has recently confirmed this – unwittingly, of course – by printing at the bottom of my monthly statement a bit of institutional advertising. In an effort to enlist customer support for its resistance to congressional pressures against combined ownership of both “production” and “marketing” facilities, this company’s message proclaims that it “does the whole job – finding and delivering oil products you need” (my italics).

Our species had been an enormous biological success. But success carried to excess can be disastrous. The shift from takeover to drawdown actually yielded excessive success. As we shall see, this situation has had a natural sequel. Much of the turmoil so vexing to the generation that saw the fourth billion added to the world’s human population can be understood in such terms. We had already begun to encounter the penalties of becoming again what our remote ancestors were – consumers of substances provided by nature and not by man, substances we obtain from sources not subject to replenishment by our manipulations. We became heavily dependent upon hunting for natural deposits of these substances, and upon continually gathering vast quantities for our use. Euphemistically calling the new versions of these ancient activities “finding” and “delivering”, or “exploration” and “production”, only blinded us to what we were doing. It did not protect us from the consequences.

Notes

1. Calculations supporting this statement appear in the next chapter; the present chapter tells the story of our arrival in this predicament. For another statement indicating that this is indeed the nature of our situation, see Kingsley Davis, “Zero Population Growth: The Goal and the Means”, Daedalus 102 (Fall, 1973):26.

2. For examples of the reasoning behind any inference as to the size of pre-historic populations, see Hollingsworth 1969; Ehrlich, Holm, and Brown 1976, page 457; Coale 1974, page 41; Desmond 1962, pages 3-4.

3. For documentation of this and subsequently mentioned population estimates, see sources cited in the notes for Table 1.

4. Estimates of prehistoric world populations are less exact than modern population figures, of course; but the increase discussed in this paragraph would be no less significant if its magnitude were appreciably less or somewhat more than stated.

5. See Childe 1951, pages 25-26.

6. In technical terms, carrying capacity is represented by the upper limit of an S-shaped logistic growth curve, into which an initially exponential growth curve gets converted by the finiteness of the habitat and its resources.

7. It was not until the latter part of the seventeenth century that scientific study of population began. A British mathematician, John Graunt, in 1662 studied parish clerks’ records of baptisms and burials, and derived sex ratios, fertility ratios, measures of natural increase, et cetera. In 1693 the astronomer Edmund Halley constructed a life-expectancy table from church records.

8. Webb 1952, pages 17-18.

9. Desmond 1962, page 12.

10. See the brief comments in Boughey 1975, page 17, on “competitive exclusion” and “resource partitioning”, and the more extensive exposition by Hardin 1 960. To recognize the displacement of one population of humans by another (with more advanced technology) as an instance of this common ecological process, it is useful to think in terms of a concept devel oped in Chapters. 6 and 9, “quasi-speciation”.

11. From 1973, as shortages of fossil energy came to public attention, it was often supposed that “energy plantations” would afford a solution. The fact that this would put fuel-burning engines into the same competitive relation with food-consuming humans that formerly applied to farmers’ draft animals was almost universally overlooked.

12. Since “carrying capacity” is by definition the maximum permanently supportable population, the expression “permanent carrying capacity” is redundant. The redundancy may serve, nevertheless, to underscore the nature of our predicament. A related point is made by introducing in the next chapter the concept of “phantom carrying capacity” to refer to such things as fossil energy; to speak of “temporary carrying capacity” would be a contradiction.

Selected References

Ackerknecht, Erwin H. 1968. A Short History of Medicine. Revised edition. New York: Ronald Press.

Borrie, W D. 1970. The Growth and Control of World Population. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson.

Boughey, Arthur S. 1975. Man and the Environment. 2nd edition. New York: Macmillan.

Childe, V Gordon. 1951. Social Evolution. New York: Henry Schuman.

Childe, V Gordon. 1954. What Happened in History. Revised edition. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books.

Coale, Ansley J. 1974. “The History of the Human Population”. Scientific American 231 (September): 41-51.

Deevey, Edward S, Jr. 1960. “The Human Population”. Scientific American 203 (September): 194-204.

Desmond, Annabelle. 1962. “How Many People Have Ever Lived on Earth?” Population Bulletin 18 (February): 1-19.

Ehrlich, Paul R, Richard W Holm, and Irene L Brown. 1976. Biology and Society. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Hardin, Garrett. 1960. “The Competitive Exclusion Principle”. Science 131 (April 29): 1292-97.

Hollingsworth, T H. 1969. Historical Demography. Ithaca, New York : Cornell University Press.

Lenski, Gerhard, and Jean Lenski. 1978. Human Societies: An Introduction to Macrosociology. 3rd edition New York: McGraw-Hill.

Mumford, Lewis. 1934. Technics and Civilization. New York: Harcourt, Brace.

Nam, Charles B, editor. 1968. Population and Society. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Potter, David. 1954. People of Plenty: Economic Abundance and the American Character. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Singer, Charles, E J Holmyard, and A R Hall, editors. 1954. A History of Technology. 5 volumes. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Ubbelohde, A R 1955. Man and Energy. New York: George Braziller.

Webb, Walter Prescott. 1952. The Great Frontier. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

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Rapid Population Growth in California: A Threat to Land and Food Production

Posted on March 13, 2013 by energyskeptic

**David & Marcia Pimentel. June 2, 2008. Rapid Population Growth in California: A Threat to Land and Food Production. Cornell University, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences**

Are Californians —who are now coping with overcrowded cities, jammed highways, and a damaged environment— prepared for future population growth? Consider that by 2035, California’s population will approximately double to 64 million (39 million now), if current population growth continues. This projection is based on the state’s current 2% annual growth rate —a rate that is greater than the national growth rate of 1.1% and is generated primarily by the high immigration rate, both legal and illegal.

All human activities, economical enterprises, environmental preservation and food production systems will suffer when human numbers exceed the basic resources that support human life. If the population continues to climb, food security —the potential to produce enough food so that people in California can lead healthy and productive lives— will be significantly stressed. The future status of agricultural production is especially critical, as vital resources like arable land, clean water, adequate energy, and abundant biodiversity are rapidly depleted throughout California and the world.

Land Availability

Of the 2.3 billion acres of land in the United States, only 460 million acres, or 20%, are considered suitable for agricultural production. California has a fair amount of that fertile land, and ranks first in agricultural production in the U.S. However, a loss of agricultural land, and subsequent decrease in production, is imminent if current population trends continue. Essentially, the U.S. population, including California’s, is increasing geometrically while arable land per capita is simultaneously decreasing (Figure 1). This fertile land is lost to urbanization and industrial spread, transportation systems, and wind and water erosion.

At present, about 8% of the 100 million acres in California —8 million acres— are devoted to crops. Yet each year about 122,000 acres —1.5%— are lost from production when swallowed by urban and industrial spread. As the population grows, more and more people need a place to live and work, placing increasing demands on limited land areas. In general, each person added to the population requires approximately 1 acre of land for urbanization and highways. When the California population doubles to 64 million, as projected for 2035, about 32 million of California’s 100 million acres will need to be used for the housing, employment, and transportation of those 32 million additional people. Does California have that much land to spare even today?

Arable soil consists of only about the top 6 inches of soil; this fertile soil is easily lost by wind and water erosion. Stated simply, erosion occurs when the soil is exposed to energy from wind or water, like rainfall or running water. Poor farming tactics, such as the failure to practice crop rotation or to use wind blocks, can increase rates of erosion. Agricultural land in the United States typically erodes at a rate of about 6t/ha/year (2.47 acres = 1 hectare) for pasture land to 13t/ha/year for cropland, so a significant portion of California’s current 8 million acres of agricultural land are lost each year to erosion. Finally, salinization and/or waterlogging of soil from irrigation can further diminish the productivity of the land. And when crop production is curtailed, food prices will increase and the economic health of the state will suffer.

Agricultural production in California totals $20 billion each year, contributing a significant amount to the state’s income. The major agricultural counties in California are Fresno, Tulare, and Monterey, with annual sales of $2.1, $1.4, and $1.2 billion per year respectively. Much of this income could easily be lost unless California’s agricultural land base is protected from further population growth.

It is projected that in about 60 years, per capita agricultural land will be reduced to approximately half of what it is today. With a decreased supply and increased demand for food, food prices are expected to increase by 3-to-5 times current prices. So, even if the total dollar value of sales doesn’t decline as a direct result of the increased demand for diminished supply, the land area devoted to farms —and the number of farms— may be half what it is today. This change in the farming system will have a major impact on the economy of California and its people.

All told, California stands to lose a substantial amount of available farm land, at a substantial economic loss, if the population continues to grow. In fact, if the current rate of land loss continues, in less than 33 years approximately half of California’s cropland will no longer be available for production. In addition, the growing numbers of humans stress other natural resources, including water, energy, and the environment, that are also vitally important to agricultural production.

Water Resources

California, like many western U.S. states, is considered an arid state, with rainfall levels between 200 and 500 mm per year. The average American uses about 1,450 gallons/day/capita of water to meet all his/her needs, including agricultural production. Unfortunately, to provide the ever-increasing amounts of water necessary for a steadily increasing population, overdraft is already occurring from surface and ground water resources. For example, by the time the Colorado River enters the Gulf of California, it is literally a small trickle. The seven adjacent states —among them California, Nevada, Colorado, and Arizona— remove enormous amounts of water to meet their local needs, but return little or no water to the rapidly diminishing supply. Americans, especially those in arid states like California, are going to have to conserve and reduce their water use sooner rather than later, as the amount of available water per capita rapidly diminishes.

California agriculture consumes 80% of the pumped water in the state. For decades, providing water for agricultural, industrial, and home use has required massive efforts to channel water from afar to where it was needed in urban and agricultural areas. For instance, about 250 gallons of water are needed to produce 1 pound of grain. To irrigate an acre of corn requires nearly 1 million gallons of water during the 3 to 4 month growing season. Nearly all of California’s cropland, plus large percentages of forage and pasture land, are irrigated. The total land area currently irrigated in California is about 7.6 million acres.

At present, much of the irrigation water is being applied to low value crops like forage alfalfa and rice. This practice is possible only because the federal government provides generous subsidies —estimated at approximately $1.5 billion annually— to pay for the irrigation. This situation will change in the future when California agricultural requirements compete more intensely with the needs of a rapidly growing human population and industry. At present, irrigation water is cheap for the farmer, but since the water supply is limited and cannot be increased very much, available water will have to be shared, and at a higher price than at present. And as quality cropland is lost to urbanization and erosion, poor quality marginal land will probably need to be used for growing crops —land will surely require irrigation, further stressing the limited water supplies and increasing irrigation costs.

Energy Resources

People depend on a variety of sources of energy —wind, hydropower, solar energy, fossil fuels, and even energy from animals and people— to meet their basic needs. In most developed areas, including California, the primary source of energy is fossil energy from oil, gas, and coal. Like most U.S. farmers, California farmers use large amounts of fossil fuels to run their farm machinery and irrigation systems; about 17% of U.S. fossil energy expenditure supports our food system. Energy is also used to manufacture the fertilizers and pesticides needed by farmers as well as to power food processing and food transport systems.

Fossils fuels are a finite resource; once gone, their supplies cannot be replenished. Numerous studies indicate that the U.S. has only about 20 years of oil reserves and about 30 years of natural gas reserves left, given current levels of use. A steadily increasing population will place even greater demands on these limited supplies, requiring more and more oil to be imported from other countries. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, about 60% of our oil supply is currently being imported; nearly 100% will be imported by 2015.

In most of our lifetimes, and certainly in our children’s, we will witness the essential depletion of our U.S. oil reserves. As domestic oil supplies grow increasingly scarce, the price of gasoline and associated products will eventually rise. Then, both the high cost and limited availability of oil and other fossil fuels will restrict all human activities, including the expansion of modern intensive agriculture. Californians will need to produce even more food to feed the growing population, but will lack the energy resources to expand the agriculture systems.

Environment

In the late 1800’s, when California’s population reached 1 million, significant damage to the natural environment already was apparent. With each additional human added to the state’s current population of 32 million, the impact on California’s environment is intensified.

Californians are well aware of the air pollution in their cities and towns. For example, the ozone levels in Los Angeles, which has the highest density of automobiles per person in the world, well exceeds the EPA standard. The average exposure to carcinogens there is as much as 5000 times above the acceptable EPA level. Beyond harm to human health, air pollutants are also hazardous to crops and cause several million dollars worth of lost crops each year. As it becomes more and more difficult to feed increasing numbers of people, we cannot afford to lose any crops to pollution.

To date, about 91% of California’s wetlands have been drained and/or altered to provide more room for human activities. Loss of wetlands has significantly reduced the natural biodiversity in the state. Biodiversity is another finite resource; when a species is lost, it cannot be replaced. Maintaining biodiversity in plants, animals, and microbes is essential for the productivity of agriculture and forestry systems, the development of pharmaceutical products, the protection of the evolutionary processes that stabilize ecosystems, and for sustaining a quality environment for present and future generations.

In addition to the ongoing soil erosion and salinization associated with agriculture, water resources are being contaminated with sediments, pesticides, fertilizers, and salts. Livestock wastes, which are increasing in some areas, are a public nuisance and also seriously pollute waterways. As the population continues to grow, and as more livestock and food crops are required to feed the increasing numbers of humans, these environmental problems are expected to increase.

All these problems, from pollution to loss of biodiversity, will continue and intensify as long as the human population and its diverse activities continue to expand in California.

Conclusions

For the following reasons, California agriculture will be limited in the future, based on anticipated population growth and available resources: (1) substantial amounts of fertile agricultural land are lost each year to urbanization and erosion; (2) the water supply available for irrigation and other human uses is already severely stressed —current levels of use cannot be sustained much longer; (3) domestic fossil energy stores, the major source of power for agricultural production, are close to depletion; and (4) environmental damage in the form of polluted land, air, and water and lost biodiversity will limit the future development of crops and livestock.

As the human population in California, and throughout the world, continues to climb, the finite resources necessary for successful agricultural production will continue to be depleted; as these resources grow increasingly scarce, food production will be more limited and more expensive. As it becomes harder to feed the growing numbers of humans, our quality of life, even in developed countries like the United States, will decline. Our diet will change as food choices becomes more limited, depending less on animal protein and more on grain, legumes, and fruits and vegetables. As food becomes more expensive, Americans will need to spend more and more of their income —30 to 50% as compared to the current 15%— on food. With less money available to spend and less land available for recreation and other activities, our lifestyles may be significantly modified.

Many people propose that technological advances will save us, that we will figure out ways to cope with our increasing population and diminishing resources. While technology has produced many positive benefits for humankind, it cannot increase the supply of our basic resources; technology cannot increase the land area of California or produce fresh water, fertile soil, or fossil fuels. In fact, realizing the potential of technology rests of the continued availability of our basic land, water, energy, and biotic resources.

Conserving remaining natural resources is a necessary starting point for preserving our health and quality of life. However, conservation measures alone will not be sufficient to ensure food security for future generations unless population growth is curtailed. Private citizens and public leaders in California need to work together to stabilize their population. Their aim should be to insure that future generations have a secure food supply and a life style they can enjoy. As the basic per capita resources decrease and the quality of the natural environment declines, personal freedom to have adequate, healthy food, to earn a satisfactory living and to enjoy nature no longer will be an option. The lives and livelihood of future Californians depend on what action present generations are willing to take to reduce population numbers. Otherwise, the harsh realities of nature will impose a drastic solution for us.

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Nothing is So Powerful As an Exponential Whose Time Has Come

Posted on March 13, 2013 by energyskeptic

Donella Meadows on: Nothing is So Powerful As an Exponential Whose Time Has Come

The reason environmentalists are often so gloomy is that they know what the word “exponential” means.

“A lack of appreciation for what exponential increase really means leads society to be disastrously sluggish in acting on critical issues,” said Dr. Thomas Lovejoy of the Smithsonian Institution in a speech that has been reverberating through the environmental community. “I am utterly convinced that most of the great environmental struggles will be either won or lost in the 1990s, and that by the next century it will be too late.”

What’s he talking about? What does exponential increase mean?

It means growing like this: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32. Doubling and then doubling again and then doubling again. Everyone understands that, right?

Not really, not at a gut level. For example: suppose you agree to eat one peanut on the first day of the month, two peanuts on the second, four peanuts on the third, eight peanuts on the fourth, and keep doubling every day. How long do you think you can keep going? How long will a pound can of shelled peanuts last you?

The first pound of peanuts will be gone on the ninth — you’ll eat half the can that day and feel pretty queasy. On the tenth you’ll eat a whole pound, if you can, which I doubt. By the fifteenth you’ll be scheduled to eat 32 pounds of peanuts. You’ll have to eat roughly your own weight in peanuts by the 17th; on the 21st the total will have risen to one ton; and by the end of the month, assuming a 30-day month, it will be 500 tons.

Just a few doublings add up ferociously fast — that’s what Thomas Lovejoy was saying.

Mexico, with a population of 84 million and a doubling time of 29 years, will, if it keeps that up, grow to 168 million in 29 years and to 672 million within the lifetime of a child born today. That’s nothing compared to Kenya, which has a doubling time of 17 years. If it goes on growing at that rate, in 70 years there will be ten Kenyans for every one today.

Until the 1970s world oil consumption was growing at seven percent per year. That means doubling every ten years. (The doubling time of anything growing exponentially is 70 divided by its annual growth rate — 70 divided by seven percent is a ten-year doubling time.) Every ten years we used as much oil as we had used in all previous history. Every ten years we had to go out and discover as much oil as we had ever discovered before — and then, to keep going, discover twice that much in the next ten years.

We didn’t keep going. We couldn’t have. Exponential growth makes the cupboard bare very fast. Even if the entire earth were filled with nothing but high-grade crude oil, if we used it with an annual growth rate of seven percent, it would be gone in 342 years. There’s still plenty of oil around now, but we’ve been burning it faster than we’ve been discovering it for 20 years now.

You may have heard that we have 1000 years’ worth of coal. If we burn 7 percent more of it each year than the year before (which we may well do, substituting it for the disappearing oil), it will last just 61 years, and it will bring on global climate change much faster than even the worst pessimists are now expecting.

Said Dr. Lovejoy, “I find to my personal horror that I have not been immune to naiveté about exponential functions. While I have been aware that the … loss of biological diversity, tropical deforestation, forest dieback in the northern hemisphere, and climate change are growing exponentially, it is only this very year that I think I have truly internalized how rapid their accelerating threat really is.”

You don’t get much reaction time when your problems grow exponentially. My favorite story to illustrate that point is an old French riddle.

Suppose you own a pond on which a water lily is growing. The lily doubles in size each day. If the lily were allowed to grow unchecked, it would completely cover the pond in 30 days, choking off other forms of life in the water. For a long time the plant is almost invisible, and so you decide not to worry about cutting it back until it covers half the pond. On what day will that be?

On the twenty-ninth day.

We are emitting carbon dioxide and several other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere exponentially. We are clearing tropical forest at an exponential rate. The human population is growing exponentially. Human energy use, human production of synthetic chemicals, deserts, and trash are growing exponentially. Our economy is growing exponentially, and we cheer it on, although an economic growth rate of, say, 3.5 percent per year means another whole industrial world plopped down on top of this one in just two decades.

We can’t keep it up. If we understood the consequences of exponential growth, we wouldn’t even want to try.

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Nering on the Mirage of a Growing Fuel Supply

Posted on March 13, 2013 by energyskeptic

4 June 2001. Evar D. Nering. The Mirage of a Growing Fuel Supply. New York Times.

In my classes, I describe the following hypothetical situation:

We have a 100-year supply of oil if it were consumed at its current rate. But the oil is consumed at a rate that grows 5 percent a year. How long will it last? 36 years

Let’s say we underestimated the supply, and we actually have a 1,000-year supply with the same 5% growth rate in use. How long will the oil last now? 79 years

We strike a bonanza and have a 10,000-year supply. At our same 5% rate of growing use, how long will it last? 125 years

The point of this analysis is that it really doesn’t matter what the estimates are.

There is no way that a supply-side attack on America’s energy problem can work.

The exponential function describes the behavior of any quantity whose rate of change is proportional to its size. Compound interest is the most commonly encountered example – it would produce exponential growth if the interest were calculated at a continuing rate. I have heard public statements that use “exponential” as though it describes a large or sudden increase. But exponential growth does not have to be large, and it is never sudden. Rather, it is inexorable.

Calculations also show that if consumption of an energy resource is allowed to grow at a steady 5 percent annual rate, a full doubling of the available supply will not be as effective as reducing that growth rate by half – to 2.5 percent. Doubling the size of the oil reserve will add at most 14 years to the life expectancy of the resource if we continue to use it at the currently increasing rate, no matter how large it is currently. On the other hand, halving the growth of consumption will almost double the life expectancy of the supply, no matter what it is.

This mathematical reality seems to have escaped the politicians pushing to solve our energy problem by simply increasing supply. Building more power plants and drilling for more oil is exactly the wrong thing to do, because it will encourage more use. If we want to avoid dire consequences, we need to find the political will to reduce the growth in energy consumption to zero – or even begin to consume less.

I must emphasize that reducing the growth rate is not what most people are talking about now when they advocate conservation; the steps they recommend are just Band-Aids. If we increase the gas mileage of our automobiles and then drive more miles, for example, that will not reduce the growth rate.

Reducing the growth of consumption means living closer to where we work or play. It means telecommuting. It means controlling population growth. It means shifting to renewable energy sources.

To do otherwise is to leave our descendants in an impoverished world.

Nering is professor emeritus of mathematics at Arizona State University.

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Poverty is Increasing

Posted on March 6, 2013 by energyskeptic

4 Apr 2013. 21 Statistics About The Explosive Growth Of Poverty In America That Everyone Should Know. TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com

A few of the 21 stats:

An all-time record 47.79 million Americans are now on food stamps. Back in the 1970s, about one out of every 50 Americans was on food stamps. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, approximately one out of every six Americans is now living in poverty. The number of Americans living in poverty is now at a level not seen since the 1960s.
approximately 20 percent of all children in the United States are living in poverty. Incredibly, a higher percentage of children is living in poverty in America today than was the case back in 1975. more than one out of every four children in the United States is enrolled in the food stamp program. For the first time ever, more than a million public school students in the United States are homeless. That number has risen by 57 percent since the 2006-2007 school year. About one out of every three children in the U.S. lives in a home without a father.
40%t of all unemployed workers in America have been out of work for at least half a year and of those working, one out of every four workers in the United States brings home wages that are at or below the poverty level. more than 100 million Americans are enrolled in at least one welfare program run by the federal government. And that does not even include Social Security or Medicare.

Fottrell, Q. December 23, 2015. Most Americans have less than $1,000 in savings. MarketWatch.com

Approximately 62% of Americans have less than $1,000 in their savings accounts and 21% don’t even have a savings account, according to a new survey of more than 5,000 adults conducted this month by Google Consumer Survey for personal finance website GOBankingRates.com. “It’s worrisome that such a large percentage of Americans have so little set aside in a savings account,” says Cameron Huddleston, a personal finance analyst for the site. “They likely don’t have cash reserves to cover an emergency and will have to rely on credit, friends and family, or even their retirement accounts to cover unexpected expenses.

This is supported by a similar survey of 1,000 adults carried out earlier this year by personal finance site Bankrate.com, which also found that 62% of Americans have no emergency savings for things such as a $1,000 emergency room visit or a $500 car repair. Faced with an emergency, they say they would raise the money by reducing spending elsewhere (26%), borrowing from family and/or friends (16%) or using credit cards (12%). And among those who had savings prior to 2008, 57% said they’d used some or all of their savings in the Great Recession, according to a U.S. Federal Reserve survey of over 4,000 adults released last year. Of course, paltry savings-account rates don’t encourage people to save either.

In the latest survey, 29% said they have savings above $1,000 and, of those who do have money in their savings account, the most common balance is $10,000 or more (14%), followed by 5% of adults surveyed who have saved between $5,000 and just shy of $10,000; 10% say they have saved $1,000 to just shy of $5,000.

Some age groups are less likely to have savings than others. Some 31% of Generation X — who are roughly aged 35 to 54 for the purpose of this survey — while being older and presumably more experienced with money than their younger cohorts, actually report a savings account balance of zero, which is the highest percentage of all age groups. Around 29% of millennials — aged 18 to 34 — and 28% of baby boomers — aged 55 to 64 — said they have no money in their savings account. Baby boomers (17%) and seniors aged 65 and up (20%) have the most money saved of any age group while less than 10% of millennials and approximately 16% of Generation X have $10,000 or more saved.

Posted in Poverty | Tagged poverty, retirement, savings | Comments Off

Natural Gas Facts and Statistics

Posted on January 25, 2013 by energyskeptic

Impurities can also be present in large proportions, including carbon dioxide (CO2), helium, water, nitrogen and hydrogen sulfide (H2S), but also mercury. All of these impurities, especially CO2 and H2S, must be removed from the natural gas stream before transport and commercialization. CO2 and H2S can corrode pipelines, are highly toxic and are significant sources of air pollution. Gases with high levels of H2S and CO2 are also called sour gases.

SBC. October 2014. Factbook Natural Gas Factbook. SBC Energy Institute

83% of natural gas comes from conventional reservoirs: 2.9 trillion cubic meters
13% of reservoirs account for 70% of global reserves
The number of discoveries of giant fields has fallen since 1972
17% comes from unconventional resources: .6 tcm and 43% of that (2.6 tcm) was produced in the US. In 2013, shale gas accounted for 39% of total natural gas output in the US
At 3.5 trillion cubic meters (tcm) world-wide production in 2013, reserves will last from Rystad’s 2014 estimate 60.4 tcm for 17 years, or 58 years if OPEC’s estimate of 200 tcm reserves is correct. Page 24
Technically recoverable resources (the volume of natural gas recoverable with current exploration and production technology and no regard to cost) are 855 tcm and would last 244 years @ 3.5 tcm/year (if we can get them).
Conventional
Conventional reservoirs tend to require less technology to be developed and to yield higher recovery rates. However, reservoirs located in deep water or Arctic environments, and those containing a high level of sour gas may also be very challenging to develop.

We are counting on shale gas, but we’re drilling the best “sweet” spots, and even so, it declines rapidly:

Due to the properties of the source rock, shale-gas wells usually exhibit early production peaks and then enter rapid decline – typically 50% over 3 years. In addition, shale-gas plays concentrations of recoverable generally have lower resources – typically around 0.04-0.6 bcm/km2, compared with an average of 2 bcm/km2 in the case of conventional resources. Consequently, shale-gas production requires more wells.

	Conventional	Tight Gas	Shale Gas	Coalbed Methane
Proved reserves (tcm)	60.4	78.0	4.9	0.98
USA reserves (tcm)		3.2	10.4	0.8
Technically recoverable resources (tcm)	519.0	2.3	210.0	48.0
Current Production bcm/y	2831.0	215.0	266.0	71.0
USA Production bcm/y	211.8	133.2	242.3	52.8
Cost of production per Mbtu	$0.2 – 9 (a)	$3 – 9 (b)	$2-10 ©	$3-8 (d)
Recovery Factor %	60-80	30-50	8-30	50-85

Sources:

(a) Source: IEA (2013), “World Energy Outlook 2013”; Rystad databases (accessed May 2014); BP (2013), “BP Statistical World Energy Review 2013”
(b) Rystad databases (accessed May 2014); IEA (2013), “Resources-to-Reserves 2013”; Schlumberger (2011), “Basic Petroleum Geochemistry for Source Rock Evaluation”
(c) Schlumberger (2011), “Shale Gas: A Global Resource”; Schlumberger (2006), “Producing Gas from Its Source”; Rystad databases (accessed May 2014); IEA (2013), “Resources-to-Reserves 2013”
(d) Schlumberger (2009), “Coalbed Methane: Clean Energy for the World”; Rystad databases (accessed May 2014); IEA (2013), “World Energy Outlook”

The slide below is especially scary because it shows that USA conventional reserves are only 26%:

And the United States is producing its reserves at a very rapid rate:

Proved reserves are based on figures from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and Rystad (P90 for the latter). They correspond to those quantities of natural gas which, by analysis of geological and engineering data, can be estimated with reasonable certainty to be commercially recoverable, from a given date forward, from known reservoirs and under current economic conditions, operating methods, and government regulations.

Like CO2, methane is a potent greenhouse gas (GHG). However, it has a higher global warming potential (GWP) than CO2. According to the IPCC, methane GWP would be 28 to 84 times higher than CO2 GWP over 100-year and 20-year horizons, respectively.

While abundant, the largest conventional gas resources are concentrated in a small number of countries. In the 2000s, it was thought that Russia, Iran and Qatar owned more than 70% of known conventional gas resources, but recent discoveries of conventional reservoirs in East Africa and the Mediterranean Sea have opened up new gas frontiers, reducing the concentration of natural gas reserves.

According to OPEC, natural gas production was led by North America, Russia, and the Middle East; of this, 83% came from conventional reservoirs.

About 21% and 10% of all produced natural gas is now traded internationally via, respectively, pipelines and LNG. As a rule of thumb, the longer the shipping distance, the more economically attractive LNG tends to become compared with pipelines. Growth in the LNG trade has been made possible by the expansion of LNG infrastructure: there are now 29 countries with import facilities and 19 with export facilities, trading 237 million tons per annum (Mtpa) of LNG. With new export and regasification facilities under construction, the expansion is expected to continue. Meanwhile, floating liquefaction and regasification concepts have garnered attention as a way of reducing development time, increasing flexibility and lowering capital costs. The first floating storage and regasification units (FSRU) have been commissioned. Four floating liquefaction (FLNG) projects have achieved a final investment decision. Nevertheless, many gas fields are too small or remote to justify pipelines or LNG investment. In order to tap these resources, known as stranded gas, two alternative technologies are being considered: compressed natural gas (CNG) and gas-to-liquids (GTL).

The buildings segment still accounts for 22% of direct natural gas demand and this share is expected to remain stable in the next few decades. Thermal applications are dominant: space heating, water heating and cooking account for 54%, 22% and 11% of natural gas demand in the buildings sector, respectively. The use of natural gas in buildings varies significantly, depending on climate, urbanization patterns, or building design and insulation.

In industry, natural gas is used as a heat source, but also as a chemical feedstock. Direct natural gas consumption represents around 18% of final energy consumption in industry. The chemicals and petrochemicals sectors are by far the most important consumers (accounting for 44% of total industry demand for gas). This is because natural gas is largely used as a source of heat in refineries and as feedstock for producing ammonia and methanol. Other than for chemicals, the bulk of industrial gas demand comes from small-scale industrial consumers using natural gas in small-to medium-scale boilers to generate heat. Any switch from coal to gas in the industrial sector is likely to be relatively limited and subject to the development of carbon pricing.

Conventional gas refers to resources accumulated in a reservoir in which buoyant forces keep hydrocarbons in place below a sealing cap rock. Reservoir and fluid characteristics typically permit natural gas to flow readily into a wellbore. The term unconventional reservoirs, in which gas might throughout a reservoir at the basin scale, and in which buoyant forces are insufficient to expel gas from the reservoir, meaning that intervention is required. Conventional gas reservoirs can either be isolated (non-associated) or associated with oil. Associated gas can be in form of a gas cap (free gas) or it can exist in solution within the oil (solution gas). Natural gas was long considered an unwanted byproduct of oil and was only considered as a commercial prospect when deposits were located close to markets or gas infrastructure.

Coalbed methane is generated during the formation of coal and is contained to varying degrees within all coal microstructure. Because of coal’s porous nature and its many natural cracks and fissures, coal can store more gas than a conventional reservoir of similar volume. However, production from CBM wells can be difficult because of the low permeability of most coal seams. As a result, technologies such as directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing are used to open access to larger areas, enhancing well productivity. Finally, CBM production is often associated with extensive production of water. Water must be removed in order to reduce pressure within the reservoir, making lifting and surface separation more complex and costly. CBM production is advanced in the U.S., Canada and Australia.

Pipelines

Pipelines are the backbone of gas transportation, with a global network of 1. 4 million kilometers

Globally, more than 89% of natural gas is transported along a 1.4 million km pipeline grid. One-third of this network are lines transporting large pressure, large-diameter (6’’-48’’) pipelines. The other two-thirds comprise thinner pipelines at production sites, called gathering lines, and the medium- and low-pressure distribution grids that supply end-customers. Pressure is required to maintain the gas flow. As a result, compression stations are located every 80-160 kilometers along the transport grid. Each station contains one or several compressor units (up to 16). These are classified by their horsepower (up to 50,000-80,000) and gas capacity (up to 90 Mcm/d). Compressors can use a motor (reciprocating) or a turbine (known as centrifugal). Gas-filtering, but also cooling and heating facilities are often included in the station to maintain gas temperature. Gas transport pipelines are usually made of carbon steel and protected against corrosion by external coating and cathodic protection systems.

Pipeline costs vary significantly according to capacity, length and their physical environment, but are dominated by the costs of labor and materials.

Before liquefaction, natural gas must be cleaned to remove contaminants, which might freeze during liquefaction or corrode pipelines. Heavier hydrocarbons are also extracted to meet gas specifications.

LNG

Several liquefaction projects are in development in the U.S., but most are awaiting final investment decisions. Sabine Pass is the only project under construction as of 2014.

Australia is the third largest LNG exporter (22.2 mtpa, or 10% of world exports) after Qatar (77.2 mtpa) and Malaysia (24.7 mtpa) but ahead of Indonesia (17 mtpa). However, Australia, where 53% (63.8 mtpa) of the liquefaction capacity under construction worldwide is located, is expected to take over Qatar as the largest LNG exporter by 2020.

Natural gas prices: for distances up to 9,000 km, LNG tends to require more energy than pipelines, making it more exposed to price increases (i.e. the break-even point between pipeline and LNG may occur over a longer distance than when a pipelines system is used).

Many gas fields are too small or too remote to justify investment in pipelines or LNG facilities. In some environments, the use of pipelines is simply not practical. A possible alternative is compressed natural gas, which is already being used for local gas distribution onshore, but whose application offshore, although conceptually CNG’s main benefit is that it requires relatively little infrastructure, so capital requirements are low : compression is a common feature of most gas-production units and less costly than liquefaction; offloading requires simple buoys. However, CNG has a lower energy density than LNG (typically around one-third, depending on the pressure). As a result, investments in CNG carriers are greater and operating costs are also higher (notably fuel costs).

If the US ever needs to import LNG because shale gas gets too expensive to drill, there are very few regasification plants:

LNG is very expensive as well

Aluminum, pulp & paper, cement, iron & steel, and chemicals & petrochemicals are the main energy-intensive industries and together account for more than 50% of industrial energy demand

Natural gas plays an important role as a feedstock for producing ammonia, methanol and other hydrocarbon-based products (e.g. olefins, such as ethylene and propylene, using natural gas liquids2). Ammonia is one of the most extensively produced chemicals in the world, helping to create over 500 million tons of nitrogen fertilizer per year. Similarly, methanol is a widespread chemical product, with around 100 million tons used every year as anti-freeze, solvent or fuel. In recent decades, natural gas has become the primary feedstock in ammonia and methanol production. Low natural gas prices and progress in plant design encouraged its use, leading to gains in energy efficiency. Steam methane reforming represents around 77% of hydrogen produced as a basis for ammonia; 75% of methanol production comes from natural gas. In both cases, the remainder is mainly made up of coal

June 2014: The Middle East has 43.2% of the total natural gas deposits in the world (80.3 trillion cu/m) according to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy June 2014 report. Qatar has 24.7 trillion cu/m with Saudi Arabia next in line containing 8.2 trillion cu/m in the region. he International Energy Agency (IEA) has, however, stated that the demand for natural gas will exceed its production from Middle East countries by the year 2019.

25 Jan 2013. Rush to Natural Gas has Coal-fired utilities Seeing Red. Wall Street Journal.

Electricity from Natural Gas is now 30%, up 12% from 10 years ago (18%). From coal: now 37%, down 13% from 10 years ago (50%)

U.S. electricity in trillions of kWh (kilowatt hours):

Coal 1.7 Trillion
Natural Gas 1.0 Trillion
Nuclear .79 Trillion

Some prefer coal power plants, where coal can be stockpiled. Gas is hard to store in bulk near power plants, making plants dependent on natural gas pipelines that simetimes have delivery issues.

Only 3 states buy gas under contracts longer than 3 years (OR, CO, OK).

More than you wanted to know about Natural gas. Below are excerpts. You’d be far better off reading in pdf format where all the pictures and graphs are): SBC. October 2014. Factbook Natural Gas Factbook. SBC Energy Institute. 87 pages

Natural gas is not solely methane. It is composed of a mixture of hydrocarbon components, including methane but also ethane, propane, butane and pentane– commonly known as natural gas liquids (NGLs)– and of impurities such as carbon dioxide (CO2), hydrogen sulfide (H2S), water and nitrogen. The composition is highly variable and depends on the resource’s location. In some fields, contaminants, especially those that characterize sour gas (CO2 or H2S), represent a high proportion of the natural gas mixture, making exploitation harder and more expensive. Sometimes, NGLs – hydrocarbons that are in gaseous form in the reservoir, but that become liquid under ambient conditions– account for a significant share of natural gas; a mix rich in NGLs, known as wet gas. In 2013, wet gas yields 9 million barrels of oil equivalent a day, contributing 10% to global liquid hydrocarbon supply. In all situations, natural gas must be processed to remove NGLs and contaminants.

Natural gas’s main drawbacks relative to other hydrocarbon fuels are its low volumetric energy density and gaseous nature, which makes it harder to handle than solid or liquid fuels. In order to be transported, natural gas needs to be conditioned in some way– either by compression or by liquefaction. This increases shipping costs and results in limited fungibility. The global-warming potential of its main constituent, methane, presents another problem. Similar to CO2, methane is a potent greenhouse gas. However, an equivalent quantity of methane emitted into the atmosphere would entail 84 and 28 more radiative forcings than CO2 over 20- and 100-year horizons, respectively. As a consequence, methane leaks from natural gas systems, if significant and not mitigated, could negate the climate benefit of natural gas compared with other fuels

Natural gas is an energy source that can be used as gaseous fuel, but also in non-gaseous forms– for instance, as electricity after conversion in a turbine or as a liquid after conversion in a gas-to-liquids plant.

Natural gas systems rely on a complex, infrastructure-intensive value chain for extracting, processing, transporting and distributing energy to end customers.

Natural gas resources are usually classified according to the properties of the reservoir in which they are trapped. Resources are referred to as conventional when accumulated in a reservoir whose permeability characteristics permit natural gas to flow readily into a wellbore; and as unconventional when buoyancy forces are insufficient and intervention is required to make the gas flow. Conventional reservoirs are broken down further into, respectively, the non-associated and associated categories, depending on whether gas is found in isolation or dissolved in oil.

There are four main types of unconventional reservoir: tight, shale, coalbed and methane hydrates. Tight and shale accumulations refer to low permeability formations. However, unlike in tight reservoirs, gas in shale rocks has remained in the rock where it formed, making exploration and production more difficult.

Coalbed methane (CBM) is generated during the formation of coal and is contained to varying degrees within all coal microstructure. The presence of this gas is well known from underground coal mining, where it presents a serious safety risk. It is called coal-seam methane in Australia, where it is an important resource. However, producing from CBM wells can be difficult because of the low permeability of most coal seams and the associated production of large volumes of water. In general, unconventional reservoirs tend to yield lower recovery rates than conventional reservoirs, and usually require more technology.

Two technologies have been instrumental in exploiting unconventional resources. Hydraulic fracturing, which involves creating cracks in the rock through which the gas can flow to the wells; and horizontal drilling, which enables wells to penetrate a greater length of the reservoir than is possible with vertical wells, increasing contact with the production zone.

Taken together, natural gas resources are abundant. Depending on data sources and the definition used for reserves, reserves amount to between 69 and 200 trillion cubic meters (tcm) and technically recoverable resources amount to up to 855 tcm. Reserves would, therefore, last between 20 and 58 years, based on a figure for gas consumption in 2013 of 3.5 tcm. Technically recoverable resources, meanwhile, would last over 200 years. While abundant, the largest conventional gas resources are concentrated in a small number of countries. In the 2000s, it was thought that Russia, Iran and Qatar owned more than 70% of known conventional gas resources.

Unconventional resources are much more widespread and recent discoveries of conventional reservoirs in East Africa or the Mediterranean Sea have opened up new gas frontiers, reducing the concentration of natural gas reserves.

According to the OPEC, natural gas production reached 3.5 tcm in 2013, led by North America, Russia, and the Middle East; of this, 83% came from conventional reservoirs. However, while conventional reservoirs continue to dominate production, output from unconventional accumulations grew 9 times faster than conventional production in 2013, reaching 0.6 tcm. Production from shale reservoirs in the U.S. has been the main driver of growth and now represents 43% of global unconventional gas production. Going forward, natural gas production is expected to continue to increase, driven by unconventional resources and new conventional resources (associated and non-associated gas). For instance, Rystad forecasts that natural gas production will reach 4.6 tcm by 2035.

Complex infrastructure is needed to get natural gas to end-users – processing plants, transport & distribution grids, and storage units

Raw natural gas collected at the wellhead needs to be processed to meet pipeline quality standards, to ensure safe and clean operations, and to extract valuable natural gas liquids (NGLs). As of 2013, there are close to 2, 000 gas-processing plants operating worldwide, with a global capacity of around 7.6 billion cubic meter (bcm) per day. More than half of capacity is located in North America, but the Middle East and Asia, where utilization rates (i.e. gas processing throughput / gas-processing capacity) are much higher than in the U.S., are expected to take over as market drivers.

The low energy density of natural gas has long been an impediment to long- distance transportation, and most natural gas is still consumed close to production centers. However, long-distance trade has increased steadily in recent decades. Along with pipelines, which have been in use since the 19th century, LNG is playing a growing role in long-distance shipping. About 21% and 10% of all produced natural gas is now traded internationally via, respectively, pipelines and LNG. As a rule of thumb, the longer the shipping distance, the more economically attractive LNG tends to become compared with pipelines. Growth in the LNG trade has been made possible by the expansion of LNG infrastructure: there are now 29 countries with import facilities and 19 with export facilities, trading 237 million tons per annum (Mtpa) of LNG. With new export and regasification facilities under construction, the expansion is expected to continue. Meanwhile, floating liquefaction and regasification concepts have garnered attention as a way of reducing development time, increasing flexibility and lowering capital costs. The first floating storage and regasification units (FSRU) have been commissioned. Four floating liquefaction (FLNG) projects have achieved a final investment decision. Nevertheless, many gas fields are too small or remote to justify pipelines or LNG investment. In order to tap these resources, known as stranded gas, two alternative technologies are being considered: compressed natural gas (CNG) and gas-to-liquids (GTL).

The former is already in use onshore, but its application offshore is still at an early deployment phase. The latter is technically mature but still in its commercial infancy, with only four plants operating worldwide and subject to the development of economically viable small-scale modular systems.

Underground storage vessels include depleted oil and gas fields, aquifers and salt formations; the choice depends on local geology and how the storage facility will be used. Flexibility in storage capacity has become an important parameter because of growth in the use of natural gas in power generation and because of the limited flexibility of production from unconventional gas reservoirs. As a result, salt caverns have become popular; although they are relatively expensive, their flexibility is unrivalled.

natural gas needs to be pressurized, odorized and controlled to be safely delivered to end-customers. Except for a few large customers, most end- users are supplied through low-pressure networks.

Local distribution involves smaller delivery volumes than long-distance transmission, and delivery over shorter distances to many more locations. As a consequence, distribution lines make up the majority of installed pipelines. Ensuring safety is the main challenge faced by distribution-grid operators.

natural gas plays a major role in all end-use sectors, except for transport. Power generation is the main driver of natural gas consumption, representing 40% of gas demand globally, up from 35% in 1990.

For many years, the use of natural gas in commercial and residential buildings was the backbone of natural gas demand. The buildings segment still accounts for 22% of direct natural gas demand and this share is expected to remain stable in the next few decades. Thermal applications are dominant: space heating, water heating and cooking account for 54%, 22% and 11% of natural gas demand in the buildings sector, respectively. The use of natural gas in buildings varies significantly, depending on climate, urbanization patterns, or building design and insulation.

1785 First commercial use of manufactured gas1 fuel for lighting.

1812 First gas company founded in London.

1885 Bunsen burner invented: ability to create a flame safe enough for cooking and heating applications 1936 First industrial gas turbine developed independently from jet engine.

1970s First combined-cycle power plants with a power output around 200 MW.

2000s Major development programs for compressed natural gas vehicles 1800 1850 1900 1950 2000 MANUFACTURED GAS CONVENTIONAL GAS & UNCONVENTIONAL GAS 1785 1821 First well specifically intended to obtain natural gas drilled in Fredonia, New York. 1872 First long-distance natural gas pipeline in the U. S. completed in Pennsylvania. 1915 1947 Hydraulic fracturing first used in U.S. 1951 First production of natural gas from coal beds. 2014 1995 Hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling led to successful exploitation of shale gas in Barnett, Texas. 1959 First use of depleted reservoirs for natural gas Methane Pioneer shipped the first cargo of LNG from storage. the U.S. to the U.K. 1992 World’s largest gas field, South Pars/North Field fully delineated. Note: 1Manufactured

Organic matter, such as the remains of recently living organisms ( e.g. plants, algae, animals, plankton…), is the origin of all the hydrocarbons generated in the earth. A very small portion of this organic matter is deposited in poorly oxygenated aqueous environments (seas, deltas, lakes…), where it is protected from the action of aerobic bacteria and is mixed with sediments to form the source rock.

Over time, the weight of gradually accumulating organic material and debris causes source rock to subside to great depths, where its organic content entrapped in a mud-like substance known as kerogen, is subject to increasing temperature and pressure.

These conditions lead to the thermal cracking of kerogen’s long molecular chains into smaller and lighter hydrocarbon molecules1. During the catagenis phase (50-150°C), kerogen bounds are gradually cracked into oil or into wet gas depending on the kerogen type. As temperatures rise in proportion with depth, hydrocarbon molecules become lighter as depth beneath the surface increases. During a last stage, known as metagenesis, additional heat and chemical changes eventually convert most of the remaining kerogen into methane and carbon residues. Hydrocarbon molecules are then expelled from the source rock during a “primary migration” phase, mainly as a consequence of high pressures. Hydrocarbons will then set off on a“secondary migration phase, making their way upward through rocky layers. If stopped by an impermeable layer of rock, also referred to as seal, hydrocarbons may accumulate in the pores and fissures of a reservoir rock. Otherwise, they may escape from the surface or solidify into bitumen.

Methane [CH4] is the chief constituent of most natural gas, but it may also contain lesser amounts of ethane [C2H6], propane [C3H8], butane [C4H10] and pentane [C5H12], commonly known as natural gas liquids (NGLs).

Components heavier than methane, known as natural gas liquids (NGLs), represent 10% of global liquid hydrocarbon supply

Hydrocarbon components of natural gas that are heavier than methane are called natural gas liquids (NGLs). They can be extracted in a processing plant2 and commercialized as liquid fuels. Natural gas that is rich in NGLs is usually called wet gas or rich gas, as opposed to dry gas or lean gas. Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), to make a further distinction, is a subset of NGLs, comprising propane and butane. LPG can be liquefied through pressurization (i.e. without requiring cryogenic refrigeration), and used as a liquid fuel.

In 2012, supply of NGLs amounted to 9 million barrels a day, representing about 10% of world liquid hydrocarbon production. While total liquid supply has increased at a 1% compound average annual growth rate (CAGR) since 1980, NGLs production has more than doubled with a CAGR of 3.1%.

In some fields, contaminants can be found in very high concentrations. This increases investment needs and production costs to the extent that production may even be rendered uneconomic. Natural gas rich in hydrogen sulfide (H2S) or carbon dioxide (CO2) is called sour gas or acid gas. CO2 and H2S are both extremely corrosive and H2S is also toxic. When these gases are present, special equipment is needed (e.g. special alloys for tubing and piping) to ensure that the natural gas can be safely transported and processed, prior to being sold.

20-40% of global recoverable gas resources could be considered, to varying degrees, to be sour gas, especially in the Middle East and Central Asia, but also in North America, Australia and Russia. Even if sour gas fields have a long history of successful development in several places, lowering the costs of sour-gas operation is essential if its potential is to be fully tapped. This could be through innovation in gas-separation technologies used in processing plants or more advanced deployment of capture and re-injection, including enhanced oil recovery.

Natural gas’s volatility and low energy density make handling it difficult

VOLUMETRIC ENERGY DENSITY OF CHEMICAL FUELS1 ? Natural gas’s main drawback relative to other MJ/liter hydrocarbon fuels is its low volumetric energy density, i.e. energy stored per unit of volume. This becomes especially challenging when natural gas is used as a Diesel transport fuel. In addition, its gaseous nature makes it volatile and harder to handle than solid fuels like coal or Gasoline liquid fuels such as crude oil.35 ? As a consequence, natural gas needs to be“packaged” in some way in order to increase its energy density and to allow for safe and economic transport and storage. Two main conditioning technologies are used: 1) compression, in which natural gas is pressurized, and 2

liquefaction, in which cryogenic refrigeration turns natural gas into a liquid. Compression is by far the most common handling technology, but liquefaction, which results in Liquefied natural gas 22 greater energy density, is also a mature technology and common in long-distance transport2. Finally, natural gas can Methanol also be converted into liquid fuels in a process known as gas-to-liquids (GTL)3.

Whatever the technology, gas conditioning incurs high handling costs and has limited flexibility. Unlike oil, for instance, which is fungible, natural gas relies on a heavy infrastructure pressurized or storage caverns or cryogenic carrier).

Without such infrastructure, natural gas would be flared or vented

Conventional reservoirs tend to require less technology to be developed and to yield higher recovery rates. However, reservoirs located in deep water or Arctic environments, and those containing a high level of sour gas may also be very challenging to develop.

Methane hydrates could considerably increase natural gas resources but are still at a very early development phase Four production methods are under investigation for methane-hydrate recovery: 1) depressurization, which has emerged as the preferred solution, involves lowering the water level in the well; 2) thermal stimulation, which involves warming the formation; 3) chemical inhibition, which exploits the ability of certain organic or ionic compounds to destabilize gas hydrates; and 4) CO2 injection.

The industry does not expect any large-scale commercial production to happen before 2030 because of the considerable technology and environmental barriers faced. Besides, the development of methane hydrates has been affected by the shale-gas revolution. The latter has resulted in new– and less concentrated– gas resources, and in lower gas prices in most regions.

Conventional reserves in Russia and the Middle East, and unconventionals in North America make the largest contributions to natural gas reserves

Natural gas resources are relatively concentrated geographically: 13% of discovered reservoirs account for 70% of global reserves

Giant gas fields– with recoverable totals that exceed 100 bcm– hold more than 70% of global reserves but account for just 13% of the total number of fields.

The number of fields discovered each year increased steadily between 1950 and 1982, and has remained high ever since. But growth in the size of discoveries slowed down after 1972 as the number of giant discoveries fell.

Resources in unconventional reservoirs are expected to account for an increasing share of natural gas production

According to natural gas continue to increase, albeit at a slower pace, reaching 4.6 tcm/y by 2035. Shale reservoirs would make the single-largest contribution accounting incremental 2035, unconventional gas production could account for 27% of the natural gas mix2. Nevertheless, forward- looking projections of this type are sensitive to numerous parameters, such as advances in technology, global or regional economic growth, policies and incentives, and the availability alternative should remember that, just 10 years ago, a supply shortage was widely predicted for North America.

In 2013, shale gas accounted for 39% of total natural gas output in the U. S., the leading producer, with 90% of global shale-gas supply U.S.

Between 2007 and 2012, natural gas production from shale in the United States more than quadrupled3.

Natural gas production profiles in conventional formations vary significantly, according to field size, location and management. Larger fields are generally characterized by longer production plateaus than smaller fields. Offshore reserves are recovered more quickly than onshore ones: offshore production increases more rapidly and settles at a higher plateau. One-third of reserves are generally produced during the plateau.

The ramp-up of CBM production is slower than the ramp-up of conventional and shale-gas production. This is because of the large quantity of water, naturally occurring or introduced during fracking, that must be extracted in order to reduce pressure within the formation sufficiently to allow gas to flow to the wellbore. Natural gas production then increases as the volume of water produced decreases.

Complex infrastructure is needed to get natural gas to end-users – processing plants, transport & distribution grids, and storage units

Processing is an essential step in turning raw natural gas into a commercial product and extracting natural gas liquids (NGLs)

Natural gas collected at the wellhead must usually be processed to meet the pipeline-quality standards defined by each system (energy content, water content…) and to ensure safe and clean operation, both of the grid and of end-appliances. The type of gas processing required depends on the composition of the raw gas and on the pipeline system’s quality specifications. Although it is less complex than crude-oil refining, natural-gas processing is a crucial stage in the natural gas value chain. In addition to its primary purpose, cleaning,

Gas-processing plants are located all over the world, since they are usually sited close to production centers. However, it is worth noting that, as of 2013, 50% of processing capacity was concentrated in North America, which accounts for only 24.9% of world production. Iran, Algeria and Indonesia have processing capacities that correspond to their respective shares of production.

As of 2013, there were 1,954 gas-processing plants operating in the world, with a global capacity of 7,657 mcm/d. In 2012, these plants operated at an average utilization rate of 57%, processing a throughput of natural gas of 4. 432 mcm/d.

Despite the emergence of significant global LNG flows, gas trade remains dominated by regional pipeline trade

MAJOR TRADE MOVEMENTS BY PIPELINE (2012) AND LNG

Pipelines are the backbone of gas transportation, with a global network of 1. 4 million kilometers

North America, TransCanada Alaska will connect Alaska to Alberta and the U. S., while an 804 km pipeline is planned from Arizona to the northwest of Mexico.

Pipeline costs vary significantly according to capacity, length and their physical environment, but are dominated by the costs of labor and materials.

Vessel design is dictated largely by the high energy density and extremely low temperature of LNG. LNG carriers must be double-hulled, with water ballast. On-board storage tanks require special alloys to ensure effective insulation.

Several liquefaction projects are in development in the U.S., but most are awaiting final investment decisions. Sabine Pass is the only project under construction as of 2014.

Small-scale gas-to-liquid (GTL) conversion systems may provide an alternative means of transporting and monetizing stranded gas

Despite its discovery in the early 20th Century, and past use on a relatively large scale by Germany and South Africa, the gas-to-liquids (GTL) process is still in its commercial infancy. As of 2013, there were four commercial GTL plants operating worldwide. The largest, Shell’s Pearl GTL, started operation in 2010 in Qatar, with a capacity of 140,000 bbl/day.

Concerns have lead to project cancellations (Shell in Louisiana andTalisman’s exit from Montney in Canada). Pearl’s costs were estimated to have tripled compared with its initial budget, rising to $18-19 bn. Despite a favorable price spread between oil and gas, capital costs are still too high (e.g. $80,000 per bbl/d of capacity for Pearl) and energy efficiency too low (as a rule-of-thumb, only a tenth of the energy in natural gas used in the GTL process is converted into useable products) to justify GTL on large-scale.

Small-scale, modular GTL systems seem to be the key to GTL becoming more widespread. These would have the ability to monetize stranded gas and associated gas resources that are currently flared, notably those offshore. Small-scale GTL also obviates the construction of an on-site reforming unit, reducing capital costs1. As a general estimate, if 50% of the gas that is flared were to be used as GTL feedstock, it would produce around 7 mbbl/d of additional liquid fuels. R,D&D efforts (catalyst…) remain crucial in reducing costs and improving efficiency.

Aquifers are porous, permeable, underground rock formations that act as natural water reservoirs and can be used to store gas when overlaid by an +impermeable cap rock. However, aquifers require more cushion gas1 (50-80%) than depleted fields and more investment in injection infrastructure. They are +usually, therefore, utilized only when there are no depleted fields nearby. They usually have high delivery rates and are used for balancing seasonal variations (summer/winter) in supply and demand.

Salt formations, whether bedded salt or salt domes, can be used to store gas due tosalt’s natural insulation properties. They are usually more expensive + than the alternatives, since– unless abandoned mines are used– a cavern has to be created. However, they require a small proportion of cushion gas1 +

However, recently, natural gas storage needs have radically evolved, as natural gas trade has become more liquid and as natural gas’s role in power generation has grown: Storage provides a means of hedging against natural gas price volatility, especially in the most liquid markets, North America and Western Europe; Storage requirements are also affected by natural gas’s increasing share of power generation. Indeed, many countries now use open-cycle gas turbines in peaker mode to balance supply from intermittent renewables. This variability from the procurement. transfers unpredictability and power sector into natural gas In both cases, the flexibility of storage capacity has become essential, generating new momentum behind salt caverns, which provide unrivalled flexibility, albeit at a high cost.

Natural gas needs to be depressurized, odorized and monitored to be safely delivered to end-customers through a dense network of small pipelines for a few customers, such as power stations or large industrial plants, which are connected directly to the high-pressure transmission system (up to 75 bar), most end-customers are supplied by the low-pressure gas network (up to 1 bar, and ~20 mbar at the meter)2. Unlike long-distance transportation, distribution is characterized by smaller volumes transported to many more locations, over shorter distances. As a consequence, distribution accounts for most of the pipelines installed

Historically, natural gas has played a crucial role in increasing oil- recovery rates

Oil’s natural flow results in low primary recovery factors, typically 5- 15%2. Various techniques are therefore used to improved recovery rates. These include a number of artificial-lift techniques. One of the most common, especially in mature offshore wells, involves injecting natural gas through the tubing-casing annulus in a producing oil well. Injected gas creates bubbles in the produced fluid, making the liquid less dense and allowing pressure in the formation to lift the column of fluid3.

New techniques have been developed to cope with more complex offshore environments (e.g. new valves or auto-gas lift to meet the safety and pressure requirements of deepwater oil fields). Natural gas can also be injected to maintain sufficient pressure in reservoirs. Also known as gas flooding, this involves “pushing” oil towards the wellbore. Natural gas injection, usually into the gas cap, is the preferred method of disposing of or storing associated gas when it has no economic value or to balance continuous supply rate with seasonal variations in demand. Gas can be injected as part of enhanced recovery. This differs from gas flooding because it changes the make-up of the reservoir. Various gases can be injected: natural gas, produced from the same or a neighboring field, exhaust gas from a nearby industrial plant/power plant, nitrogen, once separated, and carbon dioxide. The latter is the most popular and serves at the same time as a means of sequestering anthropogenic sources of a greenhouse gas.

Natural gas’s role in the global energy mix is growing

Natural gas demand is currently divided among three main generation; residential buildings; and industry. The power sector is fastest-growing driver demand (40%). Electricity is followed by industry (23%), where natural gas can be used as fuel or as a chemical feedstock, and by demand from commercial and residential buildings (22%). Transport is the only end-use sector in which natural gas does not yet play a central role.

Gas power-generation technologies are attractive because of their considerable flexibility and high degree of efficiency

There are two dominant gas power generation technologies: open-cycle gas turbine (OCGT) and combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT). Both are based on the same principle: compressed air is ignited by natural gas combustion. This spins a turbine, whose high-speed rotations drive an electric generator. However, unlike OCGT, CCGT makes use of waste heat from the gas turbine:

exhaust gas is captured to boil water into steam in order to feed an additional turbine. CCGT has contributed 73% of gas-turbine capacity additions since 1990.CCGT’s efficiency and relatively low capital costs– combined with its high degree of flexibility and economic competitiveness with coal, even when utilization rates are high– have strongly influenced growth in the use of natural gas in power generation. However, for peaking uses, which require a very high degree of flexibility, OCCT is still favored.

Natural gas power plants tend to be an important source of flexibility for power systems because of the flexibility of natural gas turbines. System operators use gas-fired power plants to match supply and demand by adjusting their output upwards or downwards1. As a consequence, natural gas power plants are typically operated as mid-merit plants (i.e. running ~50% of the time) or peaking plants (i.e. running less than 20% of the time), as opposed to baseload plants, such as nuclear or coal units, which are used virtually all year-long to leverage their relatively low operating costs and amortize their relatively high initial investment.

Overall, buildings represent 22% of the world’s direct natural gas demand. When natural gas used to generate electricity and commercial heat for buildings is added, the share rises to almost 29%. The direct use of natural gas in buildings is predominantly for thermal end-uses. Space and water heating represent 54% and 22% of natural gas use in buildings, respectively, and heat for cooking 11%. Within buildings, the commercial sector represents 30% of total gas consumption and the residential sector 70%.

The chemicals and petrochemicals sector is by far the most important consumer of natural gas in industry (44% of all industrial demand). In this industry, natural gas is not only used as a fuel, but also as a feedstock for producing ammonia, methanol and other chemicals. In other energy intensive industries2, natural gas continues to play a secondary role e.g. in the iron & steel sector, coal accounts for 74% of the energy mix, compared with 7% in the case of natural gas). Therefore, with the exception of the chemicals & petrochemicals industry, the bulk of industrial gas demand comes from a wide range of industrial consumers who use natural gas in small-to-medium-scale boilers to generate heat.

Natural gas is a crucial feedstock for the petrochemicals and fertilizer industries

CNG refueling stations require lower investment costs than LNG refueling stations and result in lower GHG emissions (because CNG processes are less energy intensive). It would also be easier to refit vehicles to run on CNG or as bi-fuel vehicles.

The liquefaction process also incurs an energy penalty and regular vehicle use is required to minimize fuel losses arising from boil-off.

Conversion is costly and incurs significant energy losses (especially for drop-in gasolines and diesels, which could be used without modification to the existing system).

natural-gas vehicles have a poorer range and their fuels require expensive conditioning. Finally, the impact on global warming of using natural gas for powering vehicles remains uncertain and highly system-specific. Indeed, well-to-wheel analysis depends heavily on whether or not there is methane leakage at any stage in the process (see slide 17).

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Humans are a ‘plague on Earth’: Sir David Attenborough warns that negative effects of population growth will come home to roost

Posted on January 25, 2013 by energyskeptic

22 Jan 2013. Humans are a ‘plague on Earth’: Sir David Attenborough warns that negative effects of population growth will come home to roost. The Independent.

TV naturalist Sir David Attenborough has warned that human beings have become a “plague on the Earth”.

The 86-year-old broadcaster said the negative effects of climate change and population growth would be seen in the next 50 years.

He told the Radio Times: “It’s coming home to roost over the next 50 years or so.

“It’s not just climate change. It’s sheer space, places to grow food for this enormous horde.

“Either we limit our population growth or the natural world will do it for us, and the natural world is doing it for us right now.

“We keep putting on programmes about famine in Ethiopia – that’s what’s happening. Too many people there. They can’t support themselves – and it’s not an inhuman thing to say. It’s the case.

“Until humanity manages to sort itself out and get a co-ordinated view about the planet, it’s going to get worse and worse.”

Sir David, whose landmark series are being repeated on BBC2, also said that his style of presenting would soon be extinct.

He told the magazine: “I’m not sure there’s any need for a new Attenborough. The more you go on, the less you need people standing between you and the animal and the camera waving their arms about.

“It’s much cheaper to get someone in front of a camera describing animal behaviour than actually showing you (the behaviour). That takes a much longer time.

“But the kind of carefully tailored programmes in which you really work at the commentary, you really match pictures to words, is a bit out of fashion now… regarded as old hat.”

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UK Government: Food, energy, water & the climate. A perfect storm of global events?

Posted on January 21, 2013 by energyskeptic

**John Beddington. December 12, 2012. Food, Energy, Water and Climate change: A perfect storm of global events? Government Office For Science. Kingsgate House. 66-74 Victoria street. London**

SUMMARY

There is an intrinsic link between the challenge we face to ensure food security through the 21st century and other global issues, most notably climate change, population growth and the need to sustainably manage the worlds rapidly growing demand for energy and water. It is predicted that by 2030 the world will need to produce 50% more food and energy, together with 30% more available fresh water, whilst mitigating and adapting to climate change. This threatens to create a “perfect storm” of global events.

Science and technology can make a major contribution, by providing practical solutions. Securing this contribution requires that high priority be attached both to research and to facilitating the real word deployment if existing and emergent technologies. On food, we need a new, “greener revolution”. Techniques and technologies from many disciplines, ranging from biotechnology and engineering to newer fields such as nanotechnology, will be needed. On water, managing and balancing supply and demand for water across sectors requires a range of policy and technology solutions. Meeting the demand for energy, while mitigating and adapting to climate change, will require a mix of behavioral change and technological solutions.

THE DRIVERS BEHIND THE PERFECT STORM SCENARIO

After 20 years if low food commodity prices, the price shock of 2007/08 brought agriculture, food production and food security sharply back into the limelight. Wheat and maize prices peaked at around triple their early 2005 levels, with an even higher peak in rice prices (IMF 2008). High commodity prices quickly fed through into increased costs to consumers in developed and developing countries alike (FAO 2008), escalating to civil unrest in some, ranging from strikes in Italy to riots in Haiti

Whilst food prices have now stabilized we should avoid being complacent (current stocks of cereals are at a 40 year low, which implies continued uncertainty). The predicted increase in demand for food, energy and water in the next 20 years, driven by the growing population coming out of poverty will ultimately put pressure on food prices. This is described below.

Population increase and urbanization. Global population is set to increase to around 9 billion by mid-century, rising at a rate of 6 million people per month, with Africa’s population alone projected to double from 1 billion to 2 billion (UNPD 2006) during this period. This continued population increase combines with other transformational change, particularly in the developing world as people move from rural livelihoods to cities, cities that will need to be serviced with food, water and energy. Half the world’s population now live in cities, a figure projected to rise to 60% by 2030 (UNPD 2007). It is estimated that there will be 29 cities with greater than 10 million inhabitants in 2025, up from 19 today. Half of these new “megacities” will be in Asia.

Economic changes. Population increase will be coupled to increasing prosperity. Economic advances projected for the developing world will help lift millions out of poverty, but in other respects will add to the challenges. As incomes rise in developing and middle income countries, people eat more meat and dairy products causing rapid growth in demand for agriculture commodities to feed livestock. Strong growth in demand over the past few decades has been driven particularly by rising consumption in China and Brazil, and the future trend is likely to be strongly influenced also by the extent of income growth in India and sub-Saharan Africa, where per captia meat consumption is still low (FAO 2003)

Rising demand for food, energy, water and land. The FAO projects total crop and livestock demand and production will rise by around 40% between 2008 and 2030 ie a yearly increase of 1.5% (figure 1). However, this overall figure conceals a larger increase in meat demand (FAO 2006, UNPD 2006). The World Bank predicts a 50% rise in cereals demand compared with an 85% increase for meat between 2000 and 2030 (World Bank 2008). Other assessments predict a doubling of meat demand by 2050 (Beintema 2008). The overall projected rate of demand growth is lower than in previous decades (FAO 2006, IPCC 2007), but must be met within the greater constraints on land water and energy use outlined below.

Energy demand is projected to increase by 45% between 2006 and 2030, based on the IFA’s reference scenario (IFA 2008) Biofuels for transport and biomass for heat and electricity will be used to meet some of this demand, leading to greater competition for land and crops between energy and food markets (Mitchell 2008). The majority of this energy demand rise is predicted taking place in the non-OECD, notably China and India, proportionally, through the use of coal (Figure 2)

Today, 1.2 billion people live in areas already affected by water scarcity, and this figure is projected to increase as global water demand rises (IWMI 2007). Water demand is a function of population, incomes, diets and the extent of irrigated agriculture, leading to a wide range of projections into the 2020s and the 2050s (IWMW 2007, Shen 2008, Shiklomanoc 2000). It has been estimated based on mid-range population scenarios, that demand for water for agriculture could rise by over 30% by 2030, while modelling based in the IPCC’s SRES scenarios suggest that total global water demand will rise by 35- 60% between 2000 and 2025 (Chatres 2008, Shen 2008). Figure 3 shows the predicted global water withdrawal levels between 1995 and 2025.

Agriculture is by far the largest user of water world-wide, at around 70% of total supplies (FAO 2007). The agriculture sector will increasingly need to compete with the world growing cities for water. As a result, it is unlikely that water will remain a free commodity in the future. It seems inevitable that demand for land will progressively increase, both for food production and linked to the urbanisation and enrgy trends noted above (IWMI 2007) This growing competition and concern can be illustrated by increased purchaces of land in the developing world by some countries with hot and dry climates, such as Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia and China. Multinational companies are also investing in agricultural land. The challenge for global agriculture is to grow more food on not much more land, using less water, fertiliser and pesticides than we have historically done.

Climate Change

The backdrop against which these demands must be met is one of rising global temperatures, impacting on our water, food and ecosystems in all regions, and with extreme weather events becoming both more severe and more frequent. rising sea levels and flooding will hit hardest in the mega-deltas, which are important for food production and will impact too on water quality for many. Oceans will become warmer, more acidic, less diverse and over exploited. The ocean acts as a reservoir for carbon dioxide, but the resulting increase in acidity, seriously impact ocean food webs and ecosystems, on which many of the worlds poor are dependent (Figure 4). Continued over-fishing is expected to further pressure these delicate resources.

Even since the last report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2007, new evidence suggests that climate change is impacting the real world faster than the models predicted, and global greenhouse gas emissions are continuing to rise at the high end of projections. For example, in 2007 the IPCC concluded that large parts of the Arctic were likely to be ice-free in the summer by the end of the 21st century. Record lows in sea ice extent in 2007 and 2008, combined with other evidence on ice thinning and age, have caused scientist to radically review these estimates, with some analyses now suggesting the Arctic may be near ice free by 2030 (Figures 5 & 6). This has major implications not just for the Arctic region alone but for the world as a whole, as strong positive feedbacks effects are expected to drive climate changes even faster.

The need is both to mitigate climate change and to adapt to that which it is to late already to avoid is clear. It has been suggested that global greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced by at least 50-60% by 2050 compared to current levels. The UK’s target to reduce emissions by 80% on that timescale means that all sectors must make a major contribution, achieving steps changes in past performance.

THE CONTRIBUTION OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Science and technology has long been a major driver for UK and global prosperity, and has helped meet the ever in creasing demand for energy, food, and commodities. Global food production has more than doubled in the past 40 years, despite an 8% increase in the use of land for agriculture since the 1960′s (IPCC 2007). Much of the success over this period can be attributed to technological and process innovations, such as the introduction of chemical pesticides, fertilizers, irrigation and crop improvement though breeding. Science and technology must play a leading role in meeting increasing demand over the coming decades in a sustainable manner. Scientific evidence also underpins the range of domestic policies and international agreements needed. On food, we need a new, “greener revolution”. Important areas for focus include: crop improvement to increase yields and tolerance to stresses such as droughts; smarter use of water and fertilizers:new pesticides and their effective management to avoid resistance problems: introduction of non-chemical approaches to crop protection: reduction of post harvest losses; and more sustainable livestock and marine production. Techniques and technologies from many disciplines, ranging from biotechnology and engineering to newer field such as nanotechnology, will be needed. On water, managing and balancing supply and demand for water across sectors requires a range of policy and technological solutions. Agriculture water use efficiency can be improved through the development of drought resistance crops and the use of low cost and efficient drip irrigation systems by small farmers. Solutions for water storage, such as underground reservoirs, will be needed, particularly in areas where climate is expected to radically alter river flow patterns through melting of glaciers and changes in precipitation. In the home, recycling of domestic “grey water” will be needed to reduce consumption.

Meeting demand for energy while mitigating climate change will require a mix of behavioral change and technological solutions. Renewable, carbon capture and storage and nuclear energy technologies are the options to de-carbonize electricity generation – which the Climate Change Committee estimates must be largely achieved within around two decades, but innovative technologies and processes will also be needed to radically reduce emissions from transport, buildings and industry, and increase the efficiency of energy use throughout the economy.

CONCLUSIONS

The growing global population coming out of poverty will create an increased demand for food which will need to be produced on not much more land, using less water, fertilizers and pesticides than we have historically done. Through the 21st century this is achievable, but must be tackled coherently with other global challenges of climate change and energy, food and water security. It is predicted that by 2030 the world will need to produce around 50% more food and energy, together with 30% more fresh water, whilst mitigating and adapting to climate change. This threatens to create a “Perfect Storm” of global events (Figure 7) The Key questions for policy makers and scientists are these:

Can 9 billion people be fed equitably, healthily and sustainably?
Can we cope with future demands on water
Can we provide enough energy to supply the growing population coming out of poverty
Can we do all this whilst mitigating and adapting to climate change?

These issues are inextricably linked. Science has contributed greatly in the past to finding solutions, and it can do so into the future if the investments are made. A new greener revolution can be built on the foundations of the first green revolution, but we will need to fully explore the range of science and technology opportunities at our disposal in the 21st century in order to overcome the greater constraints. The vital contribution from science will not happen by default.

REFERENCES

Beintema N, Bossio D, Dreyfus F, Fernandez M, Gurib-Fakim A, Hurni H, Izac AM, Jiggins, J Kranjac-Berisavljevic G, Leakey R, Ochola W, Osman-Elasha B, Plencovich C, Roling N, Rosegrant M, Rosenthal E, Smith L, 2008, Global Summary for Decision Makers, International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), http://www.agassessment.org, accessed 29/01/08

Chatres C, 2008, Invest in water for farming or the world will go hungry, Daily Monitor: Uganda

FAO, 2003, World agriculture towards 2015/2030, Rome, Italy: FAO

FAO, 2006, World agriculture towards 2030/2050, Rome, Italy: FAO

FAO Global Perspective Studies Unit, 2007, State of Food and Agriculture 2007, Rome,

Italy: FAO

FAO, 2008, Crop Prospects and Food Situation, 3, July 2008, Rome, Italy: FAO

IEA, 2008, World Energy Outlook 2008, Paris, France: International Energy Agency

IMF, 2008, IMF primary commodity prices, Washington, D.C.: IMF available at http://www.imf.org/external/np/res/commod/index.asp

IPCC, 2007, Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, M.L. Parry, O.F. Canziani, J.P.

IWMI, 2007, Water for Food, Water for Life: A Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture, Ed. David Molden, London, UK: Earthscan

IWMI, 2007, Water for Food, Water for Life, ed David Molden, London: Earthscan, and

Colombo: IWMI

Mitchell, D, 2008, A Note on rising food prices, World Bank Policy Research Working paper

Series, No. 4682, New York, NY: World Bank.

Shen Y, Oki T, Utsumi, N, Kanae S, Hanasaki N, 2008, Projection of future world water resources under SRES scenarios: water withdrawal, Hydrological Sciences 53 (1) p.11-33

Shiklomanov, I. 2000. Appraisal and Assessment of World Water Resources. Water International 25 (1): 11–32.

UNPD, 2006, World population projections, the 2006 revision, New York, NY: United Nations Population Division

UNPD, 2007, World urbanisation prospects, the 2007 revision, New York, NY: United Nations Population Division

World Bank, 2008, Annual World Development Report, New York, NY: World Bank

Posted in Interdependencies | Tagged overpopulation | Comments Off

Why is modern concrete falling apart?

Posted on January 20, 2013 by energyskeptic

Here’s more information from Courland’s book “Concrete Planet” and other information I found on the web since I wrote Enough energy after Peak Oil to rebuild and repair concrete infrastructure?

Lawrence Berkeley National laboratory has been trying to figure out why Roman cement was so much better than today’s Portland cement: “The ancient Roman recipe is very different than the modern one for concrete, Jackson noted. Most modern concrete is a mix of Portland cement – limestone, sandstone, ash, chalk, iron, and clay, among other ingredients, heated to form a glassy material that is finely ground – mixed with so-called “aggregates.” These are materials such as sand or crushed stone that are not intended to chemically react. If reactions do occur in these aggregates, they can cause unwanted expansions in the concrete.” (Roberts 2017).

It appears there’s very little testing of projects later on to see how they stood up over time to wear and tear.

It wasn’t until 1987 that engineers discovered the so-called “high strength” concrete used since 1930 was far worse than the concrete before then — buildings, roads, and other structures were falling apart over twice as fast as pre-1930 concrete structures.

This happened because “High Strength” (Portland) concrete gets strong much faster than pre-1930 concrete, greatly speeding up the time it takes to build a structure.

Why and how does “high strength” modern concrete crack and erode (which lets water in, eventually rusting out the rebar inside, ruining the structure)?

Annual freeze and thaw cycle, freezing of trapped water
Expansion of aggregates
Erosion by fast-flowing water
Vibrations and loads on bridges
Wind pressure sways and oscillates concrete buildings – cracks result
Deterioration by surface wear: Abrasion, Erosion, and Cavitation
Cracking:from crystallization of salts in pores, drying shrinkage, thermal contraction
Radiant heat
Deterioration by Frost Action
Fire
Chemical: carbonatation, chlorides, sulfates Corrosion of steel, Alkali-silica reaction, Sulfate attack, Delayed ettringite formation, Acid attack

Concrete statistics

40 tons of concrete for every person on the planet, plus 1 ton per person per year added (7.5 billion cubic meters of concrete made per year)
100 million years from now, crushed and recrystallized concrete will leave a rust-colored layer of sediment
First skyscraper 1891 Monadnock Building in Chicago, the tallest brick masonry structure and commercial building, the first to use aluminum for staircases. 17 stories, 214 feet high. The word skyscraper comes from the name for the tallest sail on clipper ships (page 228).
1891 also first concrete street (in Bellefontaine, Ohio).
American Interstate Highway System (1956-1992) largest use of concrete in any civil engineering project until then.
Then steel frames possible, the end of brick masonry buildings.
We might all be living in concrete homes now if Edison hadn’t messed up so badly (chapter 7)
US dams are on average 52 years old, it could cost over $52 billion to rehabilitate them

Concrete and Earthquakes

“Concrete lobbyists twisted the data [after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire] to prove that reinforced concrete had stood up well…because of this deception, many people around the world would die in the course of the following century to buildings that they thought were immune to collapse from the violent movements of the earth”. Page 305, more details on pages 313-317.
Brick on the other hand, had a bad reputation, but recent research has shown that well-built brick structures did well in the 1906 earthquake (page 315).

Concrete and Fire

Concrete is not fireproof, but you’re less likely to be injured than in a wood structure, and have more time to escape
Brick, on the other hand, is born in fire, and immune to all but “insanely high temperatures”, this is why bred and pizza ovens are made of brick – if they were concrete they’d fall apart.

A world without concrete: Smaller and shorter buildings, more brick buildings, dams made of earth or huge blocks of stone, road surfaces rough except after recently applied newt layer of asphalt, lots of potholes

Vaclav Smil. 2013. Making the Modern World: Materials and Dematerialization.

While this material provides shelter and enables transportation and energy and industrial production, its accumulation also presents considerable risks and immense future burdens. These problems arise from the material’s vulnerability to premature deterioration that results in unsightly appearance, loss of strength, and unsafe conditions that sometimes lead to catastrophic failures, and whose prevention requires expensive periodic renovations and eventually costly dismantling. Concrete, both exposed and buried, is not a highly durable material and it deteriorates for many reasons (AWWS, 2004; Cwalina, 2008; Stuart, 2012). Exposed surfaces are attacked by moisture and freezing in cold climates, bacterial and algal growth in warm humid regions (biofouling recognizable by blackened surfaces), acid deposition in polluted (that is now in most) urban areas, and vibration. Buried concrete structures (water and sewage pipes, storage tanks, missile silos) are subjected to gradual or instant overloading that creates cracks, and to reactions with carbonates, chlorides, and sulfates filtering from above. Poor-quality concrete can show excessive wear and develop visible cracks and surficial staining due to efflorescence in a matter of months. Alternations of freezing and thawing damage both the horizontal surfaces (roads, parking) that collect standing water, as well as vertical layers that collect water in pores and cracks. While concrete’s high alkalinity (pH of about 12.5) limits the corrosion of the reinforcing steel embedded in the material, as soon as that cover is compromised (due to cracks or defoliation of external layers) the expansive corrosion process begins and tends to accelerate. Chloride attack (on structures submerged in seawater, from deicing of roads, in coastal areas from NaCl present in the air in much higher concentrations than inland) and damage by acid deposition (sulfate attack in polluted regions) are other common causes of deterioration, while some concretes exhibit alkali-silica and alkali-carbonate reactions that lead to cracking. Unsightly concrete blackened by growing algae embedded in the material’s pores is a common sight in all humid (especially when also warm) environments. Given the unprecedented rate of post-1990 global concretization, it is inevitable that the post-2030 world will face an unprecedented burden of concrete deterioration.

This challenge will be particularly daunting in China, the country with by far the highest rate of new concrete emplacement, where the combination of poor concrete quality, damaging natural environment, intensive industrial pollutants, and heavy use of concrete structures will lead to premature deterioration of tens of billions of tons of the material that has been poured into buildings, roads, bridges, dams, ports, and other structures during the past generation. Because maintenance and repair of deteriorating concrete have been inadequate, the future replacement costs of the material will run into trillions of dollars. To this should be added the disposal costs of the removed concrete: some concrete structures have been recycled but the separation of the concrete and reinforcing metal is expensive. The latest report card on the quality of American infrastructure gives poor to very poor grades to all sectors where concrete is the dominant structural material: with an estimated investment of at least $3.6 trillion needed by 2020 in order to prevent further deterioration (ASCE, 2013).

Transposed to post-2030 China, this reality implies the need for an unprecedented rehabilitation and replacement of nearly 100 Gt of concrete emplaced during the first decade of the twenty-first century, at a cost of many tens of trillions of dollars.

The construction of the US Interstate Highway System was a major component of this rising demand (USGS, 2006). About 60% of these multi-lane highways are paved in concrete whose standard thickness is 28 cm and hence 1 km of a four lane highway (each lane is 3.7 m wide) requires about 4150 m3. This adds up to roughly 10,000 t of concrete for every kilometer and the entire system of 73,000 km embodies about 730 Mt of concrete in driving lanes, with more emplaced in shoulders, medians, approaches, and overpasses.

Global compilations of CO2 emissions from the cement industry show its contribution almost 5% in 2010 (CDIAC, 2013).

Concrete (particularly its reinforced form) is now by far the most important manmade material both in terms of global annual production and cumulatively emplaced mass.

Roman concrete from Swift’s Big Roads

Like modern concrete, the Roman variety consisted of cement, water, and filler. Mixed, the first two ingredients form a binding paste; the filler, usually sand, gravel, or shale, is added for volume. The only complex part of the mix is the cement, which is derived, in part, from calcium carbonate, a compound found the world over in limestone; heating it in a kiln burns away the compound’s carbon and much of its oxygen, leaving behind calcium oxide, also known as quicklime. Adding quicklime to water sparks a chemical reaction—heat, gas, and a sticky gunk called slaked lime, which the Romans stored wet, in jars, until they were ready to mix it with sand to create mortar. If the job called for a denser, harder, less porous material, they held back on the sand and substituted pozzolan, or volcanic ash, which they possessed in abundance; the result was a gray concrete of such exceptional strength and durability that it wasn’t matched until modern times. Over centuries of trial and error, the Romans came to understand that concrete has great compressive strength, meaning it can bear weight placed on top of it, but little tensile strength—it can’t be pulled or twisted. They learned that it is susceptible to cracking because it shrinks as it hardens, and does so faster near its surface than in its depths, and that cracks exposed to the elements can spell its end; water seeping into a fissure expands when it freezes, scouring the crack, forcing it open, and over time reducing the concrete to rubble. Ancient engineers found that by adding horsehair to the mix they could better regulate its shrinkage, and that a dab of blood or animal fat helped it weather the freeze-thaw cycle; combined with calcium oxide, the fats created a primitive soap, and its bubbles formed microscopic air pockets that enabled the mass to withstand temperature shifts. The ancients used their expertise to build monuments, libraries and public baths, shops and houses, and roads and aqueducts traversing leagues of rolling countryside.

What set it apart from the competition was its mixture of slaked lime and clay—the latter replaced the Roman pozzolan—which together were fired in a kiln, then ground into a powder. Mixed with water, it proved fast-setting and strong. Years later, Aspdin’s son William used more limestone in the mix and cooked it in much hotter ovens. This yielded hard, dry nodules called “clinker,” which he then ground. The resulting powder was what goes by the Portland name today. By the close of the 19th century, concrete was in use around the world. Spurred by demand for fireproof buildings and a cheap alternative to stone and brick, reinforced concrete—poured around steel dowels, or “rebar,” to increase its tensile strength—had been fashioned into thousands of hotels, offices, and factories. But much was still unknown about the stuff. Engineers understood that adding filler to the mix in the form of aggregate—crushed rock, gravel, whatever— didn’t compromise strength. That because aggregate was cheaper than cement, it made sense to add a lot of it. But the specifics were sketchy. Was coarse aggregate stronger than fine? What made the stronger mix—more cement or less water? Should cement be measured by weight or volume? Measuring its strength eluded them, too.

1918 paper sharing insights he’d gleaned from “about fifty thousand tests” on concrete mixtures. The most important: water, more than any other ingredient, determined concrete’s strength. “One pint more water than necessary,” he wrote, “… reduces the strength to the same extent as if we should omit two to 3 pounds of cement from a one-bag batch.” He concluded that “the following rule is a safe one to follow: Use the smallest quantity of water that will produce a plastic or workable concrete.”

Research on roads from Swift’s Big Roads

It behooved the bureau to nail down what mixes and thicknesses of pavement lasted longest, and at the same time to establish the maximum loads that pavement should bear, a number on which the states had never achieved consensus.

On the plains west of Chicago, the bureau and its partners built a chain of six looping test tracks, each a quilt-work of paving types, thicknesses, and base layers, 836 test sections in all.

Then they moved a company of army Transportation Corps soldiers into a barracks at the complex, put them behind the wheels of 126 trucks—everything from pickups to big semi rigs, all loaded with concrete blocks—and sent them around the loops. Nineteen hours a day they drove, every day for two years, maintaining a steady thirty-five miles per hour on the straightaways, thirty in the curves. They racked up more than seventeen million miles. Along the way, the strain the trucks caused was measured by electric gauges, until three hundred million pieces of data had been recorded on punched paper tape.

What they learned filled six volumes and came down to this: The thicker the pavement and subgrade, the better. And: Trucks wear out roads in a predictable fashion.

A small piece of road survives — Loop 1– a mile or so west of Ottawa, Illinois. This was the only loop on which trucks didn’t roll; Loop 1 was intended merely as a venue to study the effects of weather. More than 50 years later, some of its test sections have devolved to loose gravel, and waist-high weeds sprout from the joints in its concrete. But here and there, the pavement looked almost new.

Further reading

If you’re interested in the wood based society we’re returning to and what it’s capable of, read John Perlin’s outstanding “A Forest Journey: The Role of Wood in the Development of Civilization”.

To see how fast the world would crumble if we weren’t around (or there were far fewer of us): Alan Weisman “The World Without Us” and How long will concrete last if it isn’t maintained?

Hamilton, Andrea. 6 march 2014. Concrete conservator. Nature.

Roberts, G. July 3, 2017. New Studies of Ancient Concrete Could Teach Us to Do as the Romans Did. Berkeley Lab, UC Berkeley experiments show how natural chemistry strengthened ancient concrete. newscenter.lbl.gov

Swift, Earl. 2012. The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways.

Posted in Concrete, Infrastructure & Collapse | Tagged concrete, cracking, falling apart | 1 Comment

How long will concrete last if it isn’t maintained?

Posted on January 20, 2013 by energyskeptic

As energy grows scarcer and is devoted to growing food and other life-support services, our infrastructure will crumble.

Bob Holmes. 12 Oct 2006. Imagine Earth without people. NewScientist.com

Lack of maintenance will spell an early demise for buildings, roads, bridges and other structures. Though modern buildings are typically engineered to last 60 years, bridges 120 years and dams 250, these lifespans assume someone will keep them clean, fix minor leaks and correct problems with foundations. Without people to do these seemingly minor chores, things go downhill quickly.

Consider the city of Pripyat near Chernobyl in Ukraine, abandoned after the nuclear disaster 20 years ago and still deserted.

“From a distance, you would still believe that Pripyat is a living city, but the buildings are slowly decaying,” says Ronald Chesser, an environmental biologist at Texas Tech University in Lubbock who has worked extensively in the exclusion zone around Chernobyl. “The most pervasive thing you see are plants whose root systems get into the concrete and behind the bricks and into doorframes and so forth, and are rapidly breaking up the structure. You wouldn’t think, as you walk around your house every day, that we have a big impact on keeping that from happening, but clearly we do. It’s really sobering to see how the plant community invades every nook and cranny of a city.”

With no one to make repairs, every storm, flood and frosty night gnaws away at abandoned buildings, and within a few decades roofs will begin to fall in and buildings collapse.

“For many thousands of years there would still be some signs of the civilizations that we created. It’s going to take a long time for a concrete road to disappear. It might be severely crumbling in many places, but it’ll take a long time to become invisible.”

Roman concrete: has lasted 2,000 years. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab scientists have recently made some progress in understanding how the Romans made their concrete, which even did well in ocean water and could be made at lower temperatures than concrete now (Yang).

Yang, Sarah. 4 June 2013. To improve today’s concrete, do as the Romans Did. University of California, Berkeley.

Posted in Concrete, Infrastructure & Collapse | Tagged concrete, peak oil | Comments Off

William Catton, Chapter 2 of Overshoot: The Tragic Story of Human Success

William Catton. 1980. Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change. University of Illinois Press.

Rapid Population Growth in California: A Threat to Land and Food Production

**David & Marcia Pimentel. June 2, 2008. Rapid Population Growth in California: A Threat to Land and Food Production. Cornell University, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences**

Nothing is So Powerful As an Exponential Whose Time Has Come

Nering on the Mirage of a Growing Fuel Supply

There is no way that a supply-side attack on America’s energy problem can work.

Poverty is Increasing

4 Apr 2013. 21 Statistics About The Explosive Growth Of Poverty In America That Everyone Should Know. TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com

Fottrell, Q. December 23, 2015. Most Americans have less than $1,000 in savings. MarketWatch.com

Natural Gas Facts and Statistics

SBC. October 2014. Factbook Natural Gas Factbook. SBC Energy Institute

Humans are a ‘plague on Earth’: Sir David Attenborough warns that negative effects of population growth will come home to roost

22 Jan 2013. Humans are a ‘plague on Earth’: Sir David Attenborough warns that negative effects of population growth will come home to roost. The Independent.

UK Government: Food, energy, water & the climate. A perfect storm of global events?

**John Beddington. December 12, 2012. Food, Energy, Water and Climate change: A perfect storm of global events? Government Office For Science. Kingsgate House. 66-74 Victoria street. London**

Why is modern concrete falling apart?

How long will concrete last if it isn’t maintained?

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