self-sufficiency is not important to an empire. it’s actually counter to the whole modus operandi.

bit if an empire’s gas were to run out, it would promptly fall back to earth…hopefully remembering what to do with it.

Perhaps all the “Victory Garden” cheerleaders could be convinced to stop posting their anti-economic rubbish until they have managed to build their own computer out of rhubarb and brussels sprouts.

“Gee, seems that, in context, the Victory Garden was a splendid idea. Better, though, to be at the mercy of the unforeseen?”

Protection yes, but not from the unforeseen. It’s pretty obvious that the more heavily government gets involved in people’s lives, the more people will be forced away from free markets ruled by the division of labor into bare subsistence and eventually into starvation. As the “rhubarbs” of North Korea and Zimbabwe demonstrate.

If these two examples seem too far-out then consider WWII, when the real Victory Gardens flourished. While no one in North America went hungry as far as I know, I’ve read many memoirs of British soldiers and private citizens (you can find hundreds of them online), and nearly all of them mention the horrible quality and meagre quantities of food they were allocated. And famine and starvation stalked all across the various theatres of war, and even in some non-theatres. Somewhere I read that millions of people starved to death in India, because of the disruption of trade. Another war like that is not at all a far-out possibility – every day I read right-wing blogs and editorials calling the escalating War on Terror a “clash of civilizations” or “world war four”.

We libertarians are not anti-garden or anti-eating, we’re anti- all the government crap which leads people down the path of war and famine.

I don’t know. I plan to build a house utalizing passive solar energy and solar electric. With-out needing to pay a gas bill and ellectric bill every month, I think it’s a good way to stick it to the local government sponsored franchise monopolies. Then I can make over $16,000 and have a fairly luxerious living w/o needing to give one red cent of income tax to the federal maffia if I have my house paid off.

But I’m not against the market. The market allows those lifestyles just as much as it allows others. I’m not into hunting or gardening. I’d probably eat out ever other day since almost all that $16,000 would be for luxury type stuff once I have everything initially set up.

Tracy

Ohhh Henry,

“in context, the Victory Garden was a splendid idea”=”then consider WWII, when the real Victory Gardens flourished. While no one in North America went hungry”

+ Anyone,

Where was there ever a “Victory Garden” statute passed??

And, where, in the links offered in this art., is anyone calling for gov’t enforced/mandatory “Victory Garden(s)-ing”?

Well, it seems to me that a “victory garden” (however much I hate the historical connotations) isn’t *totally* irrational, given a belief that the government has over-subsidized our transportation infra-structure. Given that belief, and a belief that government interventions in the market are nearing an effective end because of monetary issues, one could believe that such gardens will be useful during the transition back to local production models. It might take a couple of years for local land to be re-converted to farmland from other uses, and in that time, you’ll find it cheaper to grow your own. Eventually, the market will re-establish a useful division of labor – but its the in between time that you can’t ignore.

Yancey,

“The present populations are only possible through the deep division of labor we practice”

Not really. It can be sustained through deep division of labor in other ways, such as localized production, with deep division of labor. In fact, the yields per acre currently are well below historic highs. What we’ve maximized is yields per man hour input.

I don’t think one needs to envision a “collapse” of civilization to envision an increase (perhaps relatively gradual) in the cost of centrally produced food once the state gets out of the business of corporate welfare. And as the prices increase, the value of local farmland increases, to the point where marginal land suddenly becomes usable as farmland. There won’t be a “collapse”, absent state interference (a big if, granted), but many people will find it profitable during the changeover to do some personal farming, given the increased costs of centrally produced food (again, assuming one holds this position).

I don’t think starvation is a problem, even during the changeover, as we currently produce more food than we need. The problem will be that prices will increase to the point where self-production will become economical, at least for a while, until local division of labor can re-assert itself.

Ethanol and bio-diesel are the modern victory gardens, replacing the desire for self-sufficiency in food with self-sufficiency in energy. The lust for self-sufficiency has many problems:

1) It’s anti-social. Hugo Grotius wrote in the 16th century that God blessed countries with abundance in different goods in order to force them to trade and get along, i.e., international trade was God’s way of quenching the human lust for war.

2) The desire for self-sufficiency is driven by fear. But whether we talk about food or energy, we have nothing to fear but those who desire self-sufficiency. Should Arabs cut off oil to the US again as they did in 1973, they would cause a temporary disruption of supplies and rise in price.

But Arabs will not under any circumstance refuse to sell their oil to anyone. They can’t. They depend upon oil dollars to buy food to feed their people. They might not sell to us, but they would have to sell to someone or starve to death. If they sold more oil to China as a result of boycotting us, then whoever had been selling to China, say Russia, would have an excess supply of oil which they would be glad to sell to us.

Americans are obsessed with the Arab oil embargo of 1973, but forget that the real crisis didn’t start until 1979 with the Iranian revolution. But the price of oil peaked in 1980 and began to decline until its collapse in 1986, all for market reasons. The US government had nothing to do with it.

It might take a couple of years for local land to be re-converted to farmland from other uses, and in that time, you’ll find it cheaper to grow your own.

that is not easy. most of the choice farmland (as in, close to the cities) has had its topsoil scraped off in the building of suburbia and that stuff is like gold, you dont just make it out of thin air. it will take a generation to bring it back, if ever.

Where was there ever a “Victory Garden” statute passed??

I don’t know if any statute was passed. It was wartime, and a lot of things simply got ordered by Cabinet Secretaries or Ministers using “wartime emergency powers”. As far as I know there was not a requirement to raise a garden, but people were administered heavy doses of government propaganda, pressure, fear tactics, rationing, threats, badgering by local agitators/informers – the usual fascist stuff.

I didn’t mean to get cranky with people who are enthused about victory gardens and self-sufficiency – I love gardening too. It’s just that when I hear the drum to beat for this kind of thing I take it as a sign that our governments are getting themselves ready for another severe bout of inflation and war.

How bad can it get? Read this, about British rationing in WWII. It sounds positively North Korean to me:

“As the war progressed, most kinds of food came to be rationed, as were clothing and petrol. Restaurants were exempt from rationing, which led to a certain amount of resentment as the rich could supplement their food allowance by eating out frequently and extravagantly. In order to restrict this certain rules were put into force. No meal could cost more than five shillings; no meal could consist of more than three courses; meat and fish could not be served at the same sitting.” Link

Of course it’s a long chain of causation, and right-wing/neocon type people always like to ask, “So what would you have done, surrendered to Hitler and Tojo?” But this is not the right question. The question is, why and how did our citizens lull themselves into the disasterous experiments in central banking and social welfare which caused and exacerbated the Great Depression in the first place, which led directly to WWII?

If oil runs out, something else will be found,

because why? its true that desire and ingenuity are strengths of the homo sapien, but primary energy has to be there to find, you cant wish it into existance. (not to be pessimistic, just challenging the notion that “it must, so it will”

and people will not starve en mass as long as the oil runs out gradually

true, it will not be catastrophic…but starvation, malnurishment, nonetheless will likely increase exponentially over the next 50 years as the carrying capacity is reduced. access to arable land and ability to work will be the key.

Tracy

Bravo! Setting up a self-sufficient house as you are doing is a good thing. I’d encourage it. It’s something you can justify on economic grounds, sure, but really it’s a matter of quality of living.

Most of the houses around here are cold in the winter and hot boxes during the summer. They are not that nice inside either (lighting and air circulation issues among other things). What amazes me is that people will mortgage their lives for decades to live in such awful places. Still, people keep buying them (and building more of them) but that’s likely to be because they know no better. They’ve lived in troublesome residences all their lives.

Some suburbs are so bad that pretty much every building needs wrecking ball renovation and a restart from first principles. Unfortunately the worst buildings are protected by heritage orders and the rest are protected by council regulations. The smart thing to do is avoid purchasing anything in those suburbs entirely.

Your self-sufficient home should improve your standard of living and pleasure for years to come. Go for it. I recommend it.

BTW for those who reckon they’ve no top soil in their gardens, the answer is to either import some or grow your vegetables hydroponically. That really works. I note the marijuana business now relies on hydroponics in a big way. In some places the majority of the supply is produced by that method. If those pot heads can grow commercial quantities of their crop in private residences, it certainly should not be beyond the wit of the non-druggie to grow some vegetables or fruit, especially when it is not necessary to go to elaborate lengths to hide a fruit or veggie growing operation.

But is are any of these projects something to be done for “victory”? No way. You do them for your own reasons. Like the pleasure of a brand new super-fresh tomato (grow them in the garden, the hydro ones never come out quite as good) or your own fresh fruit and vegetables with dinner. Sure is good!

In the case of the self-powered house you get to keep more of your own money to spend tax free! More lux for thee! Especially if you do it yourself. It is fun.

These projects are really about you investing in you. Whether the economy tanks or not YOU are going to be better off. Happier as well.

Talofa!

Sione

“Read this, about British rationing in WWII. It sounds positively North Korean to me:”

Indeed! I read a lot of British mysteries, and those set during and after WW2 are positively chilling. Townsfolk had to sneak around, trading spare vegetables and eggs from their own gardens and coops like they were Laotian peasants.

“oil production is peaking right now and within 50 years it will be as available as whale oil and probably cost more. ”

Bah, not likely. Read up on the abiogenic origins of oil. Oil fields are being refilled from the earth’s mantle, and will probably never empty. The current “rotting dinosaur” theory of oil’s origins will die out along with its aging proponents.

Even if that were not true, as wells shrank, oil prices would rise until other sources became more economical. Remarkably improved fission techniques are waiting in the wings to be put into use, and fusion won’t be science fiction for much longer.

Oil fields are being refilled from the earth’s mantle, and will probably never empty

no oilfield has refilled, at all.

energy is going to return to earlier economics, already underway.

Economic growth is something like god that has failed and we shouldnt worship it. Economics is about using existing resources wisely and discovering new resources by entrepeneurial action. For most of the time worlds economy has been stationary and this economic growth is a recent phenomenon. Take 200 years out of five million and you can see some proportionality…

Unhampered market will produce goods and services through efforts of the people even if the capacity to produce in the future is not so great as its now. Collectivist policy still is not the answer and it may very well be the problem.

“hydrogen is a battery in that it requires more primary energy to produce hydrogen than you get back. that was a boondoggle brought to you by Bush Inc. (and has now been quietly killed)”

Then those guys at Shell oil must be stupid! They’re wasting billions a hydrogen future. And they’re Dutch, so if Bush controls them, he has more power than I realized.

Oil’s death has been predicted many times, starting in the early 20th century. Each time, high prices initiate the predictions, but when high prices spur production and the price falls, everyone forgets about the failed predictions. The truth is that no one has a clue as to how much oil exists in the world.

Since multiple predictions of the end of oil have all failed, you would think that people would quit. But they don’t because “end of the world” predictions sell. No book about the future prosperity of the world has ever made the NY Times best seller list that I know of. But endless doom-and-gloom and end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it books shoot to the top. Selling fear will never go out of style or lose money.

“…they have not bc multiple predictions of the end of specific oil fields have come in right on schedule..”

You’re confusing models that predict the flow of oil from known fields with the total amount of oil existing in the world. The first is rather simple to do once you have an estimate of the amount of oil in a particular pool and the flow rate. The other, knowing how much oil exists in the world, is impossible because we have drilled in less than 10% of the world. And yes, experts have predicted that the world’s supply of oil would end soon at least a dozen times since 1900.

“..hydrogen…simply isn’t a rplacement energy source in any way.” I guess you should inform the cities in Europe that use hydrogen-powered busses. They might be interested to know that.

For the record, hydrogen is NOT an energy SOURCE when reacted with oxygen to produce power. In order to obtain the hydrogen in the first place you have to electrolyse water into its constituent parts (hydrogen and oxygen) or produce it from a feedstock (such as natural gas).

In the case of electrolysis, hydrogen is an energy storage medium and nothing more. It stores the energy that was invested in winning it from water. When you subsequently react the hydrogen to form water only a small portion of the energy invested in the hydrogen is returned to undertake useful work. So you still require a prime source for the energy you want to store with hydrogen.

In the case of manufacturing hydrogen from natural gas, it should be understood that this is merely a refining operation. The by-product of manufacturing hydrogen from natural gas is CO2. Much of the energy of the natural gas is wasted during the conversion process. You’d be better to power a car from the natural gas directly rather than wasting time with H2.

Running buses on the stuff is a govt boondoggle. It’s not surprising that some European city governments are doing it. They know it’s a crock but they have plenty of tax money, so why not? May as well do something fun with some of the loot! They don’t need to concern themselves with how much it costs. Public transit is a massive money waster anyhow.

Aside from working out how to operate a power plant from H2 (which is not a trivial undertaking by any means) you also need a method to store it and distribute it. That remains unsolved. How do you propose to accomplish this huge challenge? High pressure cylinders? Cryogenic containers? Hydrides? Basically it’s all a big fantasy- another boondoggle.

**

As for Hubbert “predicting” the peak of US oil production, don’t be so sure about that. Check out the alteration to the tax legislation and regulation at the time. Check out the environmental laws that put huge tracts of “federal” land out of bounds for oil production. Unless Hubbert was a tax attorney (which he wasn’t) he’s likely to have fluked it. Lucky guess!

Sione

“In the case of manufacturing hydrogen from natural gas, it should be understood that this is merely a refining operation. The by-product of manufacturing hydrogen from natural gas is CO2. Much of the energy of the natural gas is wasted during the conversion process. You’d be better to power a car from the natural gas directly rather than wasting time with H2.”

This forgets the tremendous amount of Carbohydrates that every Economy, and especially, the U.S., wastes, literally, every year.

Carbohydrates can be, efficiently, used as a feedstock for the production of Hydrogen, and other Industrial Gases, giving electricity and heat, as well, in the bargain.

For all of those worried about the production of CO2–they should investigate biological reactors(BR). Filled with algae, as one example, the BR will exhaust nothing but pure Oxygen, and sequester the Carbon in the plant cell-wall.

These, proven, technologies, like many others, have been with us for many years.

Roger, please ask wikipedia to explain the concept of “Energy Return on Energy Invested” (EROEI) or “Net Energy Gain” (NEG) to understand why hydrogen is not a viable replacement for petroleum. i know it seems pretty convincing that if a bus is going down the street powered by hydrogen, that hydrogen must be powerful. And it is, but so are rubber bands when they’re stretched. Is there waste in every power conversion scheme? of course, but some are more wasteful than others, some to the point of being useless…(also look up “boondoggle” to understand why a useless technology might nevertheless be deployed)

and as for the HL assessments of world oil, again, with a small effort on the same site you should be able to bring yourself up to speed on the concept of “statistics” and why it is not necessary to drill the entire world in order to accurately estimate the number of barrels in the world. (future depletion is the more difficult prediction, as the marketplace politics, and the self-deluded will certainly affect the demand in various unpredicatable ways). but it really doesn’t matter that much, it is clear that after the peak, everything changes, the overall system NEG is compulsory.

“…hydrogen is not a viable replacement for petroleum.”

That’s true at the moment, but it’s still an infant technology and will get better. It holds a lot of promise for replacing oil in the near future.

“…it is not necessary to drill the entire world in order to accurately estimate the number of barrels in the world.”

Did you know that last year a small oil company discovered oil in Nevada and geologists estimate that it’s among the largest finds in the history of oil in the US? And this after most geologists said there is no more oil to be found in the continental US!

I currently work in statistics and have taught it. So I know that statistical models are only as good as the assumptions behind them. I worked for a major oil company at one time and knew that the success rate of wildcatting (drilling in new areas) is less than 10%, and that’s after analyzing the best geological data available. Also, oil is sometimes discovered where no one thought it would be. The only way to be sure is to drill. Some people think Iraq may have greater reserves than Saudi Arabia, but no one will know until they drill.

Some geologists may claim to know how much oil the planet holds, but many people claim knowledge that they don’t possess.

[hydrogen is] still an infant technology and will get better. It holds a lot of promise for replacing oil in the near future.

just as soon as the laws of thermodynamics are repealed! i honestly don’t know how you can persist with this baseless statement. is your portfolio heavy into hydrogen? wtf!

As for statistical analysis of world oil production and discovery; being as you are a teacher of statistics i must wonder why you do not simply point to the specific error(s) in the various linearizations currently in peer review rather than dismissing them all by saying that there’s some infintesimal chance that a big field will be found in a very unlikely place (that is, if anyone was stupid enough to drill there) and don’t forget to note how many of these miracles there will need to be to change the direction of the current trend line.

Roger M

After extracting crude oil from underground, refining it and distributing the resulting fuel products you still end up with energy available. There is more than enough energy available in crude oil to consume a portion of it in the processes of extraction, refining and transportation. You still end up with plenty of energy left over for use in all sorts of applications.

Hydrogen manufactured by electrolysis of water stores less energy than the process of electrolysis takes to produce it in the first place. So, NO, it is not an energy source. It is analogous to a battery. In this case it is a store of energy only.

Hydrogen manufactured by thermal catalytic decomposition of natural gas (which is mostly methane and CO2) consumes a substantial portion of the energy available in the methane (or other hydrocarbon) component of the gas. As stated previously you’d be better off using the natural gas directly. More energy would be available with direct use approaches (no need to consume a portion of it in an un-necessary “refining” process). In other words you should be scrubbing the CO2 and then burning the CH4 rather than wasting time refining CH4 to extract its H2 component. Why waste the energy?

Hydrogen is not a good fuel. It has poor properties. It is difficult to burn in a controlled manner in an internal combustion engine. It tends to pre-ignite or detonate violently. The wide flammability limits and poor octane rating render it a fuel not well suited to conventional piston engines. There are methods to alleviate this such as direct fuel injection (similar to the way a diesel engine operates). Still these are not ideal and they are expensive. In-service applications still remain less satisfactory than normal hydrocarbon fuels. Range and performance issues remain. Reliability is still an open question.

Fuel cells are all very well, in the lab. In the real world they are a problem. A proton exchange membrane fuel cell can’t tolerate any hydrocarbons, CO2 or CO in its incoming air supply. It needs precision temperature and humidity control. It does not load follow very well so a supplementary battery is often required. Expensive catalysts are necessary. A lot of complicated ancillary equipment is required for any fuel cell to operate properly.

There are other types of fuel cell such as molten carbonate and solid oxide types (the best really) but these have issues with materials life span, cost, control and load following as well. Start-up time is minutes… The advantage of these systems is that they can operate with hydrocarbon fuels. They do not need hydrogen (unlike the proton exchange membrane that relies on hydrogen exclusively to operate). They feature higher efficiency and can be used in conjunction with gas expansion devices such as piston engines or turbines for bottoming cycle energy extraction. So far steady state operation appears to be the rule. Forget about automotive applications. These things are large and heavy. A steam engine would be an easier technology to commercialise for cars. I’d say the installed efficiency of a methane fueled piston engine would be competitive with a fuel cell (although they have a higher theoretical efficiency, they generally do not exhibit this in service). Certainly using methane in a cogen plant would beat fuel cells in the electricity generation business presently. As for cost…

I understand that it is possible to use carbohydrate sources to obtain energy. Aside from cost and scalability issues, why bother with hydrogen? Anaerobic bio-digesters can produce methane. Methane is a superior fuel for engines and far easier to store and handle than hydrogen. It also stores more energy than H2 and can be used for a wide variety of industrial uses as a feedstock. It has very high octane.

And now we come to the really bad news about H2. It is very, very difficult to store. There are three methods presently under investigation or test. They are:
1/. High pressure gas storage.
2/. Cryogenic liquid storage
3/. Chemical storage means.

Hydrogen can be compressed to high pressure are with any other gas. It can be stored at many thousands of psi. This needs to be done because at atmospheric pressure hydrogen takes a lot of volume for very little energy storage. To get anywhere near practical a lot of it needs to be stored in a small volume. The trouble with hydrogen is that even at high pressure it stores only modest amounts of energy compared to other substances. Hydrogen also has the nasty habit of leaking. It has small molecular size and therefore any cavity or crevice or crack is going to be exploited. This stuff escapes! Hydrogen embrittles many materials that it comes into contact with (such as most metals). Hydrogen embrittlement is dangerous for pressure vessels. I recommend you visit your local industrial gas supplier and ask them to describe to you what an exploding gas cylinder can achieve. With hydrogen it can occur without warning.

OK so let’s liquefy hydrogen instead and pump it like a liquid. Getting hydrogen cold enough to liquefy is a difficult job. It takes a lot of energy to achieve it. Then you have to store it. Over time gas boils off. So you are losing energy all the time. I once filled a thermos flask with the stuff and left it in a dark, ventilated place. All the hydrogen was gone in five days. Make sure the area is ventilated or you are risking an explosion when you open the door and turn on the light. Safe indeed.

Pumping liquid hydrogen is not something one undertakes casually. Can you imagine pumping this stuff at the bowser. There are problems such as keeping the delivery pipes cold (takes energy) and keeping air out (otherwise when air hits the oncoming hydrogen it forms a solid slug in the pipe that the liquid hydrogen can’t get past). An accident with this stuff is non-trivial. Talk about freezer burns! You’d be better off playing with high test peroxide- really!

There is talk of storing hydrogen in hydride tanks or locking it up in chemical compounds of various sorts. Then, when required, the hydrogen can be extracted. All these ideas turn out about the same: heavy, expensive, requiring precision control/care and they still suffer from low component life-time, low energy and power density, safety issues, nasty failure modes, poor energy efficiency…

You have to consider the amazing infrastructure that needs to be brought into existence for all of this hydrogen distribution. Have you any idea the magnitude of this task? By comparison a national PRT (personal rapid transit) system installation would be easier. Look up PRT. It’s interesting. Kind of clever, kind of silly.

While I am the last person who is worried about oil running out, I am very much in favour of innovation and new technology. I support the quest for energy sources of all sorts. But I do not see much of a serious future in H2 presently. I think that the idea of having the likes of Whetu Kara splashing liquid hydrogen around a fuel station forecourt while puffing away on his marijuana should be enough to give even hydrogen romantics pause for thought.

What we are really seeking is something the customer will use since it meets his specific requirements. Complicated laboratory technology aint the go, clever though it may well be. Whatever is distributed to people can’t be less useful than what they enjoy currently and it certainly must not be more complex for them to use.

Sione

Roger M

Had you considered that much of the content of the sites you quoted is govt funded? It is being researched by persons bought, sold and paid for. Good fun work if you can get it but really the context is so alien to reality that it’s little more than that; hobby stuff. Looks to be boondoggle activity being undertaken at boondoggle institutions.

Naaah!

Sione

Chavez certainly sees his stock rising, and it appears to in fact be.

Did anyone here hear about the big oil find last week? So much for running out.

Sione