289. MAJOR JOB CREATION DUE TO PEAK OIL
EnergySpin has found some thought-provoking information which deserves a place here.
The global wind industry has never had it so good - our WindEnergy Study 2006 showed that new installation of wind power worldwide will be quadrupled by 2014. That is very good news - not only for the environment, but also for the economy, as the wind industry becomes a job machine. The German Renewable Energies Association (BEE) expects some 500,000 jobs in Germany alone by 2020. That would mean more people employed in this industry in Germany than in the automotive industry.(Source: WindEnergy April 2006 newsletter, from the EWEC)This supports the view we've discussed before in 209. THE ULTIMATE PEAK OIL HERESY. Who's to say that peak oil will lead to collapse and economic recession/depression? It's very possible that peak oil will lead to massive construction, employment growth and economic boom due to the need to rebuild and retrofit everything.
-- by JD
posted by JD @ 4:34 PM
13 comments
13 Comments:
Um, J.D. is 44 years old. He was alive during the 70s. I'm sure he has considered what you just said.
the dow jones went up almost 200 points today. in other news, the price of a barrel of oil hit its record high. (yes, i know there was unrelated news re: the reserve and only long term stats make any sense; just found it ironic)
going back to the brilliant insights of nukeengineer (and soon, i imagine, our latest troll PD).
there's this argument that doomers like to use that goes something like this: "the oil shocks of the 70s and 80s are nothing compared to the oil shock that is coming, because this time the limits will be geological, not political and there won't be anyone to save us by re-opening the spigots". sorry for the paraphrasing but if you're familiar with PO you know this argument.
well, this argument is used by PO doomers when someone says "well we survived the 70s oil shock, we'll survive this".
however, it can also be used against PO doomers. here's how: in the 70s we *knew* that there was more oil and that we just had to figure out a way to get the spiggots turned up again. but this time we know we need new energy. and capitalism is making the new technology viable.
so again, comparing the situation now to that of the 70s is pointless. it's a new world with a totally different set of problems and new solutions.
Popmonkey said: "so again, comparing the situation now to that of the 70s is pointless. it's a new world with a totally different set of problems and new solutions."
I think Americans suffer from a certain tragic disconnectedness from history. There's a prevalent idea that "Well, we're advanced now and we can tackle anything, because gosh darn it, we're Americans." As a history teacher, I undertand why this happens. History textbooks isolate historical periods and fail to connect them to today or to each other. Slavery began, people saw it as problem and it ended. Fascism and communism arose but were defeated. For example, students are taught that there was slavery, we had a civil war and a civil rights movement, and now there is equality, the end. Or: once there was an evil communist empire, but Ronald Reagan strucked down the dragon with his nuclear sword and now Europe is free from tyranny. Its triumphalist, its shortsighted, and its dangerous. The idea that April 2006 is somehow immune to the economic viccitudes of the 1970s and early 1980s is unfounded.
I believe that there are certain physical limits to science. There are also limits to infrastructure investment when milions of consumers are out of work and no one is going to have money to buy i-pods and McMansions that keep the economy humming along.
Nukeengineer is exactly right. The oil crisis wrought massive economic devastation. Retrofit all you want, it won't matter when Americans are spending all their cash on gasoline, heating oil, and food.
Hey RC, do you commonly call people you disagree with trolls, or is it that you just have no tolorance for diverging points of view? Or is this not an open blog?
I could come up with a lot of funnier, more apt insults for people I don't agree with, but I guess I'm a bigger person, a bigger man if you will.
I think JD's thinking suffers from the fact that markets are NOT always rational. This is because PEOPLE are not always rational.
The invisible hand might sweep down and deliver us from evil or it might knock us all on our asses.
Or rather your asses, 'cause I'm going to have my permaculture garden, windmill, and and worm bin up and running. Hahaha, just kidding!
Buena suerte,
PD
**Hey RD, sorry, boss. The "man" who likes to insult others isMONKEY!! **
Ooops.
See, I'm such a big person, unlike others!
Peace
PD
it won't matter when Americans are spending all their cash on gasoline, heating oil, and food.
Patrick, there are about a jillion ways to avoid this problem. If gas gets expensive, you can car pool, ride the bus, buy a scooter, bicycle, walk, telecommute, move, sleep at work etc. etc. Americans heat their homes like mental retards. You only need to heat the room you're in, and you don't need to heat while you're in bed or out of the house. If you need to heat the pipes, then heat them. You don't need to heat the whole friggin house just to keep the pipes warm. Put on a hat and a thick sweater. Long underwear. Buy a down sleeping bag. Lie on an electric blanket in front of the TV, with a thick blanket over yourself. Food isn't a problem because food isn't getting inordinately expensive. And even if it does get expensive, just move down the food chain. Eat beans instead of beef. You're entire point is about lifestyle fluff. If Americans end up spending all their money on these things, it's because they are hopeless idiots who are barely capable of wiping their own butts.
I have to side with Patrick David here.
JD, there is a vast difference between saying that peak oil is not dieoff, and saying that there is not going to be a major recession or Depression!
I'm no "Doomer" that believes 90% of us are going to dieoff in some Mad Max catastrophe. However, to try and portray a little growth in the wind industry as a silver bullet to preventing recession is as ridiculous and unrealistic as the Doomers you criticize.
Tell me JD, how many harvesters run on Wind Turbines? How many airlines? How many freight companies?
I love wind, solar chimney's, solar energy etc but it is just plain all too little too late to prevent a Greater Depression. Yes, construction in these industries will BOOM. Yes, we need more and more renewable energy to prevent Climate Change. But no, wind energy moving from 1% of world electricity supply to about 4% of world electricity supply by 2015 is not actually going to solve a liquid fuels crisis or stop the airlines going bankrupt.
And JD... can you please stop unintentionally describing a recession as you try to explain away a recession? What do you think all your cost saving, energy saving measures mean? A slow down in the consumption of goods and services IS a recession. Not buying a car? JD, for the audience can you please tell me how many American's are employed making or servicing cars? "Sleeping at work?" will somehow prevent a recession? Accountants and factory workers sleeping at work, missing their families and children half the week, is the very definition of some kind of abnormal national emergency! Give me a break!
Just the airlines going bankrupt will throw the world into a major recession... not because the airlines themselves provide so much employment, but because international tourism does! And airlines are just the beginning.
What about freight? How far is our food freighted to our grocery stores? I know we CAN grow food closer to home, that it is a physical possibility... but WHEN are we going to? See the difference? I know we CAN train food from farmlands to cities... but that's only after the actuality of building the rail.
Just discussing the physical possibility of some sort of technical solution does not mean that the solution has actually been implemented in time to prevent a major recession or even Depression (which is my bet.)
You know I am not a doomer from our email chats. You know I want solutions to this. However, sometimes you go too far in dismissing the urgency with which governments should approach peak oil. The marketplace is running blind on this, and besides... town planning (and food security etc) is a government responsibility anyway.
I appreciate your efforts to help depressed peakniks see that there are alternatives, but I really think you have missed the boat as to how many decades too late all these 'solutions' will come if you think the marketplace will just sail right through peak oil without experiencing a rather savage recession or Depression.
Your move.
**Hey RD, sorry, boss. The "man" who likes to insult others isMONKEY!! **
Ooops.
See, I'm such a big person, unlike others!
Peace
PD
Don't worry about it.
I think what JD is trying to say is that maybe it is possible to achieve a level of economic growth post-peak. The solutions that JD is postulating about might not seem practical now but with $10-15 gas might seem a lot more prudent. Spending half a week away from your family is not so bad if it puts food on the table.
pd (Troll -1), i think you probably read only half of what you claim to read. like, for example, JD's post, or my comment. or all the FACTS you like to quote.
The oil crisis wrought massive economic devastation.
it did? in the context of the 1970s oil shock: define massive. define devastation. define economic, for that matter... please use 500 words or less.
And JD... can you please stop unintentionally describing a recession as you try to explain away a recession? What do you think all your cost saving, energy saving measures mean? A slow down in the consumption of goods and services IS a recession.
Who says consumption of goods and services has to slow down? Please read the story of Stacey Harper in #180.
Stacey started car pooling, dramatically reduced her commuting bill, and now has lots of extra money to spend. You're assuming she won't spend that money on anything. You're assuming that money saved by people who conserve will just disappear, without a trace.
Even if you just do the minimum -- conserving enough to keep your fuel/food bills constant -- it has no net effect whatsoever on consumer spending. Your household budget is still exactly what it always was. Why will that cause a recession? You still have the same amount of money left over as you always had.
Just the airlines going bankrupt will throw the world into a major recession...
For the most part, the airlines already went bankrupt, and we're not in a major recession. And even if they do consolidate and retrench, that's just an opening for nimble competitors like Megabus (express bus service from $1!) who will grow into the niche the airlines vacate.
eclipse now: there is no silver bullet and no one is arguing as such. wind power doesn't have to replace airplanes or harvesters. it's just like the "oil sands 4mbpd won't be enough" argument. oil (liquid) isn't going to run out. ever. production will (has?) peak and will decline and we will need conservation and new energy sources to gradually "replace" the hole. there is major financial opportunity here. in everything from PV to plug in hybrids to wind power.
i don't think it'll be all rosy. in fact i'm expecting a recession of some sort. just not one causing civilization collapse unless civilization is to be defined as "life of driving SUVs to buy McBurgers made from cows in Brazil"...
think of the horrors of the Internet Bubble.
dc,
Nice find! There was news on that very topic today:
Bernanke says high energy prices will not spark inflation
Monkey,
If you don't know what happened during the 1970s, check a history book. Or ask anyone over 40. I'm not your teacher.
Buena Suerte
PD
JD, do you ALLOW other to hurtfully insult others, or is it just because they're insulting people you don't agree with?
In any case, the burden of definitive proof about the sufficiency of the current forms of renewables to reliably deliver baseload at a reasonable price rests with the anti-nukers.
I agree, ES, but I think the sufficiency of renewables is an interesting, unsettled question, which all objective parties can contribute to. I don't have any particular bias against nuclear power, and a big nuclear build isn't going to bother me much if it turns out to be necessary. Nevertheless, nick makes very good points against nuclear, so I think the sufficiency of renewables merits some deep, serious consideration.
For example, do we really need to build nuclear plants just to power clothes dryers for everybody, even though the same purpose can be achieved with the sun? For that matter, how many nuclear power plants do we need to power homes -- considering that homes can be built, even today, so as to require almost no grid power at all? I think these are very important questions which all objective parties should be interested in.
Strict analysis may show that nuclear is indeed essential, particularly for industrial processes. And that's fine. I don't have a problem with nuclear per se. But I don't think we should make a massive committment to nuclear without a close examination of the demand side. Otherwise, there is a risk of getting played by another Big Business propaganda machine. You know: "We need massive nuclear now... never mind what we need it for."
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