Will the internet survive energy contraction?

[excaza]

@ Uranium for half a million years. Repeating a false statement makes it true not.

Peak Uranium is here whether you accept it or not.

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/24414/

Dittmar is known for being biased. Flaws in his work have been pointed out to him but they are ignored. He's basically using the article to push his disarmament agenda, not out of concern over some supposed energy crisis.

I hope you will start to do a little more research than using the first article google gives you that agrees with your viewpoint and using it to say we're wrong.

Also, arxiv is not an authority on anything, it's a place for people to share their ideas before they reach peer-review. You can pretty much say anything you want.

 

[Dancing David]

Prove it then. Where's this magical abundant amount of uranium in the ocean?

Oh my, you do know that elemenst are in solution in teh ocean, no need to get flustered because your doomsday scenario is a fantasy.

here is a helper for you
Google for unranium in ocean

 

[GreyArea]

Yeah, I know of Big Gav, in fact, you pointed him my way before.

I didn't realize you were the same person. Sorry about that.

The biggest problem I see with Big Gav though, is he thinks we can just go about "business as usual" on renewables, which is just patently false. Our industrial civilization requires cheap easy liquid fuels. Nothing less will do. Also, his blog has yet to find the "silver bullet" that will make renewables cost competitive, if you've noticed.

There are two points here I think you need to examine more closely.

First is that there needs to be some "silver bullet" solution. I don't think there is, and I suspect that Gav would agree. He reports on multiple approaches to our energy problems, as do the people at WorldChanging and elsewhere, and I think that's how we are already starting to deal with the situation. Wind here, solar thermal there, solar photovoltaic over there, geothermal in Iceland and East Africa, tidal in a few places, etcetera -- whatever makes sense for that area, combined with a distribution system to take any extra generation to places that need it can keep the juice flowing as the fossil fuel prices become comparatively more expensive.

The second thing I think you should consider is "business as usual". Business as usual for one time period lives only a short time as costs and circumstances change. Don't think that energy-generation and manufacturing today operate like they did in the "classic" smokestack industry days of the early 20th century. These sectors will be even less like that fifty years from now.

But if you use the term "business as usual" to refer to profligate habits of consumers and households, that can change too. Something like that has already happened in California. Higher prices have curbed demand, more-efficient devices have allowed people to do the same things with less energy, and (despite all its other problems) California is still going.

If we have to go through a period of energy scarcity (and thus high prices) before the better tools (which cost comparatively less to operate) are well-distributed, that doesn't spell the end. If we all had to go back to a level of electric consumption from, say, 1980, you have to remember that that time still had an industrial society.

I'm curious about how old you are. Do you have a sense of how much life is different now than it was thirty years ago? The slow unrolling of the microcomputer revolution has changed life for millions, but in steps over time. The same can be said for electronic telecommunications networks over the same period. As others have pointed out, the internet and computers were here forty years ago. But only a few people had them. Only with time did "the future" get distributed. I think a comparable degree of change is already beginning in renewable energy production, prodded by the steady rise in fossil fuel prices and environmental consequences.

As for the end of industrial (or post-industrial) civilization, what is the sequence of events and the timeframe that you imagine? Your expectations might be more fast and hard and sudden than ours, and that's probably why a lot of us here think you are unduly pessimistic.

 

[TFian]

From a quick google on Uranium in sea water:
http://www.wise-uranium.org/upusa.html#SEAWATER

There's nothing in there that's not feasible. When you consider what a small percentage of the cost of nuclear power is made up by the cost of the fuel, it would have to be very expensive indeed for the price to be prohibitive, particularly in the sorts of scenarios under discussion here (where the price of energy is increasing)

So, TFian, what are you disputing here?

I'm disputing that uranium found in sea water would be enough to power industrial civilization.

 

[TFian]

One where, as I said, technology is sufficiently advanced as to be largely invisible.


It's the only survivable agrarian scenario. Whether it sounds weird is largely irrelevant.

I'm sorry, what does it mean to be sufficiently advanced it would be invisible?

 

[TFian]

When someone have been writing for over ten years things which display complete disconnect from reality, he IS either deluded or a scam artist. When some of these things display awareness of reality, but careful cherry-picking of data, the chances of the second rise greatly.

I do no need to back it up -- plenty of people on this thread already showed that ArchYoYo is full of it. If you refuse to believe them, too bad.

You claimed he wanted to SEE the end of industrial civilization. Back that up. He does not want to see a die off and a return to agrarian civilization, he just thinks it's our best option given energy scarcity. He is a respected leader of his community, please don't slander him.

 

[TFian]

How is that possible?

Without abundant energy, it's inevitable. Probably more ecologically sound anyway.

 

[TFian]

I didn't realize you were the same person. Sorry about that.




There are two points here I think you need to examine more closely.

First is that there needs to be some "silver bullet" solution. I don't think there is, and I suspect that Gav would agree. He reports on multiple approaches to our energy problems, as do the people at WorldChanging and elsewhere, and I think that's how we are already starting to deal with the situation. Wind here, solar thermal there, solar photovoltaic over there, geothermal in Iceland and East Africa, tidal in a few places, etcetera -- whatever makes sense for that area, combined with a distribution system to take any extra generation to places that need it can keep the juice flowing as the fossil fuel prices become comparatively more expensive.

The second thing I think you should consider is "business as usual". Business as usual for one time period lives only a short time as costs and circumstances change. Don't think that energy-generation and manufacturing today operate like they did in the "classic" smokestack industry days of the early 20th century. These sectors will be even less like that fifty years from now.

But if you use the term "business as usual" to refer to profligate habits of consumers and households, that can change too. Something like that has already happened in California. Higher prices have curbed demand, more-efficient devices have allowed people to do the same things with less energy, and (despite all its other problems) California is still going.

If we have to go through a period of energy scarcity (and thus high prices) before the better tools (which cost comparatively less to operate) are well-distributed, that doesn't spell the end. If we all had to go back to a level of electric consumption from, say, 1980, you have to remember that that time still had an industrial society.

I'm curious about how old you are. Do you have a sense of how much life is different now than it was thirty years ago? The slow unrolling of the microcomputer revolution has changed life for millions, but in steps over time. The same can be said for electronic telecommunications networks over the same period. As others have pointed out, the internet and computers were here forty years ago. But only a few people had them. Only with time did "the future" get distributed. I think a comparable degree of change is already beginning in renewable energy production, prodded by the steady rise in fossil fuel prices and environmental consequences.

As for the end of industrial (or post-industrial) civilization, what is the sequence of events and the timeframe that you imagine? Your expectations might be more fast and hard and sudden than ours, and that's probably why a lot of us here think you are unduly pessimistic.

@ Age, I'm 23. No, I don't have much sense on how life was different thirty years ago.

"I think a comparable degree of change is already beginning in renewable energy production, prodded by the steady rise in fossil fuel prices and environmental consequences."

But with renewable energy you have problems with intermittent and EROEI. How will they ever scale up?

What do you feel about nuclear energy?

"for the end of industrial (or post-industrial) civilization, what is the sequence of events and the timeframe that you imagine?"

Well, I figure it would go along the lines of when oil becomes too expensive, industrial civilization begins to contract, resource wars become common, a mass starvation die off occurs, and we either see a peaceful transition to Green Wizardy (which is a form of permaculture/appropriate technology/organic farming) as dubbed by Grand ArchDruid John Michael Greer, or brutal feudalistic agrarian societies. What is your timeline?

 

[drkitten]

I'm sorry, what does it mean to be sufficiently advanced it would be invisible?

Technology has a tendency to become less intrusive over time. For example, we can now "treat" polio with a vaccine that is given to infants, we no longer have entire wings of hospitals devoted to polio patients.

Most businesses no longer have to give any thought to their telephone service; offices are built with phone jacks already in the walls, there's usually a (very small) PBX on each floor or down in the basement, and if you need telephone service, you just call the phone company and they throw a switch at the central office.

If you're really up to date, you don't even need the phone jack and PBX, as you just press "talk" on your cell phone and it communicates with a tower that you don't even know about.

Compare that with the phone technology of the early 20th century, where you actually had to have a person (usually a woman) at a desk somewhere in your office building who would put wires into a plugboard to connect your phone to where it needed to go. If you needed to make a long-distance call, she would have to make special connections and then talk to another human being along the path from here to there.

Similarly, the technology to handle internet routing is largely invisible. Back in the bad old days, if you wanted to send email, you needed to specify exactly which computers a piece of mail would go through via bang paths like "bigsite!foovax!barbox!me" and if you didn't know how to get to "bigsite" you were hosed. Today you just send email to me@barbox.com and the computer figures out which computers are in the middle.

On a more physical level, look at the differences between the various clockwork mechanisms used to tell time in the 19th century and the nearly-invisible ICs that do the same task today. Or the complex method to get music out of a phonograph record vs. simply pushing a button on an iPod.

Manufacturing today is a pretty obvious process; you need huge buildings to put the machines in and lots of people to maintain them. At some point, our post-scarcity society will [may?] simply be able to have little nano-robots assemble whatever is needed out of local materials -- i.e. if you need a carbon atom, pull some CO2 out of the air and attach it to the cheeseburger you're fabricating.

 

[drkitten]

I'm disputing that uranium found in sea water would be enough to power industrial civilization.

Yes, but it's not clear on what rational basis you're (trying to) dispute it.

* We know the uranium is there
* We know approximately the amount of uranium that is there, and the energy content of that uranium
* We know approximately how much energy industrial civilization uses, and how long that uranium could power civilization
* We know approximately how much it would cost to extract and purify the uranium, and how much energy from that uranium would cost per joule
* We know approximately how much energy from conventional sources costs.

... and the difference isn't that much; certainly not enough to cause a tremendous drop in energy usage.

 

[Mark6]

You claimed he wanted to SEE the end of industrial civilization. Back that up. He does not want to see a die off and a return to agrarian civilization, he just thinks it's our best option given energy scarcity. He is a respected leader of his community, please don't slander him.

Fine. Maybe Greer is sincere, and wants what is best for human race. He is still wrong, for reasons many had explained here, and your uncritical acceptance of all he says does not speak well of you.

 

[TFian]

Fine. Maybe Greer is sincere, and wants what is best for human race. He is still wrong, for reasons many had explained here, and your uncritical acceptance of all he says does not speak well of you.

I'm glad you can admit you were (possibly) wrong. But I don't get your problem with his Green Wizardy approach?

 

[Mark6]

I'm glad you can admit you were (possibly) wrong. But I don't get your problem with his Green Wizardy approach?

His approach is fundamentally defeatist. And it does not have to be. Put it this way -- amount of solar energy hitting Earth is 10,000 times what our civilization currently uses. Total amount of energy Sun puts out is 2 billion times that. Someone who really wants what is best for humanity ought to think how to harness this bounty, rather than how to survive the "inevitable contraction".

 

[AvalonXQ]

I took a look at some of the comments on Greer's site. Apparently he automatically deletes any response that tries to claim that the internet is in any way energy efficient.
The guy's the worst kind of crazy fanatic -- the kind that's so deep in his arguments he refuses to listen to anyone else.

 

[TFian]

I took a look at some of the comments on Greer's site. Apparently he automatically deletes any response that tries to claim that the internet is in any way energy efficient.
The guy's the worst kind of crazy fanatic -- the kind that's so deep in his arguments he refuses to listen to anyone else.

Wait, when has he deleted any comments? I see some comments there criticizing his opinions.

 

[TFian]

Here's an interesting comment I found.

I agree that the days (or years) of the internet are numbered. People forget that the internet consists of several things. I count four: A backbone (or series of interconnected backbones and networks as one poster correctly pointed out, users at its ends needing computers, electricity, and content.

I don't doubt that the government, military, and major critical users such as banks, will keep the backbone going and critical services for their needs. But even this backbone will need to become more terrestrial, as I believe the days are numbered for satellites, both for the complexity and cost. (This will affect telephone and broadcasters as well.)

The "internet," both in content and accessibility, is what will breakdown. Costs will go up, the ability for users such as you and I to own computers will change, and load-shedding in electricity, if not outright shutdowns, will all remove our access to it. And once "we" can't access it, the content will disappear. I expect significant changes, i.e., negative changes, already within ten years.

And while I hope a rebirth of Fidonet and other user-built networks using dial-up telephone and store-and-forward messaging will reemerge, those days will be numbered as well, as unfortunately I expect similar breakdowns within the wired telephone system. Much as I'd like to see a hardened POTS telephone system survive, I don't think it will. While there may be copper wires to my house, much of the telephone system is all digital and computerized. I suspect the major telephone systems will hold on longer than some technologies, again for their critical nature and hopefully already stored components, there days will still be numbered. The production of the electronic equipment and the tolerances needed for today's I.C. chips is well beyond local ability to make. I wish we had warehouses full of decommissioned electric-mechanical telephone switching equipment, 1/4-inch plugboards, and headsets for operators to fall back on, but, alas, they aren't there.

I love radio. It is a beautiful broadcasting medium that requires the minimum of equipment, much of it simple, to be effective. Television, on the other hand, now, I believe, has a very short future. It is costly to provide, made worse by the move to digital broadcasting. I firmly believe the Congress, at the request of the FCC and unknowing TV broadcasters and TV manufacturers, signed the death warrant for TV when it replaced analog broadcasting with digital methods. The equipment now needed to receive digital TV is too sophisticated to survive a decline in production ability. And when TV goes, so to goes satellite TV and cable providers, with the latter meaning both a loss of TV programming and a major source for internet distribution to users.

My dad, who will turn 79 this summer, born in mid-1931, saw in his lifetime the advent of both telephone that was more than party lines and the electrification of his farm house with the 1930s expansion in the U.S. by rural electric associations and cooperatives. And in the remainder of my lifetime (I'm 50) I will probably see the dismantling of much of it again.

 

[Roboramma]

I'm disputing that uranium found in sea water would be enough to power industrial civilization.

Given that the link I presented gave you the numbers to work with, I think drkitten's post is a better response than I could offer. I'd appreciate it if you responded to that.

Edit: Or perhaps you are disputing those numbers themselves? Could you be clear as to whether your issue is with the total amount of uranium in sea water or with how efficiently that uranium could be acquired and used?

 

[Weak Kitten]

TFian, you seem really devoted to this idea of the total breakdown of modern society. Why do you feel that this will even happen?

True, our current sources of energy will slowly run out. But the key word here is slowly. As they run out we will develop technologies that require less and less energy to run and find new, if less easily accessible, sources of energy.

As others have already pointed out, moving people and goods around is expensive energy wise. Moving ideas around via the internet is much cheaper then sending letters and packages of papers, and certainly cheaper then moving people around. The repair costs for the internet are much lower than the repair, fuel and upkeep of a postal service or passenger airplanes.

If anything, I think the results of a decreasing amount of available energy would be an increased reliance on the internet. We see that starting today as people try to work from home so they do not have to pay the fuel cost to drive to work. Companies hold international meetings over satellite or internet to avoid the cost of air travel. Banks and other financial institutions are almost completely dependent on the network system for running transactions.

As far as I can see, the internet would be one of the last things modern society would give up if given any choice. Only a truly catastrophic and sudden event would cause people to give up a system we have become so dependent on for so many basic communication needs. "Energy contraction" is not sudden and there is no reason that it should be catastrophic given proper planning.

 

[Dancing David]

I'm disputing that uranium found in sea water would be enough to power industrial civilization.

3.3mg/m³ of uranium in seawater, then let us say that you can only extract 30%, so 1.1mg/m³, 1000 m.³=1 gram of uranium, so 1,000,0000 m³ of seawater equals 1 kg. of uranium. So 1 km.³=1 kg of uranium

If the oceans have 1.37 billion cubic kilometers of seawater then you could get 1.37 billion kg. of uranium.


I don't know how much that is compared to six times the current uranium electricty usage.

 

[Dancing David]

You claimed he wanted to SEE the end of industrial civilization. Back that up. He does not want to see a die off and a return to agrarian civilization, he just thinks it's our best option given energy scarcity. He is a respected leader of his community, please don't slander him.

Um, scarcity is not collapse.