Rebuilding Mass Consumption – ContextPost World War II-fear another Great
Depression-demobilization-radicalized labor-power of Communist
parties
Answer: Consumption is the opiate of the masses
The World View“Our enormously productive economy …
demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert buying and selling of goods into a ritual, and that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption. … We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced and discarded at an ever increasing rate.”
Rebuilding Mass Consumption - Tools
Keynesian short-term demand management
- “consumption function” - contra cyclical policyFixation on Competitive Growth
(USSR)Maintain income, consumption
levels through - military spending - road building - subsidized housing and
suburbanization - consumer credit - low oil prices
Advantages of Oil1) Historically easy to
access2) Easily transported
(liquids easiest) 3) Energy density (40 kw
hrs per gal)4) Refineable into several
fuels5) Variety other uses -
chemicals, etc.6) Continuous flow
production methods
Demand for Gasoline• Number of cars
(wartime expansion)• Low mileage• Distances traveled
growing• Destruction of public
transport• Military demand
Refining Petroleum
The Petrochemical Revolution
Year % Petrochemical US Europe1920 0.01 0.01930 6.0 0.01940 21.0 0.01950 50.0 4.01960 88.0 58.01970 96.0 75.0Today? 99.7
Price Trends1947-59 traded commodities up 300% overall oil from $2.17 to 1.79 down 38%
1951-64 WPI up 4% inorganic chemicals up 20% synthetic organics down 15%1957-67 CPI up 13% Dupont Corp Sales Price Index down 15%
The Cost of Oil• Extraction
(financial cost)• Replacement
cost of natural capital
• Ecological cost of production & use
Greenhouse Gases: Since Industrial Age
Gas Sources Increase PowerCO2 fossil fuels 35% 1 burning jungleMethane agric., gas leaks 100% 30 deforest.NOx chem. fert. 12% 200 fossil fuels
CFCs refridgerants 4% p.a. 10,000
Acid Rain SO2 NOx Volcanoes 5-10% Swamps etc. Coal, petroleum (refining & use) 90-95% 100 m tons p.a.
Effects:Dead lakesStunted forests Falling crop yieldsPoisoned drinking waterCorroded buildingsDamage to automobiles
Ozone Depletion: Causes
Culprit Natural HumanMethane swamps gas leaks (T) rice paddies
(P) ruminants (A)
Nitrous oxide microbes fossil fuelHalons -- refridgerants
Chemical Toxification:Origins of Toxic Waste
Petroleum and offshoots – 70%+
Metal refiningPulp & PaperNuclearMilitary (chemical
and nuclear)
Nature and Toxic Waste
Normal breakdown process
-dissolution-evaporation-biodegradation-photo-degradation-natural acids
Synthetic OrganicsFeedstock: fossil fuelLimited water solubility, fat
affinityToxic, carcinogenic,
mutagenicVery slow to degrade sometimes impossible
always difficult
Breakdown products sometimes worse
The Core DilemmaMaintain the carbon
economy- more poisons- worse climate
disruption
Run out of oil?-economic and financial
catastrophe-famines, population
crash
End of Oil?oil as energy-mattersupply rising 1930s 2005,
2010, 2020?as energy-matter up, GNP upwhen oil supply stops
growing?
technological shifts energy substitutions economies in usewhat if they are not enough?Key factor: energy profit rate
Symptoms of Conventional Oil Crisis?1. Global discovery rate peaked in 1960s2. 90% conventional oil already found?3. Main producers (S.A., Russia, Mexico
etc.) near capacity or beyond4. Wave of industry mergers5. Global demand growth 2000-2040 est.
60%
Oil: Conventional v. Unconventional?
Stage IV: Synthetic Oil1) Shale Oil (kerogen)
Production- Mine kerogen- Transport to refineries- Heat to 900 F- Add H From where?- Coal, oil?- Elecrolysis water? where is electricity from?
Problems- Massive water use- Low net energy- Waste disposal more than original
groundwater pollution
Oil ShalesThe Raw Material The Process
2) Oil Sands (Est. Athabasca 1.7 t. bbls)Strip mining (75 metres overburden)Hot water, steam stips thin oil coat
from sandAdd naptha or natural gas
condensate to tar to upgrade to liquid
Oil Sands (continued)• Recoverable only 300 billion• Energy profit rate half conventional oil• Greenhouse emissions far more than conventional oil• Garbage enormous-2 tons sand per bbl oil-destroys hundreds of thousands of acres -displace native population & destroy forests, wildlife
habitat-huge water use 2-1/2 bbl liquid waste per bbl oil (tailings pond 22 sq km
circumference) To replace world conventional, 70 Syncrudes with
tailings pond = Lake Ontario
With this result
Stage V? Return to Coal?
Energy profit rate already < 1?Cost of liquefactionHuge cost to restore old productionPollution far greater than oil productionMuch dirtier in useBut massive subsidies, esp. US(US the “Saudi Arabia of coal”!)
A New Coal-Chemical Revolution?
World Coal Distribution
US: The “Saudi Arabia of Coal?”
90% burned to produce electricity
Pollution controls – taller chimneys!
Acid rain problem legislation, scrubbers
Only partly successful-still big problem certain areas-US soils so degraded no longer
neutralize-additional problem mercury (it cycles
up, down)
Switch to Western coal - lower S - open pit, surface mines - heavily mechanized (i.e.
no unions)BUT - younger coal, lower
energy per unit
Modern Deep Mine
West Virginia Mountain Top Removal Coal Mine
Wyoming Open Pit Coal Mine
US Coal Solution?-modern tech less SO2less NOxless mercury per
unitBUT more CO2!!!
Skyrocketing Price of Fossil Fuel - Impact:
-on GNP-on distribution of income and wealth-on stock market-on real estate market-on automobile culture-on agriculture
In The New Millennium:Techno Optimism
Energy: solar-hydrogen replace fossil fuel?
Matter: synthetic biochemicals replace petrochemicals?
i.e. a new hydrogen fuelled-bioengineering age?
In The New Millennium:Economic & Political
Reality?• Stuck with carbon economy• Some window dressing for PR• Slow motion disintegration at first climate disruption chemical pollution steadily climbing oil prices all well before oil runs out• Then precipitous drop oil production • With what consequences?
Petrochemical Age &Economic Growth
Based On:Human Ingenuity?Magic of the Market?Faith in God?No! Bio-Geo-Chemical
Fluke!Unsustainable, not
repeatable
The World in 2100?• A much smaller population• With much lower per
capita C• Far less mobile• In small communities• Using old solar flow
technologies• In a physically degraded
world • With much less biological
wealth
Top Related