Deindustrialized World3 22nd Century

[Willy]

Originally Posted by malloyd

SNIP

All very true.

The methan clathrates and the methan bonded in the permafrost are the big wildcards we have in such a scenario.

As for radio, it´s easy to construct even with easy tools, if you know how. So every settlement can have a local radio just to be in contact or for other purposes. The energy can in most places come very well from a combination of solar / wind and some batterys. I once met a person who after WWII build his own radio powered it via a bycyle generator and was able ot communicate around europe.

More moisture in the air and higher temps result in changing weather pattersn. So many farmers will have to experiment and use new crops and lifestock than before, not to mention new pests will also appear.

[KarlKost]

Originally Posted by Willy

First wrong chemical symbol not N but P, phospates are said reportingly to be at peak production around 2030 and from than dropping, estimated duration at actual production max a hundret years. Phsphates are now a relative small part of fertilizer, but even now the make for the biggest part of the costs. Given rising world population and some new founds in resources this calculation is still standing. AND most natural resources of phosphates are poluted by heavy metals and other obnoxious substances. Without them you can pour as much fertilizer you want on the plants, it wouldn´t help much, just ask a farmer.

Yes, the hanging fruits of phosphate are close to end. But those are the hanging fruits. If there's one thing humanity has proven is that necessity is the mother of invention.

And not, I didnt misplace the N. I meant Nitrogen - as in, fertilizers produced from it.

As we stand, there are 3 main sources of fertilizers: nitrogen, which comes mostly from natural gas but can also be synthesized from the atmosphere with electricity (currently more expensive which is why we dont do it), phosphates which are the P of the equation and which I was NOT refering to when I was talking about Nitrogen, and Pot-ash, potash, which is basically burned wood, which the plants obtain absorbing from the soil.

Phosphate is present basically everywhere - which is why plants absorb it from the ground - but isnt as easy to "destilate" tiny portions of it from tons upon tons of mud; finding a big mine of it is far easier and cheaper.

Still, phosphates form salts, so you CAN take it from almost everywhere - it's just harder, more expensive and require more energy to do so.

But it's not "the end is night".

Originally Posted by Willy

So we will have a problem with feeding the world population. Not to mention you have to transport either food or fertilizer from A to B.

We have been moving things from A to B ever since we lived in caves. That's not a problem that is new.

Originally Posted by Willy

Sorry again whole south america including mexico would be on the way to US /Canada because they would still be able to fed theri population, and thanks to natural oil and gas can transport the food to them.

Im from Brazil, I know all to well the conditions of the region I live in. The truth is that South America rellies on fertilizers to produce the massive amounts of food that we do; the only exception is Argentina.

But even Argentina, we need machinery and tech that is produced in the US and Europe, and manufactures produced in China. Modern agriculture is an industrial activity, and if you remove any of those, we no longer have modern agriculture. While it is possible that we could feed our populations even without, South America would basically go back to the 19th century.

The US on the other hand have the food, the fertilizers from Canada (which it has far less need of because the US soil is much more fertile than in S.America), it has oil, gas, tech and manufacture from Mexico. So, N America can in fact form a closed system without needing the rest of the world.

Brazil and the rest of S America however can only thrive in a globalized world were we buy fertilizers, manufacture and tech and export food and raw materials.

And yet, S America isnt in the same desperate position as Africa, Middle East and China.

Originally Posted by Willy

You forgot just south america and india in you calculations. not many nations are actually able to fed their people. India and china alone have over 2 billion people, thankfully far away from my living place. Africa and middle east will still be a problem for central europe.

I forgot nothing. South America can feed it's own population - it wouldnt be pretty, but it can survive (and note the word "survive", not PROSPER)

India have 80% of their population living in the farms. They are largely unindustrialized. Yes it's a lot of people, yes they are very poor, but India have largely kept itself outside the globalized world. They can feed their own population - again, it wouldnt be pretty, but they would survive.

Africa, Middle East and China will absolutely collapse utterly and totally. There's basically 2 places in the world that keeps those places alive: Brazil and USA. Without the food from BOTH, they die, with no possibility of recover. Im talking about more than 1 billion of people dying from the famines, disease and wars that would come, something never seem before.

The rest of the world can survive.

Originally Posted by Willy

I could literally drown you in facts about the situation, but want to avoid a political discussion. Just let me say, research of potential crisis point in the world political, or narurally is a hobby of mine for at least a quarter of a century. Sadly I´m much more often right than wrong. Alone the whole distribution of resources and why some deposits are just that and not resources would be too much for this forum.

Well, that makes us 2. Im an enthusiastic researcher of economics, geopolitics and ecology is part of my trade as a biologist. And Im well informed on things like demographics, althought Im no expert.

By the way, population decline is already the major problem of the developed and emergent nations, and by 2050 ALL the world will experience catastrophic populational decline. So no, the malthusians are wrong - again. Overpopulation is NOT and has never been a problem

[KarlKost]

Originally Posted by Anthony

While I'm not anti-nuclear, at the moment it's a lot cheaper to build extra wind or solar than to build extra nuclear, and for things like nitrogen fixing, without fossil fuels, it's almost certainly cheaper to just use a crop rotation that will do the fixation for you.

Wind and Solar is a con, it's pure demagoguery. While nuclear IS more expensive than fossils, it's the only hope. Wind and Solar are a farse - and not, they are much more expensive.

Also, solar painels are highly polluent after their time is spent. This is just chinese propaganda - a country that imports 80% of their energy demands, mostly in coal and oil, and who now already produce more waste than the US, with an economy of 2/3 of it. But they are the world's largest producer of solar painels. Funnily enough, they are not the world's largest consumers of solar painels. Hmm... I wonder why...

And no, crop rotation aint as effective as syntetic fertilizers. Sri Lanka tried it, and to the surprise of no one but their president, their food production dropped almost 50%. The result is the country walking fast towards becoming a failed state and the mass protests we've been seen this year over the country as inflation roars putting people on famine and the country becoming unsolvent.

Crop rotation is already used almost in all agriculture endeavors by the way, but it still needs fertilizers.

Another thing that modern agriculture also needs is pesticides, another industrial byproduct without with modern food production is absolutely impossible. And despite of what a bunch of hippies say no, you cant do it without it.

We will need to "process" our own fezes in order to extract potassium from it; that will be one of the "solutions".

Other than that, any other solution requires MORE energy, not less. Which is why Nuclear is the ONLY way foward.

And note, Im not saying that nuclear is a viable alternative, Im saying that it is the ONLY possible path. Very soon it wont matter if people are for or against it, reality will impose itself - as it always does - over ideologies and political will.

[Willy]

Originally Posted by KarlKost

SNIP
By the way, population decline is already the major problem of the developed and emergent nations, and by 2050 ALL the world will experience catastrophic populational decline. So no, the malthusians are wrong - again. Overpopulation is NOT and has never been a problem

You really understand Malthus? The crisis you describe above is the mother of a malthusian crisis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusianism

He said very basically human population will grow, given good conditions, until they met a border of food supply or other resources which led to a breakdown and die off.


Developped nations are getting older and fewer children, because of the better living standards, woman rights, social welfare and not to neclect the pill and other contraceptives. It is a very complex field reaching in many sciences. In 3 generations in my living place the typical family went from 3-5 children or more to 1-2. Of course our problem is nothing against the problem china has. Following a 1 child campaign for more than 2 generations, THEY have a problem and the usual chinese woman doesn´t want children, and if she wants it should be a boy. Well some people never think about being grandparents... .

The other points may be better suited for a exchange of ideas via mail or PM, because the question and it´s answers may inevitably lead to a political discussion.

[ronwit]

The End of the World is Just the Beginning, Peter Zeihan's new book covers this scenario pretty extensively. According to him, this is starting now.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by KarlKost

Wind and Solar is a con, it's pure demagoguery.

Wind and solar are not solutions to all problems, but even without subsidies, the dollars per watt long-term are lower.

Originally Posted by KarlKost

Also, solar painels are highly polluent after their time is spent.

There is some need for work on recycling of solar materials.

Originally Posted by KarlKost

This is just chinese propaganda - a country that imports 80% of their energy demands, mostly in coal and oil, and who now already produce more waste than the US, with an economy of 2/3 of it. But they are the world's largest producer of solar painels. Funnily enough, they are not the world's largest consumers of solar painels. Hmm... I wonder why...

Because solar is not cheaper than dirty coal? If you don't mind having air quality like China's air quality, coal is easily cheaper (China's electricity production: 62.2% coal, 17.7% hydro, 5.5% wind, 4.8% nuclear, 3.2% natural gas, 3.1% solar, 3.5% all other).

Originally Posted by KarlKost

And no, crop rotation aint as effective as syntetic fertilizers.

Didn't say anything about effectiveness, you're absolutely going to get reduction in production per acre. However, producing fertilizer without fossil fuels isn't something you're going to do with using electricity for direct synthesis, it's something you're going to do crops or bioreactors, and crop rotation is just choosing the shortest transportation path between production and consumption.

In the end, for an awful lot of things that are currently done with fossil fuels, your alternative is biological production.

[Prime Evil]

In 1840 the chemist Justus von Liebig discovered adding nitrogen to soil improved agricultural productivity. Farmers were able to double or triple crop yields using this discovery. But until the dawn of the 20th century, the available sources of fertilizer consisted of composted livestock manure or animal droppings harvested on an industrial scale. At one point 60% of Peru's government revenue came from the export of guano as fertiliser from the Chincha Islands. In 1865, a Spanish naval blockade triggered the Chincha Islands War - probably the only time nations have gone to war over poop. The invention of the Haber-Bosch process changed this. It allowed the creation of synthetic fertilisers. But it requires significant fossil fuel energy inputs. About 5% of the world's natural gas is used to produce fertiliser. If the gas supply is constrained (as is the case at the moment due to the war in Ukraine), the price of fertiliser skyrockets. This is an issue because the Green Revolution of the 1970s increased global agricultural production through widespread use of chemical fertilizers to allow the adoption of high-yielding varieties (HYVs) of cereal crops.

A collapse of modern industrial agriculture is the easiest way to create a de-industrialised future. Modern industrial agriculture is both wasteful and ecologically destructive. It achieves impressive crop yields through constant fossil fuel inputs. It's not just fertilizers - farm mechanisation and pesticides also have a heavy dependence on petrochemicals. It's probably not sustainable on a scale in the long term. Industrial agriculture isn't going to vanish overnight, but will come under increasing pressure over coming decades.

We will not only see growing impacts of climate change on agriculture, but other factors as well. These include growing water stress, topsoil degradation, soil acidification, and trace mineral loss. Large scale topsoil loss due to erosion, loss of soil nutrients, and desertification is one of the biggest long-term threats to our global civilisation. I don't think we will see a sudden collapse of modern life, but rather a gradual transition to a post-industrial future. This won't look like a reversion to medieval technology but a transition to something new. People will adapt. I suspect we may see new agricultural practices combining modern and ancient technologies. For example, consider the possibilities of combining GMO crops with practices derived from permaculture. I anticipate future agriculture will look distinctly weird from our perspective. I suspect it won't look anything like current practices.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by KarlKost

Wind and Solar is a con, it's pure demagoguery. While nuclear IS more expensive than fossils, it's the only hope. Wind and Solar are a farse - and not, they are much more expensive.

Also, solar painels are highly polluent after their time is spent.

That's ridiculous.

Could you run our entire global economy on wind and solar? Not at current prices. Could you keep enough energy generation online to prevent the total collapse of civilization? Absolutely. Where you fall in the middle between those is maybe still open for debate, but per capita global [installed] renewable capacity is already about equal to per capita energy consumption in 1900. Sure that's not a lot by modern Western standards, but the world in 1900 wasn't exactly "deindustrialized".

You don't need vast amounts of energy to avoid the kind of disasters I've seen people try to postulate for energy crisis disasters. I've calculated before than if we gave up eating meat and burned the food the animals were eating instead, we'd generate more energy per capita than England did in 1800. Sure a late 18th century English lifestyle on a vegetarian diet would be considered horrible by most modern Westerners, but by historical standards it's very nearly a life of luxury....

And the pollution issue is total nonsense I honestly suspect of coming from fossil fuel companies of a couple decades ago. There is absolutely no way the pollution levels from solar panels could come remotely close to, say, coal ash, there are just too many orders of magnitude differences in the quantities involved. They [might] be as bad as nuclear waste, but the hazards of nuclear waste are ridiculously overblown too.

[KarlKost]

Originally Posted by Willy

You really understand Malthus? The crisis you describe above is the mother of a malthusian crisis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusianism

He said very basically human population will grow, given good conditions, until they met a border of food supply or other resources which led to a breakdown and die off.


Developped nations are getting older and fewer children, because of the better living standards, woman rights, social welfare and not to neclect the pill and other contraceptives. It is a very complex field reaching in many sciences. In 3 generations in my living place the typical family went from 3-5 children or more to 1-2. Of course our problem is nothing against the problem china has. Following a 1 child campaign for more than 2 generations, THEY have a problem and the usual chinese woman doesn´t want children, and if she wants it should be a boy. Well some people never think about being grandparents... .

The other points may be better suited for a exchange of ideas via mail or PM, because the question and it´s answers may inevitably lead to a political discussion.

First off, the crisis that Thomas R. Malthus predicted, he predicted that it would happen in the 19th century. It has never happened up to today thou.

Secondly, global fertility rates peaked at 2% per year in 1963, and has ever since steadily declined. So much so that from 2050 foward the world will be facing catastrophic populational declines - large populations of elders (that will be us) having to be sustained by an ever shrinking workforce. We will become a massive burden for our children basically, because we forgot how to make them.

Ever heard of the Simon–Ehrlich wager? The Simon–Ehrlich wager was a wager in the 1980's between business professor Julian L. Simon and biologist Paul Ehrlich, betting on a mutually agreed-upon measure of resource scarcity over the decade leading up to 1990. Ehrlich chose 5 products which he thought would increase in price over the next decade following exactly this Malthusian world view. He (Ehrlich) chose copper, tungsten and a few others which I dont recall.

Ehrlich lost the bet, as all resources he chose became CHEAPER after inflation adjustment.

The reason of our present day crisis is:

A.) Government stupidity, following that charlatanism which people insist to call a "science" know as Keynesianism, thus ALL world governments have been printing money as if there ia no tomorrow and accumulating debts and inflation in a scale never seen before in human history

B.) Demographic collapse: Japan, Europe, Canada, Australia, South Korea. Those countries have fertility rates well bellow 2.1, which is the bare minimum to sustain a population on a stable margin. Most of the european countries have a fertility rate of 1.6. Throughout history, countries whose fertility rate were between 1.6 and 1.8 for whatever reason (usually wars, famine, plagues) faced a collapse from which very few managed to survived. No country has EVER survived fertility rates bellow 1.6
Currently, Germany has a fertility rate of 1.5; Japan, South Korea and Russia have a fertility rate of 1.4. They are ALL way beyond the point of no return - ie they are doomed.

C.) China. China is a special case, because all the problems that everybody else has, they have MORE. Their centrally planned totalitarianism certanly did wonders - thanks to the most insane "Applied Keynesianism" of history, China has created the largest real state bubble in human history. 2008 is nothing compared to what China has been cooking. They now have a larger debt than the USA - 300% of their GDP in debts, which they camouflage in their endless state owned corporations. Remember Japan in the 1990's? Economists call Japan a "Zombie economy". Well, China did what Japan did - and then some.
China's economy will explode so hard due to their dumb FTL Keynesianism, that 1929 will look like a blessed time.

But that's not the worse part.

The worse part is the wonder that the malthusianists did to the country with their one child policy.

Remember when I said that Japan, Russia and South Korea are doomed because their fertility rates are at 1.4?

Well, the chinese fertility rate is at 1.1. And even that number is believed to be false, demographers believe the CCP has over extimated their pop in 100 millions (mostly women), and that the REAL number would be closer to 0.9 or even 0.8.

China is doomed. It's over. We will all be alive to experience the end of the Han ethnicity, and China wont exist past 2030 - courtesy of their insane neo malthusian policy.

And finally

D.) Russia and the European politicians dumbery (or more likely, corruption).
Do you know what's the REAL reason of the war in Ukraine?
Forget "Nato expansion" or any silly concept of "closing gaps" of access (as if modern war were like mongol invasions on horses).
No, the reason for the war is because Russia spent 2 decades getting Europe addicted to their oil and gas - including bribing european politicians (cof cof Merkel cof cof) to shut down their nuclear and bribing NGOs to make propaganda in favor of gas.
It just so happens that from 2010 Ukrainians found VAST deposits of oil and gas in their country.
This is another oil war. Ukraine was on the verge of becoming a HUGE competitor to Russia in the European markets of oil and gas.

Also, Russia is dying. So, they had to launch this war to secure the european markets - which is their ONLY source of income basically.

It just so happens that Russia aint just the forth largest producer of oil and gas in the world; they are also the largest producer of Wheat and Fertilizers.

Oh, and China is the 3th or 4th largest producer of Fertilizers, but in the form of Potash; however, because they are predicting economic collapse (as they should), they've cut the exportation.

China is also the number 1 exporter of rare earths.

So, that's the reason of the dark future we have ahead - dumb policies, governments mismanagement and populational decline which is nobody's fault (except for chinese malthusianism).

It's NOT due to environmental decline and much less due to "overpopulation" - in fact it's the exact opposite of it

[KarlKost]

Originally Posted by malloyd

That's ridiculous.

Could you run our entire global economy on wind and solar? Not at current prices. Could you keep enough energy generation online to prevent the total collapse of civilization? Absolutely. Where you fall in the middle between those is maybe still open for debate, but per capita global [installed] renewable capacity is already about equal to per capita energy consumption in 1900. Sure that's not a lot by modern Western standards, but the world in 1900 wasn't exactly "deindustrialized".

You don't need vast amounts of energy to avoid the kind of disasters I've seen people try to postulate for energy crisis disasters. I've calculated before than if we gave up eating meat and burned the food the animals were eating instead, we'd generate more energy per capita than England did in 1800. Sure a late 18th century English lifestyle on a vegetarian diet would be considered horrible by most modern Westerners, but by historical standards it's very nearly a life of luxury....

And the pollution issue is total nonsense I honestly suspect of coming from fossil fuel companies of a couple decades ago. There is absolutely no way the pollution levels from solar panels could come remotely close to, say, coal ash, there are just too many orders of magnitude differences in the quantities involved. They [might] be as bad as nuclear waste, but the hazards of nuclear waste are ridiculously overblown too.

I didnt say that painels pollute as much as coal or oil. I said they pollute.

And what is bad about nuclear waste? Aside from Chernobil and that one in Japan - which would no longer happen with the technology we have today - can you tell me a single case of nuclear waste polluting anything?

Modern techniques make nuclear be 100% POLLUTION (OR WASTE) FREE.

(let me explain, there IS nuclear waste, but that causes NO harm AT ALL).

The same cant be said about even wind or solar or hidro (hidroelectrics have the problem of inundating large areas).

The ONLY power source that TODAY causes ZERO impact and is effective is nuclear.

Germany has being the largest consumer of solar and wind in the world.

Do you know what's the percentage of their grid that solar and wind are responsible for?
The impressive mark of 5%.

Meanwhile, France has become a lot more independent from Russian gas by having 70% of their energy demands come from nuclear.

While Germany is burning coal and oil and gas because they decided to be "green" and shut off their nuclear, France sends water vapor from their nuclear plants to the atmosphere - oh yes, because that's the only thing that nuclear releases as "waste": steam water.

Anyway, reducing our grid to that of the 1900's would mean:
- Mass famine
Which would mean
- Endless wars
Which would mean
- Civilizational collapse

What must be understood is that there is a point of no return in the system, upon which if it breaks it generates a chain reaction that destroys the rest. You need all the energy we use to feed all the people we have - take that down and people wont just starve to death in their homes. They'll kill each other for the leftovers.

And when it gets to that, it all ends down. If the miners have no food, they wont mine - they'll take a rifle and they'll fight with other desperate people over a cow.

No miners, no industry. No industry, no fertilizers, no transportation, and on and on and on in a self destructive spiral of collapsed system after collapsed system; and the reason is, all those systems are interconnected.

Take any one variable away and it all falls apart. Remove electricity - we all fall into barbarism. Remove food - we all fall into barbarism. Remove oil - we all fall into barbarism. Remove fertilizers or pesticides - we all fall into barbarism. Remove mineral extraction - we all fall into barbarism. Remove the internet! (believe it or not!) - we all fall into. Barbarism.

That's the definition of a complex system. Each aspect of the modern economy is so inter related to all others that a single shake could make it all fall apart.

I believe for example that if something as minor as rubber were to disappear over night, civilization would collapse. Just that, just the lack of rubber. Boom, done.