NATURE OF GLOBAL PROBLEMS
Many are the problems of the world, and for almost every detail of problem, there is an imagined technological feasibility, yet the motion which coordinates these feasibilities into realities is nonexistent, and is somehow to arise from the wisdom of perceiving governments, or natural market forces. Rather than diverge into a myriad consideration of the problems, a development of problematique primarily focused upon the most obvious shall suffice.
Several are the descriptions that have been tagged onto this age in effort to describe what history in the far future will know these decades by, but there is one name that does particularly apply in a broad sense, and that is the age of fossil fuels: more specifically petroleum, for it is the predominant feature of moment which must be superseded if we are to arrive at a sustainable future.
Modern civilization cannot in its present manifestation function without petroleum, and cannot construct a global scenario in which the rate of exhaustion continually decreases, although the fact that the supply will be exhausted at some undeterminable future moment is repeatedly uttered and generally conceded. The practical attitude toward this fact is that there will be a moment of sudden exhaustion, the extraction of the last barrel, which will occur in a future quite beyond our generation, and that the functioning of market supply and demand balances will carry us sagely into that future. Most of the thinking evoked upon the eventual resolution consists of technological feats, which will allow continuation of the same momentums now prevalent, such as emphasis upon private transportation and retention of the distribution of private land ownership in the manner that such transportation has fostered.
Continuously we build new highways in expansion of the system, and every year are onslaughted with the marvels of the new car models and the persuasive propaganda of their manufacturer. Prolongation of the present trend of economic growth as defined by incremented gross flow of money purchased goods and services is the effort above all else, and substitution of other liquid fuels for petroleum is often presumed to be the solution that technology will evolve, because such would be the least problematic solution, avoiding a more disturbing change.
Ethanol alcohol, as so exemplified by the Brazilian effort, is a demonstrated
alternative fuel. Adding the distillation of alcohol to the processing of sugarcane,
in which the economics of producing sugar already justify the gathering of
the cane into a processing plant, is categorically different from harvesting
and moving an even lesser convertible crop primarily for the purpose of producing
liquid fuel, and different from production of sugar cane beyond the supply-demand
requirements for sugar. Within the United States, which is more favored with
land and climate suitable for biomass production than most of the industrialized
world, generation of alcohol from corn is often cited as the most promising
beyond the few percent of potential sugarcane production. To replace the gasoline
demand there, which is less than half the petroleum demand, the quantity of
corn that would have to be cultivated would be equivalent to two fields the
size of Texas, and that is without consideration for the energy costs of production,
harvest, transport, and distillation, traditionally 95% of the energy value
obtained.
Even if other less costly sources of organic material could be coerced
to yield alcohol, the task of harvesting what must in any case be a substantial
amount of material purposefully to acquire transportation fuels would be a
distortion of present system dynamics, requiring a labor force and effort far
above the present petroleum mechanics, with an abuse of the soil vastly more
intolerable than it already is. Undoubtedly, biomass fuel could have a role
of varying dimensions in any future energy scenario, but it would be unwise
to think of it as promising the continuation of the momentums now existent.
Cultivation, gathering, handling, and processing of billions of cubic meters
of organic material will not be cost feasible if it is to be used to fuel cars
so that they might with single passengers idle in inner city traffic jams,
commute daily great distances to and from the workplace, cruise the streets
in search of diversion, or patronize the many drive through convenience facilities
from banks to fast food outlets.
Methanol is another touted possibility, if not to be produced from biomass with the same incompatibility to system dynamics as alcohol production, then to be produced initially from already constrained supplies of natural gas and then from coal. Neither fossil fuel source reduces the problem of carbon dioxide emission, an increasing alteration of environment, which is now nearly universally, granted responsibility for climatic aberrations of eventual unacceptable proportion. Production from coal would significantly accelerate these emissions as well as creating substantial quantities of carcinogenic byproducts —for this most bountiful source of raw material, the water demand that corresponds to the production of methanol makes the undertaking non feasible beyond a few percentage of the U.S. demand, due to the scarcity of water resources in the areas of coal supply.
Other than the proposed liquid substitutes are combustible gases derived either from natural gas or electrolytic hydrogen. Either source would demand a substantial retooling of fuel delivery methods, thus making it unwise to commence if the change were intended as only a temporary measure, the case that would be so were the fuel to be derived from natural gas, already much coveted for heating, power generation, and as an industrial feedstock. Hydrogen leaves us with the consideration of the source of electrical generation, a problem that must be also considered for those solutions that contemplate the possibility of electric powered cars either thus entirely powered assuming a 100 fold improvement in battery technology, or in a hybrid combination with combustion engines.
Generation of electric power from fossil fuels is a problem correlated to production of transportation fuels, because the increased usage of one entails a competition for the other, particularly when alternative fossil fuel feed stocks for transportation fuels are being considered. Coal far outmatches any other source of fossil fuel in terms of potential supply, and can be relatively easily converted to heat or electricity, but only with substantial difficulty and expense is it without damage to the environment. Sulfur emissions are far from being controlled even in the industrialized countries, and acid rain falls, leaving lakes barren and forests in decline; carbon dioxide emissions are even further from being controlled, and already from coal these emissions contribute substantially to a total production thereof which must be reduced to one-sixth the present rate if the global ecosystem is to achieve a steady-state balance.
There are predictions of increased dependence upon nuclear power, an alternative which only has a measure of viability if the nuclear material undergoes reprocessing, to result in a widespread existence of materials suitable for weaponry manufacture through the massive generation of possibly the most toxic substance that will ever be known to man, plutonium. Nuclear power is superficially a most enticing source assuming the possibility of avoiding too many smaller and any further catastrophic accidents through a constant perfection of human endeavor. That is, if we are willing to ignore the long term economic consequences. For if the buildings of the power plants, the internal components having become non-functional after about sixty years, are not to be kept standing protected from structural degradation for more than twenty times the age of the pyramids, there yet remains to be a nuclear reactor disassembled, its waste products and components safely put into a storage which must be guarded and maintained for that same length of time. By some curious self-serving reason of the utility industry this task has been entirely disregarded in the reality of reactor costs. The total concluded economics of nuclear power are being pushed into the future to there rest as what may well come to be considered a virtually immortal curse upon humankind.
Many are the known technological improvements which are now or imminently contemplatable, such as production of electricity involving scrubbers, gas and steam turbine combinations, sequestering of carbon dioxide, such as more efficient industrial processes and buildings, and improved combustion engines, or hybrid vehicles. Any scenario of the future must contain the best possible efficiencies practically realizable, but are they in themselves a solution? The United States achieved a doubling of transportation fuel economy following the oil embargoes as well as a turnabout in the trend of energy consumption in buildings and industrial processes, improvements in efficiency which are by no means as easily repeatable. Yet, after some years of decline in petroleum consumption, total petroleum demand has now grown to exceed preembargo levels. Must the incentive of rising prices be continually present to assure ongoing increases in efficiency and lasting reductions in total demand? Increases in efficiency become more expensive as higher efficiencies are obtained and also as more importance is placed upon the environmental consequences. Yet transportation and energy systems are so fundamental a part of the production dynamic that a dramatic percentage increase in total dedicated social energy can render the particular society certainly incapable of achieving economic growth and even unto chaos of functioning, at least without a massive restructuring. Societies do not continue their momentum if only the wealthier can afford products that are most affected by energy costs, such as transportation and food. And complete transformation of any infrastructure is easily the labor of a lifetime. Therefore, if utter dependence upon petroleum is not a workable concept for from fifty years hence it is not a direction whose augment in importance is wisely pursued.
Technologies alone, that worshipped graven image which needs naught but
passage of time and economic incentive, are conceded total responsibility for
creation of path into the future.
--Morningthunder