Anything Nu lately ur, maybe eta?

 Let's dialogue about efficiency.  In engineering parlance that's the Greek letter Nu and most times the similar looking eta,  is often used as the standard symbol that represents the calculation of efficiency which is just the ratio of energy out divided by the energy you put in... eta is something suspiciously absent in almost every alternative energy propaganda blurb that you have probably been exposed to. You have probably never heard of energy conversion efficiency.

Efficiency has been the engineering justification to pick a certain blend of fuel, a compression ratio in an automobile engine or which jet engine has the best turbine/compressor section and wins the total life cycle cost debate and gets selected for the next re-power or new jet airplane. Nu/eta is king, but you've never heard of it.  Why is that?

If indeed eta is new to you... well let me introduce you!  Every energy conversion has a conversion efficiency. Burning coal or natural gas to turn water into steam and then blow that steam across a turbine blade which then creates electricity by turning a generator encounters an energy loss at each intermediate step, filling your cars fuel tank with gasoline and then burning that fuel in a piston engine has a different set of losses, everything has a conversion loss of a fuels chemical energy owing to our methods of converting these fuels into mechanical work.

For jets and power plants turbine engine efficiency... 20 to 40% 

Hmmm, so if we have a turbine jet engine making power or flying around it's like 30% efficient?  Which means that 70% of the energy pumped out of the ground, refined and sent to the airport ends up being waste heat blown out the back of the turbine?  Yep, a very inefficient use of fuel.  Lots of thrust - can make planes fly, but really burns a lot of fuel (energy) inefficiently. Energy density allows us to fly. In fact before we figured out how to combust the large amount of energy heavier than air flight was assumed to be impossible.  

Tell me more, what about cars and those bad 'ole piston engines...

Blah blah blah 40 to maybe 45% efficient, so half of the btus (energy) in each tank are blown out the tailpipe or simply radiated as waste heat from surfaces along the way? Yep, but actually MORE efficient than turbines. If it were the other way around you would see turbine engines in cars and mopeds!

Say it ain't so!  What about solar panels?  30% on a great day, partly cloudy much less.  Coupled with life expectancy at that performance of 15-ish years in reality.  Panels don't grow on trees either.  There is an energy dense mining and manufacturing energy load on the front end with almost no recycling back end owing to the plasma coatings and other metallurgical chemistries needed to increase solar panel efficiency.  So it costs more to reclaim an aged very inefficient solar panel than to mine stuff for a new one in the first place - so they end up in landfills. A one way path to the landfill.

So wait a sec... oil out of the ground gives us fuel that has an energy to weigh ratio that allows planes to fly and your car to go 350 miles at a go?  What about those EVs, don't they meet or exceed those nasty pollution belching gas/diesel monstrosities? Depends on where the nasty belching takes place. Take note batteries are not energy they are a very energy hungry temporary energy repository. Charged batteries are akin to a filled gas tank. But not exactly, extreme heat or cold drastically reduces their capacity, but that's another story for another day.

This is at least a two-parter.  First off, replacing a gas or diesel fuel tank that (when full) weighs a couple hundred pounds with a battery pack (that when charged or dead) gives you a sort of equivalent storage of energy (not so good at minus 30F) that weighs 5 to 7 times more and is bolted to the vulnerable bottom of your entire car.  You then have to carry that weight around, accelerate and brake with all that extra weight too. Enough heavier so as to wear out your tires, brake pads and rotors in half the time of an ICE vehicle. Tires don't grow in gardens either, doubling your consumption of all of these components drive a waste stream of a lot of energy and resources, but we won't chase that one in this post. Just know it's there and it's big. It takes a lot of electricity to make tires, rotors and brake pads. 

Secondly, that 85 kW battery pack needs electrons from somewhere to get charged.  Otherwise it is just a heavy box full of lithium, cobalt, copper wires, computer control boards and cooling circuits. That ev fueling process looks like this:

So let's start with a feedstock of something other than that bad old gasoline or diesel.  Coal or natural gas power plants ultimately use fuel to boil water that then turns a turbine that spins a big generator and it's all at your nearby power plant. If you use the local utility, this is how you might go. Those electrons get sent out as power on a vey inefficient transmission line with more losses including transformer inefficiencies and phase relationships called a power factor - but lets leave that be.  Let's just look at one EV.  Almost 500,000 lbs of lithium got dug up by diesel powered mining equipment to make one 85 kW battery pack because the ore concentration is that low.  Then an electric powered rock crusher consuming many kWs of power is used to make big rocks into little rocks and little rocks into a sort of sand that is required for separation of unwanted stuff (95% or the rock) and eventual concentration.  Then enter the sulfuric acid and hydrochloric acids along with copious amounts of water manufactured, pumped and mixed via more electrons that come from somewhere (- it isn't magical, coal or natural gas turned more turbines and made more power) that extra stuff not wanted then drain eventually into a gigantic settling pond as electrically energized magnetic separators skim off the stuff for the now concentrated ore used to make batteries for your new ride.  How's your green going, feeling it yet? Then we ship the ore by a train guzzling more diesel fuel to a factory that uses more electrons to convert and package that ore into its final chemistry and stuff it into those nice round, wired and packaged batteries that make up those battery packs. Let's be careful not to short out the pack or have any fires nearby - uffta not good on so many levels. 

Realize what just happened.  The diesel powered mining equipment consumed energy and was 45% efficient, the power needed/consumed through a common power plant came from a turbine turning a generator which kept that mine humming - maybe 35% efficient and the power transmission loss to the mine along those power lines was meh, 6%... and all of the subprocesses needed to manufacture the storage device consumed. more energy with efficiency losses. How many steps did you count? So instead of a direct fossil fuel conversion from gasoline, if we adopt the electric pathway of an ev getting charged from an alternate source like a coal fired plant (could be a natural gas plant - take your pick efficiency is the same) encounters:  13,000 BTU/lb of coal X 0.3 turbine efficiency X 0.94 transmission line efficiency X eta for many more conversion steps, which results in 3670 of those 13,000 btus actually getting into your green powered ev.  And for each 85kW battery pack you see on the highway - think 500,000 lb of rock that left a big hole and a giant settling pond of toxic waste somewhere.  But thankfully  - not in your back yard.  Don't worry about all the contaminated water because none of that  acidic sludgy icky water is in your neighborhood well  - lucky green virtue signaling you.  Oh by the way, if you and your neighbors all recharge tonight it is just like each one of you is running a welding shop for hours and hours at night.  Can your East Coast or West Coast power grid handle that extra load without brown outs? What about your new weld shop looking utility bill?  Does this even make sense to you?  I mean in stead of just conservation of the originating feedstock of energy replacing it with a process that consumes a huge amount of energy at a cumulative efficiency far worse than single conversion just to say it's environmentally green... Mental gymnastics and marketing Edward Bernays would blush over.

So the take away here... no free rides my friends. Energy is easy as a low density commodity, it becomes very finite when we demand the high energy density fuels that we have become dependent on to support the economics of growth in the modern world.  The problem is that the high density stuff is finite and there is no easy or equivalent substitution.  Sorry, that's the deal.  Low density energy like the stuff to make an EV golf cart go all day - that's do-able with a small wind charger and simple battery / inverter set up.  Aha, so there is a way.  Much lower vehicle weight, shorter ranges and small domestic alternative power solutions could make a profound difference on the mobility life extension of our energy bounty.  But realize the profound implications this has.  

Converting from one energy source to another still depletes a finite energy and materials resource base. If our economic and geopolitical systems intent is to keep to an economic growth doctrine, I see a fantastic collision just ahead. This is a finite world, and the biggest lesson we as a civilization have failed to learn again and again is how to live in a sustainable way amidst finite resources. Batteries to support that vision simply store electrons that have to come from somewhere.  No free lunches. Economics has to change to recognize energy as the ultimate limit to growth and so does our behavior of energy consumption. Wars and conquests to acquire someone else's resources merely deplete those resources and do not solve the ultimate problem. Living within our geophysical means.  

Can we evolve?  

Happy B-Day JRO

 Remember that day like yesterday!  

AML 

Everybody should know about Nicholas Georgescu Roegen

 There have been many thinkers over the last century that understood the flaws in our Western view of economic frameworks.  Buckminster Fuller who I read as a university freshman was the first I read that started me on a path that opened my eyes to the obvious missing information in our financial machinations.  I kept on looking for the chapter in the econ books that read "Print More Money."  Suddenly, I realized that the whole story is a grand illusion.  That colored my cognition of lots of history and how the world really works.  But you have to be willing to test the narrative and find knowledge that is outside of the conventional indoctrination to climb higher and see what is over the next hill.   

Here is a link to one of NGR's papers, "The Entropy Law and the Economic Process." Even as an elementary school student, I intuitively felt that exploiting minerals and using up a finite supply of fuel had to some day create a big problem. In my young mind I didn't know this road had been explored by many. USN Admiral Rickover tried to bring awareness in the 1950's too.  But it seems nobody - NOBODY - wanted to break up the phenomenal party for a train wreck that was decades away.  A look at Steady State and Ecological Salvation is worth the read too. Finally, Energy and Economic Myths - a "have to" read.

Even early accounts can be cited in such places as the "Popular Mechanics - Dec 1910 V14 pp 827-832," caution is given that nobody knows how much of this stuff is around.  I have to laugh because J. Willway Treadwell an engineer made the claim in 1910 that "it's a diatomic process" meaning the Earth makes the stuff!  Well we've come along way since the oil derricks dotted the landscape in Bakersfield, California.  If the Earth does make it, we're burning it faster than it's made - witness the hundreds of thousands of dry wells all over the globe...

A few other thinkers you may not be aware of... perhaps you will be inspired to do a little research?

Mauro Bonaiuti

Ashish Kothari

Niko Paech

Kohei Saito

Jason Hickel

Giorgos Kallis

Serge Latouche

Sound familiar?

So we lack not for scholars who were influenced by reality which led them to reject the dogma and search for the missing data that makes the modern economic theories unsustainable fantasies.  But they were trying to crash the party before the beer ran out.  Nobody listened.

Energy is the whole economy, and we've been ignoring it institutionally in Western thought since the beginning.  A flawed concept which will have very unpleasant consequences in the not too distant future.  As far as I can tell Marxists and Capitalists have both been blind to the implications. What it appears we need is a new way of thinking - not Globalist with backwards facing oligarchs that want the game to continue, or monarchies just itching to get the serfs sworn in, but sustainism. No wars, equality, profitable pursuits based on neutral draw down and replacement of low density energy, common brotherhood where we all care deeply about each other.  

If you can find a copy of NGR's "The Entropy Law and the Economic Process" snag it!  

The harmonics of history

 It is a beautiful spring day, and as I enjoy the budding trees and the sight of green grass and all of God's creatures scurrying about I thought it may be a good time to take stock in the world around us and take a stab at making sense of the cover stories and the hoopla.  I'm particularly amused by the the revisionist media historical accounts from places like the BBC.  The fun never ends.  Resources.  Resources.

When the world was a much less populated place and virtually unconnected because of distance and as yet unknown technology, civilizations rose and fell largely on the fate of natural events such as the weather, the soils ability to sustain agriculture or influences like favorable solar cycles, floods or fires.  Not yet understood by the people of those times but the natural environment was basically the primary factor that provided success or doom.  Interesting to note, it wasn't universities, banks or technology.  Belief in those systems will come  later. As time and inventive cultures will evolve, a lack of awareness will lull may into thinking those brick and mortar creations hold all the answers and if only economics could provide the dollars - anything can be done.  Meh, crazy fantastical thinking, but your 401k needs a legion of believers to exist.  After all that investment is based on a promise of growth and those days are numbered.  What happens next for the industrial West doesn't look to good IMHO. Promises made doesn't always end up being promises kept.  

Back in time, as a drought might happen or some other resource pressure appear, a growing population had to find new ways to survive or perish in place.  There are a few options here.  Conquest or wars to capture some weak neighbor's resources were common.  Sometimes that worked for a short while but what if the drought extended out into the conquered land and lasted for many years? Problem. Even more so if depletion is exponential. When that happened historians often wonder how, why, where'd they go?  Lol, fast collapse doesn't leave a long trail to follow.

Here we have the emergence of another option. The invention of economics which becomes a one dimensional crude form of control - eventually finding the ultimate power projection partner - the military!  Colonialization or the systematic installation of projected force to send the resources of a conquered land back to the conquering empire emerges and it's still sticking around just with different words to describe it.  That idea has dominated cultures for hundreds of years or as long as the empire had energy to enforce the acquisition of and conversion of resources into something useful and then turn them into a mechanism for wealth and sustaining political power.  Technology makes its appearance and shazam, here comes a century of energy dependent innovation and the energy driven industrial age which convinced so many that the sky is the limit.  This is akin to believing the Earth's supply of energy is infinite.  Oopsie.  Economics didn't deliver - copious amounts of cheap energy and creative minds did.  Hmmmm, think about that! By the way, sustainable living doesn't yield control, power or financial aggregation. In fact it creates peace, harmony and equality. So the sociopathic among us would never go along with that.  Nothing has changed yet, don't expect it to either.  Sustainable living will emerge as a regional phenomena.  If history is any teacher governmental forms of sustainability were monarchies with serfs plowing the fields and a king throwing the banquets.  That's all we know. 

As the world got smaller and those once abundant resources got harder to find and what was left was of poorer quality something not very obvious to the average citizen was happening.  Economics as a philosophic arm of governance was loosing its relevancy.  Very few fringe intellectuals considered energy to be the underpinning requirement for sustaining the system and not financial machinations.  So as depletion of high grade resources went on, and depletion of low cost energy reserves continued there evolved a paradox.  Economics needs to grow.  Finite energy reserves will not allow this to happen indefinitely.  Under the phrase "once and done" we can be a bit existential and reflect that once that tank of fuel is burned, it is gone forever.  Fly in the ointment. This model is doomed to fail, conquest or not. So we have a modern day fault line of financialists vs industrialists.  Neither wanting to address the elephant in the room - depletion.  But both taking differing views on how to deal with global depletion of critical minerals and energy feedstocks and continue to make a buck. Because after all, the financial system doesn't have a solution for not making a buck. But I digress.

So as time went on and energy was abundant we grew as per economic dictate into an interconnected world more dependent on energy than ever and dominated by economics (which needs to grow by organizing cheap product manufacturing costs and selling those widgets at a profit to somebody) ignoring finite energy resources as well as refusing to acknowledge the high rate of depleting critical minerals etc.  When energy and resource quality deplete it is not unlike the ancient drought that no one expected that lasted for a dozen years...  Only the rain may come back - the hydrocarbons won't.  Once and done.  Here is an interesting take on a roadmap to adjust to this reality. Whenever you hear the words "net zero emissions" substitute the words "energy depletion" and you can make a bit more sense out of the thinly veiled exercise.  Well, if you are running out of coal, oil and natural gas I guess you are sort of correct in saying you'll soon be living in a zero emissions world. But it is a linguistic slight of hand IMHO.  The whole depletion reality is packaged in the climate mumbo jumbo as it sounds better and by golly economic "solutions" can still be promoted to keep the financialization game going for a while longer.  Unlike the past though, we now have a belief that the bricks and mortar institutions hold all of the answers and define our future.  That may be a fatal error if the concept of funded research and economic complexity isn't dispatched with soon. Funded research has an agenda and economic based world views that worked yesterday are not going to work tomorrow. Of course destruction of demand (aka profitable conservation of energy resources) by regulatory strategies are being promoted by governments globally.  But even simple implementation looks to be a chaotic poorly understood plan wrapped up in a scheme to keep old systems delivering. We can argue about which is the better conquest or tyranny machine to eventually reform our bad behavior; capitalism, fascism, socialism or some other kind of ism but understand this... when you're out of Schlitz you're out of beer.  Period - full stop.  None of them have advanced to understanding how anything but brute force works.  

Sine waves are an over simplification of the rise and fall of empires. An interesting aside from this simple graphic is that many factors are rising and falling at their own frequency that combine to build complex waves that can actually tell us a lot about the future.  This is what the Limits to Growth models did using many differential equations. Several analysts have reconfirmed we are on the business as usual trajectory.  

So I will close by citing  a record album from a great 70's rock band "You can tune a piano but you can't tune a fish".  REO was the band.

The phrase could be modernized and edited just a bit to say, "You can print money but you can't print energy".  As Shakespeare's Hamlet famously said...  "ay there is the rub. " Economic machinations won't fix depletion and that's a fact.  Physics will do what it does and the think tanks know very well where we are headed.  None of the obviously ludicrous policies emerging are intended to sustain BAU.  Buckle up, the model they seem to be following is BFI - Brace For Impact.

Time for me to fly...

Christ is risen! Christos anesti! Khristos voskrese! Cristo ha resucitado!

 Never forget Psalm 146

Archpastoral Message of His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon
Pascha 2025

The beautiful meaning of Pascha

Holy Holy Holy

Indeed He is risen!   Alithos anesti!  Voistinu voskrese!  En verdad ha resucitado!

Let's look at one simplified mechanism of contraction. The Jenga of hydrocarbons!

 Easy concept to grasp.  Get smaller right?  What's so hard about that?  As a first thought - nothing. But it's more complicated than that.  Meet Mr Knock-on and his band called "The second order effects".  

The energy resources we have are finite in nature.  Indeed, some might argue that Saturn's moon Titan has lakes of hydrocarbons and it rains methane.  Fair enough, why couldn't a handful of geophysical processes cook up CH4?  Turns out Titan is a floating gas station making the argument for abiotic oil pretty solid as one of the ways these energy dense chemistries are formed.  All that aside, there is a "make rate" and our experience on this planet suggests it is much slower than our consumption rate.  This renders the point of how it got there a moot debate.  The depletion of our hydrocarbons will drive contraction in these petrochemical dependencies... as well as make the price of air, land and sea mobility rise. Those will also grudgingly retract with various outcomes on society.

Canada Energy Regulator Graphic
Here is a fun party think piece: Remove 1/2 the oil and gas source from the fan above.
What products drop out? How will the re-balance be done?
Get out your popcorn!

So depletion of hydrocarbons means a geopolitical battle is fomenting, which ultimately means less of something like:

Industrial chemicals

Agricultural fertilizers - thats food for a hungry population

Paints and various important coatings

Synthetic rubber

Resins

Explosives

Dyes - but we can always go back to beet juice and crushed flowers in a pinch.

Adhesives - don't forget there's always good ole twine.

Plastics

Soaps and detergents

Foams

Pharmaceuticals

Clothing 

Gas stations

Trains

Planes

Ships

kW-hrs of power

Tires

Agriculture

Manufacturing

Travel of all kinds unless it's via bicycle and you're a 5 minute city type already.

and Grease for the wheels of industry...

etc., etc., etc

Think of the manufacturers of these end products as invested stake holders in a game of musical chairs. The posturing has been taking place for a long time now, but the music is just now starting.

Apart from the economics which suggests scarcity will make all prices go up, depletion will reduce the number of end products and solutions / needs that are enabled by petrochemicals and as a supply and demand artifact, the ensuing loss of follow on commerce derived from  this retraction will topple every pre-depletion business model.  Chaotic reassessment and re-calibration will be the new normal.   Hair on fire for supply chain types. Promises made based on an expanding economy will be shattered. Sorry.

So how will the fight of the market players in this game play out?

IEA Data

Probably more power than profit driven, the stake holders will fight to the last BTU. None of them are interested in conservation or eco anything.  Anything that reduces margin is rejected unless a regulation with a penalty of some kind actually forces it.   Drill baby drill.  Wooo hooo 1 minute to midnight and the joint is hoppin'.  

Packaging will be shifting away from plastic and foam materials...  I hear pine needles work pretty well.

Hand delivered mail, horse drawn carts and bicycles to the rescue. I love a good tuk-tuk or rickshaw.

Construction adhesives used to make plywood, caulks and sealants will get harder to fight for which will force reversion back to solid wood and glazing windows the good old fashioned way... with pine tar and oakum. Look out IKEA, iceberg dead ahead.  

Transportation costs will push mass transit towards economy and efficient use of transport vehicles. Privately owned wheels will look more like a Grom than a Silverado. A little tricky to drive on icy roads, but trust me - you'll get used to it.

Pure cotton and wool will be the new materials for your post collapse toga. I see a sporty wool hood for the up North types.

Pharma and agriculture aka "other" will be fighting a strange battle of profitability which looks like meds vs fertilizer... The winner will return the best margin not necessarily a full stomach. Maybe store up some antibacterial hand lotion lol, last time that went off the shelves a little fast. 

Consumer products will see plastics slowly disappear, lovely wood consoles will replace them but only for for the deep pocket crowd.

Wheels of industry will keep spinning just a more expensive maintenance program.

Get used to seeing a lot more lyme paint.  

Renaissance Fairs won't be artsy or historical re-enactments but educational seminar material. I suppose the scholars at Harvard, Yale and Brown will show us how it's done that is, as long as there's a funding line from their fav trough.  Expect new PhDs in mud pit layout for making adobe bricks and building stuff without nails or glues.  They'll adapt.  Maybe there'll be a Redmond inspired race to patent the genius they prattle on about.

So the trip down the depletion side will be bumpy, grumpy and not much fun.  The big take away is just the hydrocarbons, let alone the other MANY depletionary minerals and soil nutrients loss will have a multi-demensional impact with thousands of significant secondary effects, most will have no replacement and in toto these shortfalls will shove our current way of life into a new space that I call "Neopioneering".  The new pioneer will think twice before tossing out those slightly worn shoes! See a treadle powered Singer at a rummage sale?  Snag it!  Don't forget to stash a few extra bobbins too.  

Don't worry about inflation and its effects on your world lol, -only matters if there is a real economy in the first place.  With contraction it seems like money has to become a token issued by a government(s) as a basic universal income lifeline like digital food or ration stamp.  Sadly that will probably mean it will be digitally flipped on and off like a switch and used to keep its recipients in "right think" or else turned off.  We shall see, and probably very soon. Although Orwellian, seems like the only logical solution to keep millions from storming the castle gates with pitchforks and torches... 

Short one, just wanted to get you all thinking, the derivative effects are actually seismic. Which in my view sets the stage for rapid and radical transition once the music really gets going and the Jenga effect becomes noticeable.  Not tomorrow, but if you are in your 20's, 30' or 40's... you will get to experience this energy collapse in your lifetime.  This is one big Jenga (pull out one supporting petrochemical and the avalanche MIGHT start, pull out a few more and the whole thing comes tumbling down)  with cascading shortfalls that reach into every part of modern life from weird packaging to silent nutrient loss which will drive seemingly mysterious health problems to the disappearance of certain fabrics in your clothes.  But if you pay attention, you will see the Jenga tower collapsing.  

If you don't already know about Lehman's or Cottage Craft I encourage you to have a look.  

Addenda notes on recent Hydrocarbon Jenga news... 

1. Approximately 10,000 petroleum carbon-based compounds authorized by the FDA for inclusion in US foods are being re-evaluated against biological health causations like cancer, and many other diseases.   One could say the  chair for the food industry has just been removed.  Politely described as making us all healthy!  LOL keep watching.  One Jenga block removed.  I wonder what will be the next one?

2. Tariffs are sort of a sledge hammer way of using regulatory power in breaking long and fuel intensive supply chains that big stock holder driven companies have no interest in doing. No long logistic chains no large fuel consumption. Less consumption of fuel on the supply side too which results in rebalancing energy consumption for all if done right. Modern day conservation that is actually enforceable in action.

3. More dictates on US consuming its own forestry products thus declining exports (fuel savings see pt 2).

Putting it all together - a prognostication post for our time

If we take a careful and deliberate examination of the many factors we know will be influential drivers to quality of life in the decade or two ahead we can start to see through the fog and perhaps make a few predictions. Most of these factors are seemingly unconnected - but they are.

1. Energy shortfalls and the inevitable heated competition for energy feedstocks.  

No the pantry is not empty but 8.2 billion people have an insatiable appetite.  An appetite that has grown to a demand for a sustaining magnitude of energy never before seen on this planet and indeed we are talking about providing that energy from finite resources supporting growing economic demand as well. First let's look at what a regional energy depletion scenario looked like.

 

Here we see the historical rise and fall of an energy resource.  A few things to note...  After the rapid rise and adoption which enabled rapid economic growth, there is a volatile plateau initiated by a decline in the easy to get at source.  In this part of the curve we see heroic efforts*, new methods and shifting to the harder to get deposits as a source - the success and failure of this hunt is what makes the plateau volatile.  During this phase demand is still high or even growing so imports are starting to look attractive as they augment the growing regional shortfall.  Eventually depletion wins out and the poor quality deposits, the hardest to get to and the most costly reserves are encountered and that signals the end to the regional supply. An energy source and an economic system are now married. The couple knows little about each other except magic happens when they are together! Where do we go next and how do we go about scoring our next fix? An important geopolitical question because dependency of this resource is now hard wired into the financial wealth generation system and to a lesser extent, an improved quality of life. Important to note here is that when coal depleted, oil became the next BIG thing.  Geopolitical efforts right about the kick off of WW1 were executed with some serious consequences. 

See anything familiar with the global coal consumption curve?  The plateau has been reached and the volatility of continued extraction under a volatile depleting global resource base is well underway. Lots of coal left, just getting harder to get as high value deposits get exhausted  the search continues for lower grade stuff. When the UK ran out of one energy it shifted to another, and finally jettisoned energy intensive activity to countries where labor and energy where cheap.  That is not really an option anymore.

The story isn't much better for oil.  This is a very debatable number (40-ish years left at current rates of consumption).  So here's a spoiler alert.  The feedstocks of oil are not viable when it takes more energy to get it out than you can get from it.  So, long before the cavitation in the pumps makes that slurping sound of empty, the game will be over as far as large scale refining for consumption by the economic engines of the modern world.  Competition for control of energy resources will obviously increase.

Natural gas is looking better - at current rates of consumption some say another 50 years are in the tank. But wait just a minute... If oil rates are in decline AND coal rates are peaking AND energy is still demanded, the current rate of consumption will double for gas in one generation.  Remember - 8.2 billion people require lots of energy! Making gas the next BIG strategic thing and its exploration in the Arctic and elsewhere a focus of much interest. Gotta have a way to charge those EVs...

Nuclear is complex, lots of aging plants that will be decommissioned in the next ten years or so with loss of grid power, difficult geopolitics as there is a global fuel shortfall if Russia drops out and this energy feedstock plays into war materials and energy generation.  Then there is the de-commissioning of hundreds of aging plants around the world at typically a billion USD per plant, used fuel sequestering etc., etc. Sticky and complicated.  If in a generation nuclear is the only real option there are a lot of add on fuels like hydrogen from sea water fracking like South Korea has been pioneering in the manufacture of Hydrogen in large volumes as a mobility fuel etc.  Possibilities exist with serious short and long term environmental risk.  For nuclear to advance as a main energy source the whole war thing needs to go away.  Even so, it probably will never be a mobility fuel, but nuke derived hydrogen could work nicely.  We all need to behave much better for that to materialize. Keep your focus though, nuke fuels are finite resources too.  Yeah, yeah yeah,  the ocean is full of the stuff - remember eroi.  About 70 years in the tank on this one only - you guessed it - If oil, gas and coal fall off we'll churn through that pretty quickly.  The answer to all of this is we must change how we value energy and how we live.  Sorry. Energy IS the economy so it makes sense to base trade on energy and to consider making energy the new bit coin miner! LOL, how's that for a flip of the script? 

Wind and Solar are still net negative on energy in vs energy out in many applications. Supplemental low density energy is not a replacement for energy dense coal, gas or uranium. Intermittent and low energy density alternatives also pose storage challenges requiring a lot of depleting mineral elements to manufacture and are supported by subsidies which if removed make them a nice extension if you can afford them but so far not a sustainable solution.  Look up copper ore grade and cobalt reserves as just two hurdles to this adjunct energy path.  Batteries are also a dubious eroi as low quality ores require gigantic environmental consequences and energy consumption just to manufacture.  All ending up at yet another energy draw-down with no replacement just paying to acquire intermediate energy storage by consuming more of our finite energy supply, and toxicity all over the supply chain.  Not to mention the occasional pyrotechnic event.

2. Manufacturing waste stream toxicity.

Global trade continues to create toxic waste streams that infringe on the health and well being of the biosphere we need to protect to live healthy lives. The numbers for the consumption we are at are astounding.  7 to 10 billion metric tonnes of waste are created annually these days.  These waste streams have grown to a magnitude that the world has never seen before and will never see again.  Innovative ways to get rid of toxic goo cheaply have been going on for years and years with little to no regulation. Often ecologically neutral disposal of waste streams would make manufacturing of the thing un-profitable.  Manufacturers and regulators the world over have been making a Faustian bargain with our ecology and your health while you were sleeping for far too long.  Do you know how safe your water is?

3. Nutrient depletion in our food.

Agricultural needs for irrigation, fertilization, herbicides and pesticides have grown to enormous proportions. With this petrochemical dependency the industrial agriculture companies have created nutrient poor food and have introduced carcinogens up and down the food chain. When you buy a vegetable at your local market there is no meter on the side showing the bio-accumulated toxins or the low mineral or nutrient content.  Wait, there's more... GMO's are created by gene editing and the goal is to produce a resilient food against some organic threat.  Nowhere is there a commercial regulation that holds a genetically modified food to a non-gmo nutrient content or an analysis of protein effects on metabolism over any length of time.  So it may look good, taste bad and cost more all the while nobody really knows the long term effects on your health. Anecdotal studies suggest there are some real problems not profitable to be analyzed.  The lack of vitamins and minerals in our foods can result in deficiencies in our body chemistry.  The consequences can be serious and of course root cause of many of our modern maladies is often mysterious. Ever the opportunistic business model, the very profitable medical complex will be cashing in on "solutions". 

All 8.2 billion of us need to eat, the food quality of what is evolving out there in the labs and in the patented seed offerings looks to be more than a little sketchy.  Calories are often used to frame how well we are doing in a harvested crop but nourishment is perhaps a more important indicator.  Caloric intake globally has gone up, while nutrition has gone down.  With poor nutrition come a host of health issues.  Genetic protein modifications also pose poorly understood digestive consequences for some people with sensitive genetics.  It is good to understand that technology has no conscience. Its purveyors present for profit solutions that may or may not be good for you.  That is the reality of our world.  Marketing often suggests otherwise. Know the difference. Marketing execs possess even less conscience than technologists! 

4. Mineral depletion or rather mineral purity aka ore percentage depletion.

The supply risk of critical minerals classified as "critical" will nearly double in the next ten years. Once again let us be reminded that 8.2 billion people consume everything at an alarming rate.  Apart from the increasingly hard to obtain end product that these minerals enable there is the realization that the minerals that are available will get funneled into a shorter list of "things".  So steel quality will be reduced, and alloys will be exponentially increasing in cost.  The tonnage of steel produced might very well be reduced as well. Copper, still plentiful in sub 0.05% pure ores, takes a lot more energy to make and another significant mineral - cobalt - very necessary in battery technology and electric motor magnets is going to get much harder to find and concentrate.  So wind power has a big flashing red light that says its growth potential is materials limited and finite with escalating costs to manufacture that chip away at its eroi even in the best locations.  The escalating cost to manufacture with the increasingly lower quality of the ores tilts eroi in unfavorable ways - hence more energy goes into mining it and refining it then the end device will give back in its useful life.  Roper was aware of this in the 1970's only his graphs and plots suggest depletion based on the economics of that era.  Nothing has changed, mineral quality depletion continues to drop and is mined only by the willingness to dump money into chasing the low quality ores. This has extended the end of life prediction but hasn't changed the curve.  Financialization of everything seems to be the current fascination among economists to support more cost and less margin to derive real assets - but here's the rub - an exponential demand on energy is required just to meet the unsustainable demand based on mining the lower grade stuff.  At some point all the money you can print and all the bit coins you can digitize won't fuel the bull dozer or spin the turbines that make the necessary electricity to run the rock crusher or energize the concentration plants.  Let alone feed the hungry who tend to get cranky when energy is diverted away from their needs. Whoops, what about the pollution mitigation and environmental controls that require lots and lots of energy to run?  Those processing operations might very well be the first energy consumers to get switched off! 

As an undergrad my Chem Eng room-mates did a project as a homework exercise.  They had to design a very simple chemical plant for regulatory compliance in the US.  Their conclusion: Can't be done.  Will not be profitable. Then their prof said, how does it look if you remove the environmental compliance?  Makes a huge margin!  Where then would you build that plant?  Globalism has lots of angles to it! But in the end, energy makes it all work - not gold bars, fancy speeches or chocolate cake. Although I truly love chocolate cake!

So here is what you've been waiting for: 

This is what my magic 8-ball, my engineering head that took all those math classes and lived a life of logic based problem solving, and what my dog taught me... here we go.

A. None of this polycrisis stuff is reversible in four, five or even six generations. At least until a new carrying capacity is met and population stabilizes around it. Our energy shortfall will essentially define a much different way of life and we will be well into this transition in one generation like it or not.  Perhaps a new population capacity of 1 billion people will eventually be possible if we are sane and rational in adjusting to our reality. Maybe the new carrying capacity based on sustainable living can be reached in three or four generations but probably longer. In the interim lots of volatility.  

B. Energy shortfalls will effect global trade in a profound way within 3 to 5 years.  Within 20 years dramatic shortfalls will take place making what we take for granted today "the good old days". The realization that business as usual cannot continue will become the new normal.  Unfortunately it took civilization a walk right up to the cliff to understand that. No thanks to the governing class, the academe and the international organizations.  The fourth column being controlled by the fifth column has truly been a worse than worthless asset. They've all been watching this, many are out to lunch and are simply useful idiots, but many do know and remain mute looking for opportunity in the coming chaos.  

Regional economic zones based on resource availability and energy access will emerge. Crazy ideas as to how to govern them and get people to accept the new systems with top-down elitism will be a mixed bag of success and failure based on the sincerity, intellect, and trust leadership can employ.  Not looking so good anywhere right now. Energy diverted to governance must also conform to a reduced supply and hence be much smaller. So AI and enormous data farms will probably be few in number.

C.  Health, with its basis in the quality of our food stocks and our exposure to environmental toxins will continue to degrade for many unless you are fortunate enough to have access to high quality organic farming, clean water and cut processed food junk out of your diet. Pharmacological solutions will try to profit off of this but eventually the battle for energy will reset the dominance of that influence too.  As populations seek healthier food and cleaner environments there will be better and worse places to be.  Southern Hemisphere, de-industrialized, mainly agrarian geographies will be the prized high ground. Two or three generations to purge the pipeline. 

D. Small well connected, well integrated communities will emerge by plan or by accident. They will thrive.  Those groups that want to bicker, dominate and hierarchically force a class system like we have had won't do so well in parts of the world where the average citizen is well equipped - like Switzerland or the US... These communities are already forming.  They will be the new landscape in a couple of generations.  The ability to move freely among them will probably be a distant memory as territorial resources become critical to a regional population's success and energy to travel great distances will be costly.

 E. If we can behave ethically, morally and rationally as a global population we can transition to a low density energy world and keep some semblance of quality of life, laughter, and joy.  If we resort to conquest to doggedly hang on to the power and influence garnered in existing geopolitical power structures and institutions or hoard the critical energy resources there is no gaming software or AI that can predict where or how this goes.   Any interventions that limit creative solutions will also negatively effect success and probably won't stand the test of time.  Examples of failures will outstrip successes until we learn how to live within our geophysical limits.

Remember that happily married couple back in the start of this post? It seems as though one of them has been running up an energy bill that simply can't be paid in the future.  LOL typical.   

The times, they are a-changing

* Heroic efforts can be wars, color revolutions, sanctions and rarely diplomacy...