Hey Boomers! Demographics discussion on energy usage

[woodgeek]

Cheap, and unlimited, is pushing it I think. The earth has a finite amount of resources. Unless population growth and consumption decrease, the prospect is not sustainable, at least not on our current trajectory.

Population growth is falling rapidly in China and across the Developed World (with degrowth baked in wo immigration), and flattening out in Africa and Latin America.

As for the finite earth, we agree

First, that the climate is a comparatively finite thing, the atmosphere is equivalent in mass to a solid layer about 15m deep over the entire surface, and even a small change in its composition (re CO2) can change radiation balance and break the climate. The amount of fossil fuel required to be burned to do this is a several cubic km per year of hydrocarbons. That must stop.

Second, the amount of productive soil to be shared by the biosphere and agriculture is also quite limited, due to its low productivity per acre (equivalent to an energy eff of much less than 1% conversion of sunlight to energy). If we want to have a LOT more more people, we need to expand agriculture to the further deficit of the biosphere and native habitat. This is why I favor intensive farming, and organic farming ONLY if its intensive. Lower intensity means more habitat loss.

Third, the oceans? Overfished and depleted.

But minerals? Not a problem... versus those few km^3 of hydrocarbons (which haven't run out yet) the crust of the earth has tens of millions of cubic km of accessible, mineable volume. There are PLENTY of minerals to last a very long time.

Landfills? Plenty of space for modern landfills.

I recycle glass and metal to save energy/carbon, not to save minerals. I landfill plastic (and love my K-cups)... not going to hurt anything in a modern landfill for the next 10,000 years. And I try to limit my meat consumption (minimize climate and habitat impacts).

Its all about emissions and habitat at this point. Not minerals and landfills.

 

[stoveliker]

I have to point to the amazing amount of "traveling trash" (don't know the right word), mostly plastics, that I see around landfills in this country.

I would also like to see that deteriorating plastics (resulting in microplastics, even if not exposed to the sun), do not pollute/spread into the environment from landfills.

 

[SpaceBus]

The reason for so much vast area of poor quality soil is from human agriculture dating back to before soil testing. Wherever humans clear forest for agricultural purposes desert follows because we take too much from the soil and it loses its ability to keep growing food. Eventually it is so depleted it becomes desert. This phenomenon has been in the written record since at least Socrates, and his writings were studied during the Renaissance, but that's around the time of capitalism and the need for massive ships, so the forests kept getting cut down. Trees also bring rain, but you can prevent a desert from forming without trees. The deep rooted plants that must grow in their place are regarded by many as "weeds" and unsightly.
So even if all the carbon is magically removed from the atmosphere and the earth returns to pre-industrial warming temperatures overnight, the droughts and famine will continue.

 

[Ashful]

Watching the impact of a rather mild pandemic on global energy usage has been interesting. Two of many things we learned with regard to energy usage, is that we don't all necessarily need to haul 4000 lb. of steel to the office and home each day on four rubber tires, and that we don't need to heat large inefficient 5-acre office buildings full of people sitting in front of their screens. This is all good.

We also had another good lesson in how limiting our own imagination is, when trying to predict the future, and I think the vast majority of people are missing an even larger factor, with regard to our "trajectory", to steal @begreen's word from two posts back. The world as we know it is about to change very rapidly, in ways that even those devoting their lives to studying the social impact of AI, can't fully imagine. We are approaching a "post work" economy, likely within the lifetime of some people reading this forum, and very surely within the lifetime of the children of those reading this forum.

I don't think we can name a "trajectory" today, any better than our grandparents could have imagined the economics of Facebook or life with Amazon Prime. Our very existence is about to change in ways that will surely affect everything from birth rates to what we do with our lives in a world where professions from doctor to engineer are replaced or augmented out of current recognition by AI. This will certainly have enormous impact on our per-capita energy usage, as well as our own rate of development of new technology, in this area.

 

[begreen]

But minerals? Not a problem... versus those few km^3 of hydrocarbons (which haven't run out yet) the crust of the earth has tens of millions of cubic km of accessible, mineable volume. There are PLENTY of minerals to last a very long time.

It takes vast amounts of energy to mine, transport, refine, and deliver those minerals. And I can not agree with you on plastics, being fossil-fuel based and a large percentage not going to landfills, which in this country are not always the best managed. In the third world, China, India, they are often ecological disasters. We have a long ways to go, and are out of time.

Satellite data find landfills are methane 'super emitters'

Landfills are releasing large amounts of planet-warming methane gas into the atmosphere, a study suggests.

news.yahoo.com

Local landfills for urban areas are at or near capacity. Transportation of waste also has high costs. Ask NYC or Seattle as their options diminish and costs escalate. The 2,000 active landfills in the US that hold the bulk of this trash are reaching their capacity, according to a new report by the Solid Waste Environmental Excellence Protocol. (SWEEP). Landfilling plastics (out of site, out of mind) is not a tenable solution.
(broken link removed)

 

[woodgeek]

It takes vast amounts of energy to mine, transport, refine, and deliver those minerals. And I can not agree with you on plastics, being fossil-fuel based and a large percentage not going to landfills, which in this country are not always the best managed. In the third world, China, India, they are often ecological disasters. We have a long ways to go, and are out of time.

Satellite data find landfills are methane 'super emitters'

Landfills are releasing large amounts of planet-warming methane gas into the atmosphere, a study suggests.

news.yahoo.com

Local landfills for urban areas are at or near capacity. Transportation of waste also has high costs. Ask NYC or Seattle as their options diminish and costs escalate. The 2,000 active landfills in the US that hold the bulk of this trash are reaching their capacity, according to a new report by the Solid Waste Environmental Excellence Protocol. (SWEEP).

Those minerals for green energy will get recycled (provided it uses a lot less energy than extraction and refining). Climate change means that we DO need to rebuild our energy and housing infrastructure. Its a cost.

I try to not landfill food or food scraps to eliminate methane. That goes down the drain, to my local sewage treatment plant. The bugs there actually need my food to do their dirty job.

Studies have shown that the energy used to start and stop the recycling truck in front of your house is a significant factor in recycling energy use... I only put the can out when its full to the top.

Just because existing landfills are filling doesn't mean we can't build more. NIMBYs

 

[woodgeek]

We have a long ways to go, and are out of time.

I have no idea what this means.

If we think that all of our problems are intertwined, and need to be fixed simultaneously OR ELSE, then I guess I would panic.

In practice different problems can often be separated and dealt with separately, in a logical order.

I see no evidence that unrelated 'unsustainable' practices in our society (oil, nat gas running out, CO2 getting too high, running out of landfill space, running out of mineral X, Y, Z, running out of arable land, microplastics?, rising sea levels ) would all happen AT THE SAME TIME.

It seems more likely that the rate of change or depletion of many of these things is determined by humans and market forces, and considered to be only slightly larger than the current supply for human, rather than physical, reasons.

If i looked at a factory, I could panic bc it looks like the parts in all the parts bins will run out in the next day or two, but it turns out that someone refills them before they get empty. Same with the economy.

Malthus was wrong... the ability of humans to substitute materials, find new supplies, and innovate with technology DO change the game. Rather that projecting from current 'estimated available' stock, we need to ask about geological and space limits.

 

[ABMax24]

We also had another good lesson in how limiting our own imagination is, when trying to predict the future, and I think the vast majority of people are missing an even larger factor, with regard to our "trajectory", to steal @begreen's word from two posts back. The world as we know it is about to change very rapidly, in ways that even those devoting their lives to studying the social impact of AI, can't fully imagine. We are approaching a "post work" economy, likely within the lifetime of some people reading this forum, and

Seen a video on this last night, but started a new thread to not muddy this one further.

Why experts are wrong

www.hearth.com

 

[begreen]

Just because existing landfills are filling doesn't mean we can't build more. NIMBYs

It's not a nimby issue in large urban areas. The land is really expensive and there are enviromental concerns. For this area, the cheaper land in the high desert east of the Cascades, but transportation costs (both economic and environmental) would be very high. The best plan is to dramatically reduce what is going into the landfill first. Organics can be composted and turned into energy. Recylables don't belong there, and plastics should be returned to usable polymers. And the recycling trucks should be electric where it is offered as a service.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I wonder if an electric garbage truck could be recharged overnight. They get 3 mpg with all their starting and stopping. This seems ideal for electric. They may even be able to access faster charging equipment. I know there are electric busses. Somehow they function reliably every day.

 

[begreen]

I wonder if an electric garbage truck could be recharged overnight. They get 3 mpg with all their starting and stopping. This seems ideal for electric. They may even be able to access faster charging equipment. I know there are electric busses. Somehow they function reliably every day.

China is selling electric garbage trucks around the world. Here's one operating in California.

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[EbS-P]

If we continue to back away from being the world’s police force, will globalism continue to exist as we know it?

If it does, I don’t expect that China will retain the manufacturing it currently does. Men retire at 60 in China, women at 55. I suspect it’ll go to places like Mexico, which has lots of young and doesn’t have to import all their materials. It’s a more stable place to manufacture things.

If it does not, and the Persian Gulf erupts in regional war, a couple key straights get closed, Russia’s gas is still off line… who knows what happens. Mexico still looks like a secure place to manufacture things, in a world like that.

I believe about 1/2 fords machEs were made in Mexico. Upward Mobility means more resource consumption. I don’t see how India will continue

Population growth is falling rapidly in China and across the Developed World (with degrowth baked in wo immigration), and flattening out in Africa and Latin America.

As for the finite earth, we agree

First, that the climate is a comparatively finite thing, the atmosphere is equivalent in mass to a solid layer about 15m deep over the entire surface, and even a small change in its composition (re CO2) can change radiation balance and break the climate. The amount of fossil fuel required to be burned to do this is a several cubic km per year of hydrocarbons. That must stop.

Second, the amount of productive soil to be shared by the biosphere and agriculture is also quite limited, due to its low productivity per acre (equivalent to an energy eff of much less than 1% conversion of sunlight to energy). If we want to have a LOT more more people, we need to expand agriculture to the further deficit of the biosphere and native habitat. This is why I favor intensive farming, and organic farming ONLY if its intensive. Lower intensity means more habitat loss.

Third, the oceans? Overfished and depleted.

But minerals? Not a problem... versus those few km^3 of hydrocarbons (which haven't run out yet) the crust of the earth has tens of millions of cubic km of accessible, mineable volume. There are PLENTY of minerals to last a very long time.

Landfills? Plenty of space for modern landfills.

I recycle glass and metal to save energy/carbon, not to save minerals. I landfill plastic (and love my K-cups)... not going to hurt anything in a modern landfill for the next 10,000 years. And I try to limit my meat consumption (minimize climate and habitat impacts).

Its all about emissions and habitat at this point. Not minerals and landfills.

coking from a farming family (family had 6k acres and custom farmed another 5k at its peak in the Kansas Colorado border) I can say the improvements and advances for those that have the financial backing to take advantage of them are impressive. average wheat yields for the last decade are higher than the the previous decade (I don’t have numbers) and higher than the 50 year average all while average annual rainfall has remained constant or dropped.

We are getting close to a perineal wheat. 20 years??? Maybe. That will be a huge game changer. Think roundup ready corn in magnitude. Our tractors burned 200-300 gallons a day each and ran 7-10 days straight every 4-6 weeks. Not tilling cuts energy inputs by a lot.

I don’t get the feeling Boomers consumption is really out of place with the other generations. It’s just that the post war era that were born into marked a point in time of great shifts for our society. The expansion/invention of suburbia. Two cars or more per household. If anything I think the counter culture movement of the 60s and 70s was the foundation of current environmentalism. Honestly if we want to label the most consumptive generation it probably is gen X. Millennials have gotten a bad reputation, avocado toast, but their buying power was really hampered by the Great Recession.

One could place some blame for lack of smaller affordable homes on the Boomers. And for increased strain in the health care system but I don’t think that’s what the OP had in mind.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

We are getting close to a perineal wheat. 20 years??? Maybe. That will be a huge game changer. Think roundup ready corn in magnitude. Our tractors burned 200-300 gallons a day each and ran 7-10 days straight every 4-6 weeks. Not tilling cuts energy inputs by a lot.

I don’t get the feeling Boomers consumption is really out of place with the other generations. It’s just that the post war era that were born into marked a point in time of great shifts for our society. The expansion/invention of suburbia. Two cars or more per household. If anything I think the counter culture movement of the 60s and 70s was the foundation of current environmentalism. Honestly if we want to label the most consumptive generation it probably is gen X. Millennials have gotten a bad reputation, avocado toast, but their buying power was really hampered by the Great Recession.

One could place some blame for lack of smaller affordable homes on the Boomers. And for increased strain in the health care system but I don’t think that’s what the OP had in mind.

A perennial wheat or corn would do wonders to hold soil and stop erosion. It'd also help the soil recover through fungal mining of nutrients.

I'm not sure I agree with your 2nd part. Boomers brought in the mcmansion, Gen X thought it was a good idea. You referenced this. We can see it in cars, boats, etc. As a society we've grown wealthy. I dont see this as a bad thing. The boomers worked for their money and should spend it as they see fit.

The original thought of the thread was that as the Boomers of the developed world age and pass emissions will decrease since many developed countries have had fewer children to take their place. This, I suppose, would happen with healthcare too if preventative healthcare wasn't getting stronger every year. Thats going to change the demographic pyramid quite a bit! Itll look more like a chimney with more people reaching 100!

 

[Poindexter]

This, I suppose, would happen with healthcare too if preventative healthcare wasn't getting stronger every year. Thats going to change the demographic pyramid quite a bit! Itll look more like a chimney with more people reaching 100!

I got to disagree with this one. Preventative health care only works for patient's who are motivated to follow simple instructions. Number one, ask any health care pro, stop smoking now.

I don't care if someone is smoking pot or tobacco or catnip. Smoking is bad. Crack, crystal meth, all of it. Stop smoking now.

Our knowledge of preventative health care is getting better every year; but uptake, actual follow through, not so much.

I think we are living longer because we aren't working as hard, mostly because of applying tech to fossil fuels. Before WW2 something like 20% of women in the USA lived long enough to experience menopause. There was a newspaper ad up here, it gets reprinted every couple years, a successful goldminer ~1906 was looking for a wife who could put up two cords of wood per day - with hand tools. Hand saw, axe and splitting maul.

In my late teens I placed pretty well in my Mr. teenage Home State bodybuilding contest. I am not a third of the man I was back then, but at the time I was 5' 9", 209#, benching 325 and squatting 475. If you had pointed me at some standing timber with hand tools there is no way I could have pulled one cord a day out of those woods as 16" splits, and I can assure you I would not have been a desirable wife. If you had wanted 4 foot rounds, no splitting, for the steam boats, I could maybe pull two cords per day but you can leave that thing in your pants and hand over some cash little mister, or I will push your face through the wall of this log cabin.

 

[Ashful]

I placed pretty well in my Mr. teenage Home State bodybuilding contest... I can assure you I would not have been a desirable wife.

No Mister teenage home state bodybuilding contest could make a desirable wife.

I have to admit, I got lost on the rest of that paragraph, but I'm not sure I can agree that the primary reason we are living longer is that we aren't working (physically) as hard. Average life expectancy only 100 years ago was dragged way down by a combination of infant mortality, exposure to industrial and residential toxins, a lack of simple life-saving emergency medicine (no ambulances!), and knowledge driving simple lifestyle changes (diet / smoking).

In fact, to play Devil's advocate on that point, it's as likely that years of hard physical labor might improve your odds of surviving these many catastrophes, in a way similar to doctors so often giving patients with high physical strength better odds of surviving accidents or cancer treatments today.

 

[stoveliker]

and hard work equals exercise. That is the number 2 of preventative health care advice that has insufficient uptake.

 

[begreen]

We are getting close to a perineal wheat. 20 years??? Maybe. That will be a huge game changer.

General Foods has been test growing this in WA state. I got a box of wheat flake cereal from them to try it out and it wasn't bad at all. Tasted a bit like Raisin-Bran without the raisins. A local brewery has made a decent ale from it too.

 

[EbS-P]

General Foods has been test growing this in WA state. I got a box of wheat flake cereal from them to try it out and it wasn't bad at all. Tasted a bit like Raisin-Bran without the raisins. A local brewery has made a decent ale from it too.

The land institute has been working on various aspects in Kansas.

Natural Systems Agriculture | The Land Institute

The Land Institute co-leads the global movement for perennial, diverse, truly regenerative agriculture at a scale. A non-profit based in Salina, Kansas, The Land Institute was founded in 1976.

landinstitute.org

 

[Poindexter]

I will agree with @Ashful and @stoveliker there is probably zones on those that have damaged their health with hard work, worked hard enough to improve their health, and couch potato land.

The elders born in the 19 teens and 1920s are pretty well gone now, but their bodies were wrecked when I started working with them in the 1990s. These were lots of folks who could name all the parts of horse tack to drag a plow and knew how to do stuff without a VISA card, but they were running awfully low on ligaments to hold their joints together.

I haven't had anyone on my census born before 1930 in a couple or three years now, and I am seeing a different kind of old. Since I have known some of their parents I know where they got their stubborn from; but I am seeing a lot more medical problems rather than debilitating orthopedic overuse.

I do agree gangrene isn't a big killer anymore, but antibiotics are not preventative. Prenatal care is preventative care for sure. When I drive by a gym advertising aerobics classes I know the folks that farmed acreage with horses before tractors would be shaking their heads.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I got to disagree with this one. Preventative health care only works for patient's who are motivated to follow simple instructions. Number one, ask any health care pro, stop smoking now.

I don't care if someone is smoking pot or tobacco or catnip. Smoking is bad. Crack, crystal meth, all of it. Stop smoking now.

Our knowledge of preventative health care is getting better every year; but uptake, actual follow through, not so much.

I think we are living longer because we aren't working as hard, mostly because of applying tech to fossil fuels. Before WW2 something like 20% of women in the USA lived long enough to experience menopause. There was a newspaper ad up here, it gets reprinted every couple years, a successful goldminer ~1906 was looking for a wife who could put up two cords of wood per day - with hand tools. Hand saw, axe and splitting maul.

In my late teens I placed pretty well in my Mr. teenage Home State bodybuilding contest. I am not a third of the man I was back then, but at the time I was 5' 9", 209#, benching 325 and squatting 475. If you had pointed me at some standing timber with hand tools there is no way I could have pulled one cord a day out of those woods as 16" splits, and I can assure you I would not have been a desirable wife. If you had wanted 4 foot rounds, no splitting, for the steam boats, I could maybe pull two cords per day but you can leave that thing in your pants and hand over some cash little mister, or I will push your face through the wall of this log cabin.

Don't be so hard on yourself, if you had put your mind to it, I'm sure you'd have made a lovely wife!


*runs away giggling*


I'd love to see a picture of that ad if you could post it next time you see it! I think the lady that could do that work could probably drink the miners under the table too!

 

[woodgeek]

It's not a nimby issue in large urban areas. The land is really expensive and there are enviromental concerns. For this area, the cheaper land in the high desert east of the Cascades, but transportation costs (both economic and environmental) would be very high. The best plan is to dramatically reduce what is going into the landfill first. Organics can be composted and turned into energy. Recylables don't belong there, and plastics should be returned to usable polymers. And the recycling trucks should be electric where it is offered as a service.

Agree about not landfilling food or recyclables.

But whether we decide to (1) eliminate plastics (2) spend money to recycle plastics, (3) burn plastics (with emission scrubbing) or (4) landfill plastics (in an ecologically safe way) is an engineering/financial issue. I think 4 is cheaper than 3 is cheaper than 2 is cheaper than 1.

If we want to do (1) ship it by rail. Takes a lot less energy than a truck.

 

[begreen]

If we want to do (1) ship it by rail. Takes a lot less energy than a truck.

Yes, that is what has been proposed as has incineration, etc. Rail does not go everywhere and appropriate, affordable land is diminishing, especially in Calif. and many states in the East. Regardless of the solution, waste costs bigtime.

This is just a century's worth of US landfills and closures.

Then start accounting for projected growth.



We have to get a handle on this and stop crapping in our own beds. The burden of this expense needs to be shifted to the producers in order for them to take more responsibility. There are much more efficient processes than the linear extractive model currently prevalent in North America. As far as plastics go, at what point does it start to become alarming? It is already floating in the air we breathe, the food we eat, and killing our oceans. The reality is only a small portion goes to neatly managed landfills globally and the production rate continues to escalate at a dramatic rate. This is not sustainable. We're up to a half trillion plastic bottles a year and rising. There isn't the infrastructure to deal with the vast volumes of plastic waste humans create.

Microplastics increasingly found in Colorado's snowpack

DENVER (AP) — As the focus on the electron microscope resolved, Richard Reynolds found himself feeling more resigned than surprised. The slide before him was a snowpack sample collected from pristine Colorado high country.

apnews.com