Peak Pizza

[chelidon]

Okay, for those folks who're not inclined to wade through long tomes and reference-laden articles on the coming Peak Oil issue/crisis/opportunity/etc, here's one of the better down-to-earth explanations I've seen lately:

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Peak Olives
By Stirling Newberry
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Thursday 14 July 2005

I often joke that every week I could write and sell a one thousand word piece that would consist of "Peak Oil" repeated five hundred times. There is a bottomless appetite for information, and confirmation, about the future of energy, but sadly, explaining it has often been difficult. People grab onto bits and pieces, and they don’t step back and look at the big picture. So rather than talking about petroleum, I am going to talk about something closely related: grease. Specifically, pizza.
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Comments

[phryday.livejournal.com]

I'll counter that explaining it has been rather easy, accepting it seems to be the difficult part and having seen enough addicts I've come to the realization that no matter what's said it's up to them to finally grok it. Having said that I think the bigger questions is what are you (all these are general you) going to do about it? How are you preparing for the future if all hell breaks loose?

I don't have faith that as demand increases (happens when population increases) we'll be more likely to share considering we go to war over oil now. People do have the knack to survive but sometimes doing so may entail killing.

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

I'm very much hoping for a soft landing and slow economic contraction, but I'll admit I'm not all that trribly optimistic about it. I suspect our infrastructure and economy is more brittle than is generally accepted, and has become dependant for basic essentials of life (food, water, etc) on cheap energy. Humans tend to get nasty when confronted by resource scarcity. As do, as you astutely put it, addicts. And we have definitely become addicts to cheap energy.

[morrigandaughtr.livejournal.com]

Excellent article!

(Is there irony in the fact that I'm about to call the pizza delivery people?)

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

Irony? Never heard of it ;>

[kitten-goddess.livejournal.com]

OK, what the heck is capital energy?

[phryday.livejournal.com]

it's the energy required to build such products as nuclear reactors, sink coalmines, build processing plants. input energy is the energy required to keep those plants running once built.

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

And that's related to the problem with biodiesel, methanol, etc. Great idea in theory, to augment fossil-fuel-based sources with renewable agricultural sources (corn, vegetable oil, etc). While there is currently cheap waste cooking oil and the like available, it's a good deal. But as fuel becomes more scarce, that oil will suddenly be in higher demand, therefore not so cheap. And (this is the kicker), the agricultural industry which produces the corn, etc, which is the required input for methanol, vegetable oils, and so on, all makes heavy use of oil-based fertilizers, farm equipment, etc. So the net energy output of renewable fuels (what you get out of it, minus the energy it costs to make it) is pretty darn small -- in some cases, actually a net loss of energy. Biodiesel and methanol won't save us, at least the way things are presently arranged.