What Do You Think About The Climate Change Email’s?

Personally, I think that energy consumption is on the decline long term, and already we have seen a break from the predictions of the IPCC’s v4 report from 2007.  My friend Spiralman comments in a recent email exchange…

“To the right, Here is the IPCC AYR4 scenario diagram. The most optimistic scenario, B1, has CO2 emissions growing and not declining below 2005 levels until ~2060. Global oil consumption, just one proxy for emissions admittedly, is already down from almost 88mbd down to 84+mbd, and the crisis has been blunted so far with massive government interventions of stimulus and more debt issuance, which is not financially sustainable, and will lead to major bankruptcies and currency collapses, mass unemployment, and quite likely to world war and civil wars.  So we will see energy consumption continue to shrink through this decade.

Demand for oil in the OECD will not recover until 2013, says Opec
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/demand-for-oil-in-the-oecd-will-not-recover-until-2013-says-opec-1738086.html

Aside from the world wars and civil wars generating a huge amount of carbon emissions in the form of soot from explosions and fires, and aerosols from incinerations of cities, the future industrial emissions are very likely to be considerably lower than even today.  I expect that as the capitalist overproduction crisis progresses over the next several years, industrial activity will shrink by 25% to 50% from peak activity.

Meanwhile solar (and wind) power will continue to cheapen along its exponential learning curve, making it ever more desirable and capable of fulfilling any need for growth of energy generation capacity, especially that which will enable the belligerents in the wars to be energy independent of international disruptions to fuel supply chains.

The same will occur with natural gas, now that the shale gas makes natural gas a local resource for US, Europe, China and India. And since natural gas can not only replace coal, but also be cheaply converted into gasoline, diesel and kerosene, we will see oil and coal consumption replaced by the lower emission natural gas.

And of course, there will be the huge milestone of affordable LED’s combined with the bans on incandescent bulbs taking effect starting from 2012-2014 which will lead to the rapid replacement with LEDs and the equally huge shrinkage of electricity consumption from lighting (and the extra energy consumption for the air conditioning necessary to deal with the waste heat from inefficient fluorescents in office buildings).  So sometime over 2013-2020 there will be the evaporation of ~20% of demand for OECD electricity.

This pattern of Spike, Crash, Streamline, and Replace is the identical dynamic to which occurred from 1930-1945, 1860-1878 and from 1789-1812. Like clockwork the world experiences generational financial and genocidal crisis eras every 65-80 years. I have tracked this cycle back to the 1420’s for Western Europe, India, China and Japan, and I suspect that if I researched it further the pattern continues even deeper into time”

• Climate Change Emails Have Been Quoted Entirely Out Of Context
  http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6948008.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=2270657

• Understanding Climategate’s Hidden Decline
  http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6948008.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=2270657

• In Face of Skeptics, Experts Affirm Climate Peril -
  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/07/science/earth/07climate.html?_r=2&sudsredirect=true

Is the climate change industry perfect, should we trust the general “scientific” consensus and base our assumptions and economic policy on them?

OIL GLUT: $20/barrel? Cheap Carbon Trading, China joins carbon tax protest & reaches 2020 Wind target 10yrs early + No Natural Gas Glut.

Comments (double indents), quotes (single indents), & links written and compiled by Spiralman

Glut of oil could push gasoline prices back down below $2 a gallon
Energy experts say oil supply is outstripping demand. Eventually suppliers will tire of paying to store all of the surplus oil and flood the market, they predict.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-oil4-2009jul04,0,311438.story

Iraq Fails to Award Most Oil Contracts in Bid Round
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601104&sid=aFn6A921Tw9s

More evidence that the world is a lot less desperate for oil than was thought several months ago. We will see many more examples like this over the next ten years with Depression-induced demand destruction, energy efficiency gains and solar/wind replacing hydrocarbons where hard fought wins in the resource wars turn out to be pyrrhic victories.

What does an oil/gas exporting country do when their main source of hard currency is less attractive to the rest of the world?

My guess is that one of their recourses is to go to war against other oil exporting countries to knock out their competing oil/gas production or transiting capacities possibly via funding and arming irregular armed forces in competitors’ countries fostering a ratcheting of “dirty wars” of sabotage, disappearances, death squads, false flag operations and ethnic/sectarian cleansing.

This is why I believe that those on the left who have argued that reducing American consumption of foreign oil will reduce the drive toward war are seriously mistaken.  Maybe it would reduce America’s drive for war, but it increases the rivalries between many other energy exporters.

China joins carbon tax protest
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/76f0e4b0-67fc-11de-848a-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1

China joins carbon tax protest
By Alan Beattie in London and Kathrin Hille in Beijing
Published: July 3 2009 19:20 | Last updated: July 3 2009 19:20
Beijing on Friday joined a growing clamour of complaint about US plans for a carbon tax on imports from countries without their own emission caps, warning it could set off a global trade war.

The warning follows the passage of a cap-and-trade bill in the US House of Representatives last weekend, which contained tough provisions to impose carbon tariffs to ensure that American companies would not lose competitive advantage. A recent report by the World Trade Organisation and the UN said such taxes could in theory be crafted to be compatible with WTO law, but it would be hard to prove they were not an illegal disguised restriction on international trade.

“It has always been China’s position that the international society should fight climate change together, but the proposal of some developed countries to slap a carbon tariff on some imported products violates the WTO’s basic principles and is trade protectionism in the disguise of environmental protection,” said Yao Jian, spokesman for China’s ministry of commerce.

Earlier this week, Jairam Ramesh, the Indian environment minister, described carbon tariffs as “pernicious” and flatly rejected the idea of negotiating climate change at the WTO.

After the passage of the House bill by a narrow vote last week, President Barack Obama warned imposing carbon border taxes might send a protectionist signal. “I think there may be other ways of doing it than with a tariff approach,” he said. The bill now moves to the Senate, where it is likely to receive an even rougher ride from moderate Democrats concerned about imposing more costs on US businesses.

The Chinese government also said it believed the carbon tax proposal violated the principle set out in the Kyoto protocol that developed and developing countries should respond to climate change together but with different responsibilities. “[It] severely harms developing countries’ interests,” Mr Yao said.

The WTO report, which gave a cautious nod to carbon tariffs, was prepared by the organisation’s secretariat, which can advise and facilitate discussion among the WTO’s members but does not set the rules itself. If a government such as China’s challenged such taxes, the case would be decided by the WTO’s dispute settlement system – panels of independent trade experts and lawyers.

Some trade lawyers point out that past WTO decisions have permitted governments to restrict trade in order to protect natural resources. But others say the case law is patchy, and it is hard to prove that such measures are being applied in a fair and consistent manner – a necessary condition for meeting WTO rules.

Brendan McGivern, partner at the law firm White & Case in Geneva, said: “I don’t think previous rulings provide a particularly solid basis for moving ahead with carbon border taxes. If a case comes, which is likely at some point, the outcome is very uncertain.”

Beijing’s comments reflect the tough initial negotiating stance China has taken for the Copenhagen talks in December aimed at working out a follow-up deal to Kyoto. China has rejected any emission caps for developing countries. It also wants developed nations to cut emissions to 40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020 and pay for clean technology in developing countries.

China is afraid of American Green protectionism/isolationism.

The double irony is that not only is China on its way toward incredibly rapid emissions growth slowdown because it is not in China’s best interests to be relying on foreign sources of energy and because China is one of the world’s leaders in solar and wind power equipment manufacturing, but that their demand that the US reduce to 40% below 1990 emission levels will easily be met via the Depression combined with the burgeoning American energy efficiency jihad.

As is usual in energy-related matters, everybody is yelling at each other about things that aren’t the main issue.
Those that don’t want to do anything exaggerate how much it will cost and how hard it will be, those that are freaked out about the environment also exaggerate how much it will cost and how hard it will be, but frame it as a need for more state mandates and as avoiding an Armageddon.  

Renewable energy/efficiency costs are relentlessly cheapening and within a decade won’t need any state mandates, it will make sense from both national security and financial perspectives.  Enviro Armageddon is easily avoidable by addressing the low-hanging fruit of black carbon in the Global South, and if thing are still going to be disastrous based on our past sins, we will have plenty of capabilities for adapting to it as the decades go by.

The real issues all really orbit the question of Equal Watts?

And for now, I side with China on the issue since they are among those who most desperately need affordable, geopolitically independent sources of energy, and shouldn’t be punished for getting energy for their impoverished people as cheaply as they can even if that means a continued increase in their emissions over the next decade while the price of solar continues to collapse to a price they can afford.

If the rich countries are really so worried about China’s emissions, it’s all the more reason for them to fund a South First strategy to get to Equal Watts.

Next year China will reach its 2020 Wind power target
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/03/business/energy-environment/03renew.html?_r=2&ref=business&pagewanted=all

……
HSBC predicts that China will invest more money in renewable energy and nuclear power between now and 2020 than in coal-fired and oil-fired electricity.
……
As recently as the start of last year, the Chinese government’s target was to have 5,000 megawatts of wind power installed by the end of next year, or the equivalent of eight big coal-fired power plants, a tiny proportion of China’s energy usage and a pittance at a time when China was building close to two coal-fired plants a week.

But in March of last year, as power companies began accelerating construction of wind turbines, the government issued a forecast that 10,000 megawatts would actually be installed by the end of next year. And now, just 15 months later, with construction of coal-fired plants having slowed to one a week and still falling, it appears that China will have 30,000 megawatts of wind energy by the end of next year — which was previously the target for 2020, Mr. Li said.
………
Chinese companies must generate 8 percent of their power from renewable sources other than hydroelectric by the end of 2020.
…….
At the same time, the Ministry of Environmental Protection has temporarily banned three of the country’s five main power companies from building more coal-fired power plants, punishment for their failure to comply with environmental regulations at existing coal-fired plants. China’s renewable energy frenzy has been accelerating recently, especially in solar energy.
……

This is the pace with solar costing ~3X coal and wind costing 50% more than coal.

Imagine a decade from now when solar = wind = coal.

July/August 2009
Carbon Trading on the Cheap
If the United States wants to build a market-based approach to reducing carbon dioxide emissions, it should learn from Europe’s failures.
http://www.technologyreview.com/printer_friendly_article.aspx?id=22851&channel=energy&section

This article explains why the cap and trade scheme is likely to remain primarily just that, a scheme to benefit Wall St traders and the green NGOs rather than accomplish anything other than hurting the poor.

However it doesn’t address the fact that renewables already have such powerful momentum from both a national security standpoint for the hydrocarbon have-nots as well as exponential cost reduction, that the price for carbon offsets will inevitably be so low as to be meaningless.

For example, the US cap and trade objective is for a 17% reduction of emissions from 2005 levels by 2020.

The current extent of the depression has already reduced US oil demand by ~9% from 2005 levels, and is likely to drop it substantially more.
The principal energy consuming states eg. California, already are very aggressively pushing renewable energy.

California has a target for renewables of 20% by 2010 and 33% by 2020 irrespective of cap and trade.

New York 24% by 2013
New Jersey 22.5 by 2021
Illinois 25% by 2025
Pennsylvania 18% by 2020

As you can see below almost every major energy consuming state except Florida has more aggressive objectives than the 17% Federal cap and trade program.

In addition, major industrial powers like Germany and Japan have an objective of 30% from solar alone by 2020 and that’s not including Germany’s target for wind power, which is already at 7.5% and is expected to double by then.  The EU as a whole has a 2020 target of 20% renewables.  China’s objective is 15% from renewables by 2020.

These countries do not have sufficient oil and gas supplies, and therefore cannot have their renewable energy policies waylaid by the interests of hydrocarbon energy company executives or politicians representing potentially unemployed energy industry workers.

Since the manufacturing/R&D learning curve for solar power over several decades is > 20% price reduction per doubling of amount of panels manufactured, and since the worldwide pace of solar panel installation growth has averaged ~45% over the last decade, ie a doubling of installed panels every 2 years, and so a price reduction of 40% every 4 years, this translates roughly into the 3X price reduction every decade.

The demand from countries which are hellbent on reducing their hydrocarbon consumption due to strategic concerns is guaranteed to continue to drop the price dramatically, which will make it that much easier for a country like the US to convert even though it is one of the largest oil producers in the world, and naturally less enthusiastic about alternatives.

Bottom line:
Cap and trade schemes are unnecessary, inadequate and regressive wealth transfers to financial industry casino operators and the catastrophe pimps in the eco NGO world.
Worst of all Cap and Trade doesn’t focus on putting the panels in the countries suffering the most from energy poverty and primitiveness, whose miserably poor Campfire Ladies are spewing out the black carbon that is simultaneously raising sealevel the most through albedo on the icecaps and who are driving the deforestation that causes desertification, soil erosion, flooding, famine and local warming.

Cleaning up the Global South’s soot by giving every family a solar panel, an electric stove and a few LED lights would have an impact “within months” removing 50% of the driving force of Arctic melt, and it would cost peanuts.

I’m guesstimating $50B to $100B would provide enough families with the basics to completely eradicate the need for burning wood, charcoal and kerosene.

And since they are currently spending 25% of their monthly income on these primitive energy sources, they would have the disposable income to buy other things and would help fuel the world economic recovery.

Estimate Places [US] Natural Gas Reserves 35% Higher
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/18/business/energy-environment/18gas.html?ref=business

Gas Glut: Why the U.S. Boom Could Mean Cheaper Gas Everywhere
http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2009/06/18/gas-glut-why-the-us-boom-could-mean-cheaper-gas-everywhere/

…..
So what does that mean? First, the much greater supplies would seem to spell a period of cheaper natural gas, which fell much further than oil from last year’s high prices. All else being equal, that would tend to make natural gas the go-to fuel for electricity generation ahead of clean energy and even coal in many cases.

Second, it could actually make natural gas cheaper everywhere and help diversify natural gas supplies around the world. The rising amounts of natural gas identified by the Potential Gas Committee are the results of new production technologies. These technologies are just beginning to tried out overseas, which could lead to a boom in gas production elsewhere.

What’s more, with so much natural gas at home, it’s possible that less liquefied natural gas will be imported into the U.S. Right now, the U.S. is the “kitchen sink” for LNG, meaning that anything extra gets poured into the world’s only market that can readily absorb it.

But over time, this LNG could head to markets in Europe and Asia, as contracts are adjusted. That would give Europeans and Asians another source of natural gas without resorting to Russian gas exports, long a point of political friction in Europe.
…..

Fueling the potential for US energy isolationism.
Like the Alaskan ANWR battles, shale-based natural gas will also pit American environmentalists vs. energy isolationists, but natural gas is an easier sell to greens since it emits less carbon than coal or oil even though it could put more toxins in water tables.

Mining “Ice That Burns”
Newly discovered methane hydrate reserves deep in the ocean show promise for mining.
http://www.technologyreview.com/printer_friendly_article.aspx?id=22756&channel=energy&section=

[

The recent Japanese/Canadian/American breakthroughs on pulling up oceanic methane hydrates, the abundance of which is truly colossal (enough for 3,000 years!!!), should also change the equation for many countries when the technology is fully worked out.  Japan will start rolling it out by 2017.

The upshot of all of the above is that the longterm value of natural gas is plummeting, since it is apparently going to be more and more abundant as pipelines and LNG tankers crisscross the planet, and new technologies open up the huge amounts in shale and oceanic methane hydrates.

Natural gas directly substitutes for coal; and CNG can power vehicles instead of oil, but conversion is expensive.

“Peak Energy” still lives on in imagination as Malthusian phantasmagoria, but in the real world this particular demon of energy scarcity is being rapidly knifed from many different angles.

Whether impending depression demand contraction, LED lights, passive homes, grid parity of ubiquitous Solar, or the laughable cornucopia of Gas, the dynamics of this crisis as it progresses could be very different than expected as the breathing space for energy consumers becomes intolerably painful for energy supplier countries, reduced to the power of sugar, coffee and banana republics over the next 10 years.

And what happens to the two major powers who made their livings guarding the formerly precious resources?

Lots more whipsawing to come.

US Truck, Air, Rail freight all down 20% or more and still looking for bottom

by Spiralman

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124044499853045733.html

……
The Air Transport Association of America last week said U.S. air-cargo volumes had dropped 21% in February compared with a year ago. That was the seventh consecutive month of year-to-year declines.
…..
For the first two weeks of April, the U.S. railroad industry’s car-load volumes were down more than 20%, compared with a 17.3% drop for the month of March and a 14.5% drop in February, according to the trade group Association of American Railroads.
……

http://fleetowner.com/management/trucking-industry-economic-conditions-0422/index1.html
…….

Truckload carriers have seen a 23.3% decline in freight, or “the largest six-month drop in tonnage since 1993,” he said. By segment, flatbed carriers saw tonnage decline 30% from a peak in June, 2008, while dry van and tank carriers recorded 25% and 27% drops respectively from peak levels. “And it’s affected all lengths of hauls – short, medium and long,” according to White.
…….

[
These are leading indicators of the economy.  If things aren’t being trucked, trained, or flown around as much, then that means households and businesses aren’t buying as much, which then means workers will be furloughed, wage reduced, or laid off, which in turn means a lot less driving to work and shopping.

Obviously, these figures also imply a radical decline in oil consumption and therefore emissions.  Presumably, also by 20% or more.  And this will show up as the year progresses and the speculative contracts for the hoarding of oil on tanker ships, called contango, expire and the oil gets added to an already glutted market.

As I have noted before, the Peak Credit Overproduction Crisis process we are seeing is Spike, Crash, Streamline, Replace.

We saw the Spike up to $147/barrel oil.  This helped drive investments in Solar and Wind production capacity and innovations in manufacturing processes that are revealing themselves as radical reductions in the production price of solar panels.  The Peak Credit/Overproduction Oil Spike spiked the ball of Solar Power over the net of Grid Parity.  In addition, it Spiked over the net, electric hybrid cars and trucks.  The new Prius and the others from Honda, Ford, etc. will all cost $20K or less.

We are now witnessing the Crash of demand, driven by Debt Deflation.  I fully expected demand for energy to drop by 25% to 50% during this phase.  The shipping data above certainly indicates that the higher end of the collapse is now much more likely.

The Spike triggered a dramatic shift that will shape the post-Crash future.

The resulting Crash and Streamlining phases are irreversibly destroying demand for Coal, Oil, Nukes, and Gas.  
The rising insecurity of investors of those sectors will ensure that insufficient capital is allocated to CONG, so that not only will solar and wind be ready to carry everything forward after the crash, but the CONG will be unable to ramp up quickly and sufficiently since their investors have to assume more and more that the longterm prices under conditions of overproduction and debt deflation demand destruction will not justify the investment.

When even the most gas guzzling of all passenger vehicles, like GM’s Hummer will be getting 100mpg, when even the heaviest semi-trucks driven by the type of hard-edged working class folks who effete, Green, academic, latte-sipping snobs would least expect to be concerned about the environmental impacts are already deploying new drivetrains that cut diesel consumption by 30% to 50% so they can improve their profitability, when Walmart’s founder was the biggest investor in one of the biggest solar companies producing the cheapest solar panels (not to mention the fact that Walmart has already fielded hundreds of semi-trucks in collaboration with Peterbilt, Curtis and Eaton), it’s pretty clear that just about everything we read about climate change scientist’s projected impacts of Armageddon and the need for punitive, regressive Carbon taxes is completely irrelevant.  An echo of an already vanishing era.  Identical in form to the real estate houseflipping Ponzi or the stock Madoffs who still continue to claim that things will sharply rebound………always in the next 6 months.

The eco-neurotic’s relentless claims that runaway carbon emissions are just around the corner sound very similar to the refrain that prosperity is just around the corner.

Ironically, those proclaiming an eventual return to economic growth have vastly more truth behind them than the eco-neurotic, who is blind to the phase change in pricing of solar and hybrids that the Peak Credit/Overproduction crisis brought into being.

Humanity will one day consume tens, hundreds or thousands of times as many joules of energy as it did at the Peak Credit moment in Summer of 2008, but it will never again consume them at that level in the form of hydrocarbons.

Has Russia got it’s groove back?

Rising oil prices, soaring shares - and socialites out in force. Adrian Blomfield in Moscow studies the signs of recovery

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/5024779/Has-Russia-got-its-groove-back.html

Analysis by Spiralman

Russia still has a lot further to fall, but it may end up somewhat better off than its European neighbors who have loads of net debt.  (Russian companies have lots of debt, but the Russian government surplus is even bigger and slightly more than cancels it out; so the Russian government will probably take back the companies that were privatized during the Yeltsin era.

However……
1)  if world economic activity slows as much as I anticipate – somewhere between –25% and –50% compared to peak activity – then oil and gas consumption will fall significantly as well.
2)  since almost every G20 country is aggressively pursuing anti-hydrocarbon policies, it seems very likely that oil/gas consumption per unit of GDP will fall by at last 30% (as it did during the late 70’s-early 80’s oil spike/crash), meaning that any recovery will use disproportionately less oil per % of growth.
3) since solar best practice technology is already as cheap as King CONG, and will be on average as as cheap KONG by 2012, and
4) since batteries for large scale energy storage will be online by then
5) since high voltage direct current (HVDC) electric grids are being rolled out
6) since hybrid vehicles are dramatically improving and reducing their prices
7) since even non-hybrid cars, like Tata’s $2,000 Nano, are radically more energy efficient

Any global economic recovery will be starting from a much reduced global oil consumption base similar to the 1970’s (ie ~50% lower than the peak of oil consumption in Summer 2008) and primarily be based on a new energy infrastructure…….

Countries dependent upon their energy exports for their economies are likely to be in a world of pain.

Basically, all these “energy independence” moves (cloaked in Green terms regarding the environment to get leftie buy-in) amounts to an Economic World War waged by energy importing countries against energy exporting countries.

It does not take a super genius to recognize that this Hydrocarbon Import Boycott, ahem Energy Independence, Fighting Climate Change, is likely to result in very real wars in response.

When oil was very cheap in the 1990’s, the US saw Al Qaeda’s major upsurge in terrorism

• 1993 WTC Part 1; 1998 Bombings of US embassies in East African; 2000 USS Cole; 2001 WTC Part 2 

When oil became expensive, the terror attacks subsided.

Not really a surprise.  When folks have enough money to go around, people are less pissed off.

Reality seems to contradict of the fantasies of both the neocons and liberals like Thomas Friedman who think that strangling MidEast oil production through ‘energy independence’ will result in less conflict and modernization/reform.

If anything the high oil prices since 911 enabled the meteroic rise of Dubai and major expansion of secondary and college education of women in Saudi Arabia and the rest of the GCC.  In fact, Saudi Arabia’s budget swelled dramatically as a result of their educational reforms, and now they will face challenges will lower oil prices.

Moscow’s rhetoric has become much more bellicose since US-client Georgia provoked them, Bush II announced the missile shield on their border, and then oil prices started to fall.

The Middle Eastern countries are very well positioned, possibly the best positioned in the world with their enormous cloudless deserts and proximity to Europe, Africa and Asia, to transition to being the Saudi Arabia of a Eurasian Solar Economy.

Russia is not.

Decades of humiliation and suffering after the collapse of the USSR and the failure of Bush I, Clinton I, Bush II, and Obama to facilitate renovation investment of the Russian economy, the continuing attempts at geopolitical encirclement through expanding NATO to the Russian borders, the missile shield, and now the Energy Boycott, could easily drive them to launch desperate, rapid surprise attacks to regain their regional sphere of influence, and reactivate support throughout the Global South.

Declining importance of metals since WW2 

For those of you who have been following the - “Why Global Warming(climate change) doesn’t matter anymore thread, I wanted to take the time to create a seperate post specifically addressing the rarity of Copper point that Rob brought up in the comments section where our exchange has been taking place

There are . so far in that discussion.

Spiralman writes:

By the way, I don’t think Rob read carefully through the article he cited for copper and metals through to their conclusions, including especially their caveats.
[highlights mine]

http://www.arch.mcgill.ca/prof/sijpkes/arch374/winter2002/materials/chapter1.html

Conclusions

The fraction of the stock of recoverable resources in the litho-sphere already placed in use or in wastes from which it will probably never be recovered is currently ~26% for copper and 19% for zinc. We lack data, but suggest that similar proportions apply for the other industrially important, geochemically scarce metals. Because the remaining stocks of ore are large compared with current needs, prices of these metals do not yet reflect scarcity value. Additionally, improved extraction techniques have kept the average real prices of these metals nearly steady for over 50 years (1). There is no immediate concern about the capacity of mineral resources to supply requirements for the geochemically scarce metals. Limitations would arise only from restrictions on international trade or legislative restrictions related to the environmental consequences of mining, milling, and smelting lower-grade ores (1–5). Nonetheless, over time the widespread adoption of certain new technologies can be expected to encounter natural limitations in cases for which a particular material provides a unique service. We identify platinum as the most likely metal to face this limitation because of its unique catalytic properties and its desirability for such applications as alloys for high-temperature service.

Data on the stock of copper used in the U.S. over the past century cast doubt on the idea that demand for metals eventually decreases as incomes rise. Although the nation’s GDP has increased much faster than the copper stock-in-use, the rate of increase of the per-capita copper stock remains undiminished. We find that the per-capita copper committed to some services has decreased in the 20th century but that this decrease is overbalanced by the provision of new services. The demand for new services is deeply embedded in a western popular and political culture that sees growth and development as absolutes, quickly converting services originating as luxuries or entertainments for the wealthy into necessities for everyone. Scenarios depicting future use of copper resources anticipate worldwide spread of the metal services enjoyed by the postindustrial nations. These scenarios need to explicitly address the cultural factors that continue to increase the per-capita use of copper in wealthy societies and the use of alternative materials to provide copper services.

Concern about the extent of mineral resources arises when the stock of metal needed to provide the services enjoyed by the highly developed nations is compared with that needed to provide comparable services with existing technology to a large part of the world’s population. Our stock data demonstrate that current technologies would require the entire copper and zinc ore resource in the lithosphere and perhaps that of platinum as well. Even a lower level of services could not be sustained worldwide because a continuing supply of new metal is needed to make up for inevitable losses in the recycling of the metal stock-in-use. [This is no doubt where Rob derives his main conclusions, but let’s read further…….] Substitution has the potential to ameliorate this situation, but one should not automatically assume that technology will produce a satisfactory substitute for every service at an affordable price and precisely when needed.

The topic of resource constraints inevitably recalls the classic bet between Julian Simon and Paul Ehrlich in 1980, in which Ehrlich bet that the prices of five metals would increase by 1990 (36). Instead, the grouped prices fell, and Ehrlich paid Simon $576.07 to settle the wager. Unlike Ehrlich, we do not imply that metal price is a satisfactory measure of the remaining amount of a resource. Rather, we merely point out the present state of affairs: that anthropogenic and lithospheric stocks of at least some metals are becoming equivalent in magnitude, that world-wide demand continues to increase, and that the virgin stocks of several metals appear inadequate to sustain the modern ‘‘developed world’’ quality of life for all Earth’s peoples under contemporary technology. These facts compel us to ask two key questions: Do we really envision a developed world quality of life for all of the people of the planet? and If so, are we willing to encourage the transformational technologies that will be required to make that vision a reality?

Notwithstanding the answers to the key questions posed above, it is clear that, as the proportion of the stock of ore remaining in the lithosphere diminishes relative to the stock-in-use and the stock dissipated, scarcity value will indeed eventually raise the real prices of the geochemically scarce metals and will stimulate intensive recycling well above today’s levels (37). We anticipate that price increases are unlikely to trigger a lower rate of increase in metal services or sudden economic disruption. More likely, we will see a new engineering emphasis on using these metals more efficiently and increased use of abundant alternative materials, principally iron and its alloys, aluminum, and magnesium. We anticipate a gradual transition to reliance on these alternative materials, with the use of the scarce metals increasingly restricted to those services most difficult to obtain by material substitution.

[so, let’s make that point more sharply than the article.

Even if every person on the planet expected to be alive in 2050, lived like an American we would not be anywhere near any natural limits for industrial services provided by Earth’s raw materials because any that are rare will be substituted by more abundant materials.  

The article should have more fully addressed the major new technological developments that are likely to lead to widespread replacement of copper, so people could have a feel for how substitution takes place:

First, let’s recapitulate their nice list of copper’s main usages:

the following four principal categories of copper use can be defined:

1. Building and construction comprises the copper contained in structures and is subdivided into three subcategories: interior wiring; plumbing, heating, and architectural uses; and air conditioning and commercial refrigeration.

2. Infrastructure, which is not subdivided and comprises copper in power-generating utilities, telecommunications, lighting, and business electronics.

3. Domestic and industrial equipment comprises in-plant equipment, industrial valves and fittings, nonelectrical instruments, appliances, consumer electronics, military and commercial ordnance, coinage, and off-highway vehicles. It is subdivided into domestic and industrial categories.

4. Transport includes two subcategories, motor vehicles (auto-mobile, trucks and buses), and other transportation (railroad, marine, aircraft, and aerospace equipment).

Table 1. Components of copper stock-in-use in the U.S. in 1999

In-use stock,
Sector or subsector             kg per capita
——————————————————————-
Infrastructure                    95
Building and construction         76
Plumbing                           32
Wiring                             28
Air conditioning and refrigeration 16
Industrial and Domestic Equipment 39
Industrial                         26
Domestic                           13
Transportation                    28
Motor vehicles                     16
Railway, ships, aircraft           12
Total                             238

As (many of you) are aware from my periodic sendings of articles, there is a major revolution underway in high temperature superconductivity (HTSC).  It already has led to early adopter, experimental rollouts of HTSC power cabling in NY for power substation connectivity.  Such cables carry over 150X the amount of current per pound and volume than standard copper cables.  
This HTSC tech is still a copper-based technology (albeit using 150X less copper material) and which only raise operating temps to liquid nitrogen.
Developments in the last few years are pushing that up to the much warmer temperature of dry ice, ie CO2.  

Advances in 2008 and 2009 have found completely new classes of superconducting materials:

Silicon-hydrogen
http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/next-energy-news3.19a.html

Iron and arsenic Feb. 24, 2009
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090216092835.htm

Almost every single usage mentioned above, from the article that Rob cited, aside from plumbing and valves, are ultimately related to the usage of copper for conducting of electricity.  Even the motor usages (which covers air conditioning, refrigeration, and vehicles) are principally for the usage of copper as windings around motors and transformers.

The less directly related usages of lighting and telecommunications are already being rapidly superceded by LED lighting and fiber optics.

Why Global Warming Doesn’t Matter Anymore

Exaggerations and Needless Despair:

Why The Global Warming Hysteria No

Longer Makes Sense…

A sharp decline in China’s trade surplus in February likely signals a shift in the nation’s financial balance with the rest of the world, and may reduce the speed with which it piles up foreign-currency assets such as U.S. Treasury bonds.

China’s merchandise exports in February plunged 25.7% from a year earlier, the nation’s customs agency said. That’s one of the biggest drops on record, and extends the 17.5% fall in January for a fourth straight monthly decline.
………

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123674128193891921.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

China Electricity Consumption Down 4.3% Year Over Year
http://news.alibaba.com/article/detail/energy/100064573-1-update-1-china-february-power-output.html

Wondering if Crude Could Fall Even More
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/business/10oil.html?ref=business

…….
In China, for example, oil consumption, which had been growing at more than 10 percent a year, fell by 4 percent in December, according to the International Energy Agency. This year, the agency expects “paltry” growth of 0.7 percent in Chinese oil demand.

In the United States last year, demand plummeted 6 percent, the steepest decline in nearly three decades. With Americans traveling less because of the bad economy, the demand for jet fuel fell 11 percent in January, compared with a year earlier.
…….

[Contrast this reality of collapsing global GDP, collapsing exports, collapsing energy consumption with the increasingly hysterical parade of studies the last two weeks concerning Climate Change and its impacts.  From proclaiming that carbon reductions aren’t likely to making linear extrapolations about melting Arctic glaciers to noting that certain sea microorganisms have had their shells grow thinner from carbon-acidified waters, they have assumed that all of the same dynamics that were going on during Peak Credit will continue to go on forever.

Climate Change furor is the equivalent of the notion that “real estate can only go up.”
While these meteorological geniuses and correlative ecology simulation circle jerkers continue to manufacture terrifying scenarios based on a hockey stick which clearly broke sometime this Summer, it is apparent to anyone who can calmly read the business news, that CO2 production will be in sharp retreat completely independently of environmental policies.]

Carbon cuts ‘only give 50/50 chance of saving planet’
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/carbon-cuts-only-give-5050-chance-of-saving-planet-1640154.html

[Since Profits and Wages really do matter, and that therefore Asset prices are ridiculously high even with the existing declines of the stock and housing markets, it is reasonable to assume that the wealth will continue to be destroyed, that mass layoffs will continue to accelerate, that consumer and business spending will continue to decline, and that therefore energy consumption via CONG will decline precipitously.

We have the historical precedent of the 1979-1983 oil spike/crash from which to learn.
That one led to a decline of 13% of energy consumption, and post-spike/crash the pace of energy consumption growth was dramatically slower than before, and this dynamic lasted for almost 20 years.
We also have the precedent of the 1930’s Depression when industrial activity fell by 50% in many sectors.

Finally, we also now have reached the threshold of the Solar Age, where solar power is price competitive with retail grid electricity at 10c/kWh.

Combining these observations, it becomes clear that human-caused CO2 emissions are falling dramatically and immediately, probably at least by 13%, and more likely somewhere towards 50%, by the time we reach the bottom of this crisis, and when the recovery begins, it will be based on solar and wind, not CONG.

So returning to the histrionic Climate Change article above, let’s laugh at their already antiquated observations and threats of Armageddon]

……..
At the moment, global emissions are thought to be rising at nearly 3 per cent a year – so turning that into a 3 per cent annual cut would be a gigantic slashing of what the earth’s factories and motor vehicles are pumping into the atmosphere. There is as yet nothing remotely like that on the table for potential agreement in Copenhagen, and if a deal of this ambition were to be done, it would be regarded as a triumph.
……..
So if emissions do not peak and start to decline until 2025, we can expect a 2.6C rise by 2100, and if the decline only begins in 2035, the figure is likely to be 3.1C – even with 3 per cent annual cuts.

[While they fret over whether there will be 3% cuts, even at this early stage of the crisis we’re already looking at drops of at least 6%, and I am positive that by the end of this year as the global layoffs mount, energy consumption will have dropped between 10% - 15%, and it will continue to decline throughout 2010 and 2011 as a result of the end of Peak Credit and the debt deflation deleveraging as well as the relentless march of renewable energy and energy efficient devices.  I predict that CO2 emissions will drop by at least 25% and possibly 50% over the next 4 or 5 years, rendering both of the above Climate Neurosis articles Silly and Arrogant Beyond Imagination.]

Increased Number Think Global Warming Is “Exaggerated”
Most believe global warming is happening, but urgency has stalled
http://www.gallup.com/poll/116590/Increased-Number-Think-Global-Warming-Exaggerated.aspx

By SpiralMan

Inevitability - 12 year old boy invents 3D solar cell; absorbs 500X than regular solar cells; 9X the best 3D cells

By SpiralMan
http://www.beavertonvalleytimes.com/news/story.php?story_id=122109656865633500

“12-year-old William Yuan’s invention of a highly-efficient, three-dimensional nanotube solar cell for visible and ultraviolet light has won him an award and a $25,000 scholarship from the Davidson Institute for Talent Development. ‘Current solar cells are flat and can only absorb visible light’” Yuan said. ‘I came up with an innovative solar cell that absorbs both visible and UV light. My project focused on finding the optimum solar cell to further increase the light absorption and efficiency and design a nanotube for light-electricity conversion efficiency.’ Solar panels with his 3D cells would provide 500 times more light absorption than commercially-available solar cells and nine times more than cutting-edge 3D solar cells. ‘My next step is to talk to manufacturers to see if they will build a working prototype,’ Yuan said. “If the design works in a real test stage, I want to find a company to manufacture and market it.”“

http://www.katu.com/news/local/28432984.html


[And hopefully you still remember last month’s, ancient 23 year old, Aussie grad student, Nicole Kuepper, who invented a process to make solar panels with a pizza oven, nail polish, and an inkjet printer]
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/08/pizza-oven-nail-polish-inkjet-printer-solar-panels.php


[Next we’ll be reading about some kindergarten kid kicking solar ass.]