How far to the abundance economy?

kbd512 · 2021-08-18 19:52:32

tahanson43206,

It's not that China doesn't have the potential to be a great nation, but communists focus on people. Only small minds do that. Great minds focus on ideas. Their system of governance is a failed retread of an idea that was a failure from its inception, that has succeeded in bringing about prosperity nowhere on planet Earth, for so long as people have attempted to implement it. The only reason China still exists as a nation is their adoption of capitalist economics principles, because had they continued on with communist economics principles, China would've greatly resembled sub-Saharan Africa.

Apart from that, as Peter Zeihan noted, China is an old folks home with a terminal demography. 25 years after their government's 1 child policy, it takes another 25 years to produce a new batch of 25 year olds. Their children will be taking care of the vast sea of elderly people now, else that impressive population stat will cease to exist inside of 10 years, although that may be inevitable now. Half the population there is near or over the age of 50. Look at the crude birth and death rate per 1,000 for their 2020 census. In the next 10 years, their population growth rate will be negative, since well over 50% of their population will be at or near retirement age, and the other 700 million will either be making robots like mad to take care of mom and dad so they can work, or that population stat will be half of the number of people in India 20 years from now. The same is true of Russia nowadays. They're more of a threat to themselves than anyone else.

China's continued existence is now predicated on exports to foreign countries, because if they stop doing that then their wealth evaporates, both their national economy and military atrophies into uselessness, and they basically go back to living the way they did before they adopted capitalism. The Chinese people send their money abroad, especially to the US, because they realize that they're only one more currency manipulation away from financial ruin if they reinvest into their own country.

Controlled chaos is normalcy over here in America, especially for our military. We wrote the manual on modern military operations, but never read it, because we've been at war for so long now that constant fighting is all we've ever known. Remember that Russian special forces gaggle that tried to attack a Marine artillery unit in Syria? That didn't go so well for them, did it? Everyone else, including our allies, freaks the hell out whenever things are the least bit chaotic, from their own point of view. The only form of stability that America has ever had, has been constant change, which is what we thrive on. Whenever we begin to stagnate, then we're really screwed, but nothing of the sort has happened since the founding of this nation. Nobody who has bet against America has ever left the game with their shirt on their back, so it's probably not a good idea to re-test that theory after 200 years of history all running in one direction.

Not relying upon centralized authority is why America can be presided over by a senile old man surrounded by evil clowns, but nothing materially changes. There's no real power invested in that person, because our founders were so very wary of one person having unlimited authority.

One thing's for sure though, and that's that nobody is desperate clamoring to get into communist China. In contrast, everybody and their dog still wants to come to America, because we still do new ideas and big ideas, such as taking humanity to Mars. If our system of chaos were ever to befall China, there would be a revolution in a heartbeat, because that's how much the people living over there detest their living conditions. We worry about cheeseburgers being $1 or $1.50. They worry about importing enough pork and chicken and legumes to prevent millions of their people from starving to death. That's a pretty stark contrast. We still import oil because part of our national strategy is to consume everyone else's oil first. None of our food is imported, except by choice, to provide an even more bewildering array of meaningless choices to people who can't figure out that they're being terrorized by a bunch of evil clowns hiding behind the dark curtain. My old boss, a Canadian man living in America, told me you know that you're successful when you can have a bunch of idiots working for you, but still manage to make money hand-over-fist.

Are things any less desperate for some people in America? No, but people here wear their troubles as a badge of honor, rather than a mark of hopelessness. I wouldn't trade any of the economic, health, or other issues I muddled my way through as a young man. It's how I became who I am, and I don't look down on those experiences, because they were necessary. How can you know what success looks like if you never experience a failure? Moreover, how can you ever learn and grow without failure? That's the part that zips right over the heads of people living in societies like communist China. Rather than putting the brush down after painting themselves into a corner, they keep hoping that someone else will come along to remove them from their corner. The only people who can do that are them. That's what they still don't get. That is why people still come to America. Those are the people who realize that it's time to put down that stupid brush. The ones they left behind will never "get it". If they did, then people would no longer feel the need to come here.

China's fixated on taking a piddly little island off their coastline, filled with their fellow Chinese people, as if that will change the situation they've created for themselves. That is akin to America worrying about how to take over Cuba or Haiti (who for all intents and purposes may as well be Americans)- because that would solve our problems, right? Meanwhile, entrepreneurs in America are well on their way to figuring out how to take over an entire planet tens of millions of miles from home. Just think about that for a moment. A nation with more than triple our population wants to invade Alcatraz while the richest men and women in America want to invade an entire planet... to both provide a second home for humanity and, as always, to make that next almighty dollar. If that's what China is betting the farm on, then yeah, I'm still betting on America, because the alternative is pure idiocy.

tahanson43206 · 2021-08-21 10:49:07

For kbd512 re #26

First, thanks for the thought you put into your long post ....

This topic is about abundance, and I reported the signal that Chairman Xi is thinking about providing some sort of minimal abundance for his 1.5+ billion people.

If your post, important as it is in some context, had anything to do with abundance delivered to a population, I missed it.

Please re-read your post, and then let me (and the forum or others who might chance upon this topic) know what it has to do with delivery of abundance to a population.

In other parallel topics, Calliban is working on delivering abundant atomic energy, and simultaneously I am trying to figure out how to insure that abundance is distributed to entire population of Earth. For that I am targeting 1 MW of electrical power or the virtual equivalent.

For ** this ** post, I am introducing the concept of USA Common Stock.

We (Americans) already have an informal share of our country's abundance as a birth right. However, as nearly as I can tell, there is nothing specific in place to insure the promise of that share goes to everyone without regard for all the usual exclusion factors.

I'd like to suggest that a mechanism for formal connection of persons born (or admitted) into the population to a stream of dividends would make sense.

It wouldn't cost anything, and creating such a system would insure that each candidate is permanently and reliably recorded.

I have observed that the present hodge-podge system does NOT insure that infants born into the US population are registered for Social Security (as just one example). There doesn't even seem to be a national system in place to insure that local jurisdictions even ** acknowledge ** birth of new citizens.

(th)

tahanson43206 · 2021-08-30 10:59:01

For SpaceNut .... in searching for a topic for this post, I asked FluxBB for topics containing the word "economy"

This topic seemed the best fit ... it does not limit the participant to thinking about a specific planet or even solar system .,..

https://www.yahoo.com/news/world-still- … 31990.html

The World Is Still Short of Everything. Get Used to It.
Peter S. Goodman and Keith Bradsher
Mon, August 30, 2021 8:25 AM

“We have this vicious cycle of all the natural human instincts responding, and making the problem worse,” said Willy C. Shih, an international trade expert at Harvard Business School. “I don’t see it getting better until next year.”
© 2021 The New York Times Company

As an eternal optimist, with training toward spotting opportunity in chaos, I see the present embarrassment of the global interconnected supply system as an opportunity for investors who are fast on their feet to establish local suppliers for the goods that are in demand.

Prices will remain high and deliveries will be slow for a while, so nimble suppliers should be able to capture this moment, and then reduce prices as the overseas suppliers recover their footing.

Superior quality and responsiveness to consumer demand would help to cement the acquisition of market share.

(th)

louis · 2021-08-30 13:40:59

A lot of hubris in your post.

Chinese culture has an entirely different approach I think. First off they see themselves as cultural superior and at the centre of affairs on our planet. For them the existence of an independent Taiwan is something that goes against nature and has to be rectified. It's just as much an idea as was the US Constitution (I use the past tense advisedly).

It's a mistake to say their system has become capitalistic. It has strong elements of capitalism but it's probably better thought of as planned state capitalism. The Chinese have a plan to march through all economic sectors and become the leading provider. So far, thanks to Western indolence, political corruption and idiocy, they have been allowed to get on with their plan. Trump is the only Western politician to have stood up to them, and he was removed in a political coup aided and abetted by the Chinese regime.

kbd512 wrote:

tahanson43206,
It's not that China doesn't have the potential to be a great nation, but communists focus on people. Only small minds do that. Great minds focus on ideas. Their system of governance is a failed retread of an idea that was a failure from its inception, that has succeeded in bringing about prosperity nowhere on planet Earth, for so long as people have attempted to implement it. The only reason China still exists as a nation is their adoption of capitalist economics principles, because had they continued on with communist economics principles, China would've greatly resembled sub-Saharan Africa.
Apart from that, as Peter Zeihan noted, China is an old folks home with a terminal demography. 25 years after their government's 1 child policy, it takes another 25 years to produce a new batch of 25 year olds. Their children will be taking care of the vast sea of elderly people now, else that impressive population stat will cease to exist inside of 10 years, although that may be inevitable now. Half the population there is near or over the age of 50. Look at the crude birth and death rate per 1,000 for their 2020 census. In the next 10 years, their population growth rate will be negative, since well over 50% of their population will be at or near retirement age, and the other 700 million will either be making robots like mad to take care of mom and dad so they can work, or that population stat will be half of the number of people in India 20 years from now. The same is true of Russia nowadays. They're more of a threat to themselves than anyone else.
China's continued existence is now predicated on exports to foreign countries, because if they stop doing that then their wealth evaporates, both their national economy and military atrophies into uselessness, and they basically go back to living the way they did before they adopted capitalism. The Chinese people send their money abroad, especially to the US, because they realize that they're only one more currency manipulation away from financial ruin if they reinvest into their own country.
Controlled chaos is normalcy over here in America, especially for our military. We wrote the manual on modern military operations, but never read it, because we've been at war for so long now that constant fighting is all we've ever known. Remember that Russian special forces gaggle that tried to attack a Marine artillery unit in Syria? That didn't go so well for them, did it? Everyone else, including our allies, freaks the hell out whenever things are the least bit chaotic, from their own point of view. The only form of stability that America has ever had, has been constant change, which is what we thrive on. Whenever we begin to stagnate, then we're really screwed, but nothing of the sort has happened since the founding of this nation. Nobody who has bet against America has ever left the game with their shirt on their back, so it's probably not a good idea to re-test that theory after 200 years of history all running in one direction.
Not relying upon centralized authority is why America can be presided over by a senile old man surrounded by evil clowns, but nothing materially changes. There's no real power invested in that person, because our founders were so very wary of one person having unlimited authority.
One thing's for sure though, and that's that nobody is desperate clamoring to get into communist China. In contrast, everybody and their dog still wants to come to America, because we still do new ideas and big ideas, such as taking humanity to Mars. If our system of chaos were ever to befall China, there would be a revolution in a heartbeat, because that's how much the people living over there detest their living conditions. We worry about cheeseburgers being $1 or $1.50. They worry about importing enough pork and chicken and legumes to prevent millions of their people from starving to death. That's a pretty stark contrast. We still import oil because part of our national strategy is to consume everyone else's oil first. None of our food is imported, except by choice, to provide an even more bewildering array of meaningless choices to people who can't figure out that they're being terrorized by a bunch of evil clowns hiding behind the dark curtain. My old boss, a Canadian man living in America, told me you know that you're successful when you can have a bunch of idiots working for you, but still manage to make money hand-over-fist.
Are things any less desperate for some people in America? No, but people here wear their troubles as a badge of honor, rather than a mark of hopelessness. I wouldn't trade any of the economic, health, or other issues I muddled my way through as a young man. It's how I became who I am, and I don't look down on those experiences, because they were necessary. How can you know what success looks like if you never experience a failure? Moreover, how can you ever learn and grow without failure? That's the part that zips right over the heads of people living in societies like communist China. Rather than putting the brush down after painting themselves into a corner, they keep hoping that someone else will come along to remove them from their corner. The only people who can do that are them. That's what they still don't get. That is why people still come to America. Those are the people who realize that it's time to put down that stupid brush. The ones they left behind will never "get it". If they did, then people would no longer feel the need to come here.
China's fixated on taking a piddly little island off their coastline, filled with their fellow Chinese people, as if that will change the situation they've created for themselves. That is akin to America worrying about how to take over Cuba or Haiti (who for all intents and purposes may as well be Americans)- because that would solve our problems, right? Meanwhile, entrepreneurs in America are well on their way to figuring out how to take over an entire planet tens of millions of miles from home. Just think about that for a moment. A nation with more than triple our population wants to invade Alcatraz while the richest men and women in America want to invade an entire planet... to both provide a second home for humanity and, as always, to make that next almighty dollar. If that's what China is betting the farm on, then yeah, I'm still betting on America, because the alternative is pure idiocy.

louis · 2021-08-30 15:13:42

I think the economics of 3D printing may well stack up on Mars. You won't have to import the mass which might cost say $100 for a steak. You won't have to use artificial light or build expensive pressurised pastures in order to produce the meat.

The meat might be nominally more expensive than one on Earth, but the Mars economy will be a hi tech and very productive economy. 3D printing of meat will fit perfectly.

That said I have read that stem cell muscle tissue doesn't taste anything like real muscle tissue on cattle. Basically you have to exercise the tissue as happens in the real world and I believe some companies were working on that (creating little "muscle gyms" to work out the tissue - I kid you not).

Calliban · 2021-09-03 04:20:50

Terraformer wrote:

I consider a society to have reached post-scarcity when each person does not have to devote a sizeable fraction of their labour to fulfil their material needs, of shelter, food, energy, water and clothing, to such a standard that they will not be risking health problems from doing so. Theoretically, that could be done by a government rationing system, but governments have proven themselves to be inefficient and prone to corruption, as well as morally unsound, so I'm not in favour of that option.
Now, to do this my way will require access to the universal commons, i.e. internet access. I'm not saying that's a right - no-more than something like food is a right - but that doesn't stop it from being a good idea.
Specialisation may be more efficient (but quite possibly not), but so is centralisation, and not maintaining adequate reserves. It doesn't mean specialisation is a good idea. For a start, it's much less resilient, and it limits freedom, because you're now at the mercy at those who control the essential sections of the economy.
I don't mind having a high population density in certain areas, but that doesn't mean that you need areas of high population. The population density of a typical terraced house can get quite high - a rough calculation based on my own house is 80,000 per square kilometre. I have no objection to towns of 10-20 thousand people surrounded by automated farms and solar power plants, with each house having it's own vegetable garden and probably waste disposal system, and a lot of nature surrounding all that. But I personally think it's too big, and would prefer something with 1-2000 people.

On Earth, we are actually retreating from a post-scarcity economy, as energy cost of energy rises and the proportion of income devoted to basis necessities increases. This started happening in developed countries around the turn of the century. In a very real sense, we have been getting poorer in since then. Middle and working classes are shrinking. A few people are getting richer. But global trade in commodities tells the real story: it has been shrinking since 2008.

My worry is that we will eventually lose the ability for things like space travel. The economy is in essence a thermodynamic machine. Everything that we call wealth is in one way or another a product of exergy acting on matter. As the EROI of fossil fuels declines, the amount of surplus energy is declining. Very soon, tangible declines in aggregate energy production will become visible. Global oil production appears to have peaked in November 2018 - some three years ago. Less oil means less transportation of real goods and commodities. The crisis caused by corona virus, has brought forward the turning point in overall human prosperity by a few years. The world as a whole is now getting poorer.
https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpres … -part-one/

Last edited by Calliban (2021-09-03 04:23:30)

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-09-01 01:44:45

Euro zone inflation hits another record of 9.1% as food and energy prices soar

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/31/euro-zo … -soar.html

kbd512 · 2022-09-01 05:19:26

I'm only here waiting to see how well these comments age. I could be completely wrong, but I kinda doubt it. The writing is on the wall. In this future state of affairs without globalism, China is going downhill awfully fast. They were smart to try to take over parts of Africa, because they lack the internal resources that parts of Africa can provide. However, they'll need a real blue water navy to do it, and energy they don't have.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-09-27 09:22:24

Abundance of energy could be a possibility if someone solves Cold-Fusion.

World’s largest fusion experiment ITER appoints new chief
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02976-2

Let's look at reality today and supply.

Russia was a supplier of commidity across the world, people teamed up with them on Space missions bought Space Tourist Flights in the past. Japan one of the Lager Economies on Earth is a significant export economy and exports in excess of $700 billion of goods annually,

When politics and imperialism starts to hit Post-scarcity, something worse than a Covid Lockdown or the 2021 Suez Canal obstruction might happen, the original theoretical economic theory that says goods can and will be produced in great abundance and a world and a society will have reached post-scarcity.

'Farmers among Russians drafted into the military, Putin says'

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/fa … 022-09-27/

Farmers are among the Russians being drafted into the military, President Vladimir Putin told a meeting with officials on Tuesday, signalling potential further risks for the 2023 crop.
Russia is the world's largest wheat exporter. Autumn is a busy season for farmers as they sow winter wheat for the next year's crop and harvest soybeans and sunflower seeds. Winter grain sowing has already been significantly delayed by rains.
"I would also like to address regional heads and the heads of agricultural enterprises. As part of the partial mobilisation, agricultural workers are also being drafted. Their families must be supported. I ask you to pay special attention to this issue," Putin told the televised meeting.

The golden age of globalization is clearly over, says Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/27/the-gol … -wong.html

Japan consul ‘blindfolded and restrained’ during FSB interrogation in Russia
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ … -in-russia
Tokyo demands apology from Moscow after diplomat subjected to ‘coercive interrogation’ in Vladivostok

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2022-09-27 09:58:03)

tahanson43206 · 2022-09-27 09:39:43

For Mars_B4_Moon .... Post #34 appears to be an attempt to ridicule the premise of a topic about "abundance"

Post #34 appears to be about human dysfunction and failure.

I am grateful for your many contributions of links and useful hint text to this forum.

However, every now and then a post lands in a topic that is about something else altogether.

This appears to be one of those instances.

When I open this topic, I expect to see reports of progress toward abundance for every citizen of Earth.

Reports of human failure and poor judgement may be appropriate for this forum, but I can't think of a good place for them.

(th)

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-09-27 11:26:19

Tahanson, we are human and we all see things differently some will see a glass half full, some might see it half empty, another might try to completely bury emotion like DrSpock and see a glass be it at 50% its of capacity. There might be something positive in my post, for example 'Fusion' solved might fix many things, it would create more cheap free energy to make other products and ideas. Post WW2 Japan also showed a way how a country could survive and become rich despite having limited resources. For India and China they might even profit from a poorer Russia, buying stuff up at discount prices. Drafting farmers that make your food into the military I might use emotion and call it a dumb stupid move. I get many news feeds in a month I have almost never seen any Report about AI Vertical Farming in Russia and or Russian Robotics Working Farmlands, maybe Putin acting like a Tsarist Dictator has made his own people uninspired and oppressed. There is already pressure on wheat and grain and fertilizer supply, an Abundance of Food will be put at Risk. I did see some positive in my post but the reality of our world is darker with more imperialism and attack on supplies, an invasion of another country but maybe my post could fit in a more pessimistic topic like a Russia War topic or '21st Century Super-Abundance - Watching Bad Ideology Fail in Real-Time'.

Space dot com also had a recent article on Fusion

What is nuclear fusion?
https://www.space.com/what-is-nuclear-fusion

Part of what makes fusion such a promising source of energy is the fact that deuterium is easily extracted from ordinary seawater. The International Atomic Agency (IAEA) estimates (opens in new tab) that enough deuterium can be extracted from 0.26 gallons (one liter) of water to provide as much energy as the combustion of 79 gallons (300 liters) of oil. That means the oceans contain sufficient deuterium to sustain humanity's fusion energy needs for millions of years.
Tritium, on the other hand, can be made from lithium, also abundant in nature.
In addition to this, the main byproducts of fusion power, neutrons and helium, are not radioactive and thus don't present the same disposal problems as the byproduct of nuclear fission plants — with fission being almost the mirror image of fusion, breaking large atoms apart into smaller, often radioactive atoms.
Fusion by-products also don't have a significant environmental impact, unlike the greenhouse gases created by the burning of fossil fuels — a major contributing factor in human-driven climate change.

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2022-09-27 11:36:30)

tahanson43206 · 2022-10-12 07:34:34

For Mars_B4_Moon re Post #36

Your analogy of the glass-half-full perspective is interesting and helpful.

I've been thinking about how to think about the needs of a member to see fear in the future instead of hope.

It seems to me that as we approach the keyboard, for the purpose of delivering something that might be helpful to others, we have a choice of what attitude to take.

In a topic devoted to abundance, it seems to me reasonable for the author to consider the wishes of the topic creator, and to lean toward the positive side.

This forum is absolutely choked with negative topics, or topics that became negative over time due to inputs by the members.

I don't see the need for imposing fearful posts upon the creator of this topic.

On the other hand, the follow up with news of advances in Fusion technology seems quite fitting and helpful.

It seems to me that the Universe provides MORE than enough energy and material to work with, so that the entire planet's worth of humans and other living creatures could live in comfort and safety.

To this point, humans have shown the ability to create abundance, but simultaneously the amazing power to destroy everything good that has been created.

Topic: How far to the abundance economy?

Answer: How far is it until humans achieve self-control of destructive impulses?

I know.... that's not an answer... perhaps a member has a better "answer"

(th)

tahanson43206 · 2022-10-12 08:48:44

Thanks to Mars_B4_Moon for bringing this topic back into view ...

I just finished reading it from the top...

There was a long exchange between/among Terraformer, JoshNH4H, Louis and (I think) someone else in 2013.

That was followed by a long interval, followed by interactions between kbd512 and others.

Of the participants, Louis was by far the most consistently optimistic.

A topic about abundance could use MORE of that sentiment.

There are plenty of topics available in this forum for gloom and doom, and we have plenty of folks who indulge in them.

This topic ** could ** (if the members will allow it) become a rare repository of encouraging reports, and positive feedback for successful experiments.

(th)

Calliban · 2022-10-12 14:02:57

Trans-Pacific shipping rates decline by 75%.

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-Gene … es-Up.html

Calliban · 2022-10-31 09:06:03

Assoc Prof Simon Michaux - The quantity of metals required to manufacture just one generation of renewable energy powerplants. This is one of the most important seminars on energy that I have seen to date.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MBVmnKuBocc

In most political circles, the idea that the world will transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy is taken on faith. This man's work demonstrates that there is no possibility of such an economy providing more than a small fraction of the energy that we presently obtain from fossil fuels. The mineral resources that would be required to meet existing delivered energy services simply do not exist.

I havn't examined his analysis as it applies to nuclear power yet. We need to distinguish between what is possible to achieve with nuclear power without institutional obstacles and what we can achieve if those obstacles are removed.

Last edited by Calliban (2022-10-31 09:06:53)

tahanson43206 · 2022-10-31 10:17:49

For Calliban .... re Post #40 and many others ...

Thank you for continuing this important work!

The concept of an "abundance" economy is predicated on the idea that there is unlimited energy and material substance available.

However, neither of those may be present in a particular place and a particular time.

Your ongoing study/research/investigation will (hopefully) lead to insight into how to increase options when deficiency seems at hand.

***
I just came out of a meeting with a consultant for a consulting company that (according to their web site) does some major projects for major players. The young gent was generous with his his time.

He is aware of challenges that would impede progress toward the kind of teleoperation environment I am expecting to see. I was surprised that the greatest obstacle appears to be the idea that full automation is the way to go, instead of supervised automation.

In other words, this gent appears to believe that the market for automation tools (lawn mowers, snow blowers, etc) is ** greater ** for full automation than it is for supervised operation. He suggested a company that is in late stage development:

www.yarbo.com

***
Please continue your work on availability of resources for energy production systems for Earth residents.

I'd like to see an average energy availability of 1 Megawatt per Earth citizen.

There is more than enough energy flowing from the Sun to achieve that, but capture outside the Earth itself may be required.

On the other hand, nuclear fission may be able to meet the target, with careful and wise investment.

Fusion is always "out there" as a potential solution.

(th)

Calliban · 2022-10-31 12:21:22

A few words on Simon Michaux's work. A video presentation given by Simon Michaux was shown my earlier post. It is well worth watching. Here is an article summarising his findings:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/08/23 … place-oil/

Essentially, the world has nowhere near sufficient mineral resources to allow a green tech energy revolution based upon electrochemical batteries and intermittent renewable energy sources. I want to focus on a few critical resource in particular. From the DOE quadrennial energy review, 1TWh of electricity from the following sources requires:

Copper: Nuclear (PWR): 3 ton; Wind energy: 23 ton; Solar PV: 850 ton.
Aluminium: Nuclear (PWR): 0 ton; Wind energy: 35 ton; Solar PV: 680 ton
Steel / iron: Nuclear (PWR): 165 ton; Wind energy: 1920 ton; Solar PV: 3309 ton
Concrete / cement: Nuclear (PWR): 760 ton; Wind energy: 8000 ton; Solar PV: 4050 ton

Data source:
https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files … pter10.pdf

No one should be surprised that the world has insufficient mineral resources to support a wind, solar, battery energy revolution meeting current world energy needs. The data above has been available to anyone that cared to look for some years now.

The data also tells us where the real energy solution to fossil fuel depletion is likely to be found. Whilst there are technological and institutional problems with scaling up nuclear power to the task of supplying 36,000TWh per year, there are no mineral resource limitations to doing so. To be clear, scaling up nuclear power to these levels will be very challenging in a post Peak Oil world. But we do at least know that it is at least possible in principle, from a material resource perspective, to achieve this. I would suggest that discussion should shift towards how this can be carried out. There is no question about the need to do it. And so far we know, there are no other options. The sensible discussion to have now is how we can scale up nuclear energy, safely and affordably, in the time we have remaining.

tahanson43206 · 2022-10-31 15:23:44

For Calliban re global supply nuclear fission power...

Keeping in (my) mind that your leaning is toward pessimism, can you imagine the UK (or parts of it) cooperating to build a nuclear power supply able to provide all the hydrocarbon fuels needed by the current population?

This facility needs to be protected by a Nation State who is respected by maniac heads of other Nation States, or heads of terrorist organizations.

Such a burden should not be undertaken lightly, but (I submit) the Nation that supplies the world with fuel ** will ** have an abundance to distribute among the population.

(th)

kbd512 · 2022-10-31 18:32:09

Calliban,

There's no ability to build and operate nuclear for most nations on Earth. Nuclear power will only ever be a partial solution. UK couldn't operate one nuclear powered aircraft carrier, for example, so if that's a bridge too far then how will they operate the dozens of power plants required for nuclear power to completely replace coal, gas, and oil?

Calliban · 2022-10-31 18:46:22

kbd512 wrote:

Calliban,
There's no ability to build and operate nuclear for most nations on Earth. Nuclear power will only ever be a partial solution. UK couldn't operate one nuclear powered aircraft carrier, for example, so if that's a bridge too far then how will they operate the dozens of power plants required for nuclear power to completely replace coal, gas, and oil?

The UK could operate nuclear carriers. We already operate a fleet of nuclear submarines. So do the French. Nuclear power costs more, because our systems of regulation make it cost more. That is the only reason. There is no physical reason for nuclear power to cost more than coal, gas or diesel power.

How would we operate dozens of nuclear powerplants? We already operate several nuclear stations. We would manage more in the same way we already do. Just scaled up a bit more. The UK is a basket case of mismanagement. But even we managed to build a fleet of nuclear reactors between the 1950s and 1990s and even had a functional fast breeder programme. If North Korea can build nuclear reactors then I'm pretty sure anyone can. Building nuclear power reactors has been made artificially expensive. But when all is said and done, they are boilers. We build submarine reactors in just two years. There is no engineering reason why powerplants should take much longer. It is jyst bureucracy.

Last edited by Calliban (2022-10-31 18:53:41)

tahanson43206 · 2022-11-01 06:50:26

For Calliban (with a nod to kbd512) ....

From my perspective, the UK has an advantage that no other country on Earth possesses (to my knowledge (admittedly limited)).

In the person of the King, and the institution of the Monarchy, the UK has the ** potential ** to undertake a project of the magnitude of your vision.

The US is on the verge of dissolution (as I evaluate the situation). The US is only 200 years old (give or take).

The UK has BEEN THROUGH similar tests, and has somehow survived. Recently I had occasion to be reminded of Guy Fawkes Day which is coming up on November 5th. That was a ** near miss ** if there ever was one.

My point is that the UK may be the only Nation on Earth with both the resources and the social institutions capable of pulling off a massive investment and coordinated undertaking on the scale of the one we are discussing here.

The King is NOT likely to come up with this concept on his own. He'll need input from at least ** one ** person, to start the thought process that would (could) lead to a resolution to provide the leadership over a number of years to achieve even a fraction of the specified goal.

The UK (in whatever form it takes in years ahead) has the potential to become the "Saudi Arabia" of hydrocarbon production for the globe, and do to it by collecting CO2 from the atmosphere.

All it would take is a short note from a citizen of the UK, on the order of the one from Albert Einstein to Franklin Roosevelt, that set the Manhattan Project into motion.

You have shown yourself to be a man of action in putting words to keyboard.

It would be no more than twenty minutes work to compose the letter.

The courage it would take to actually send it is significant.

All I can do is to offer encouragement.

(th)

Calliban · 2022-11-02 03:55:17

The Chinese are building pressurised water nuclear powerplants for a fraction of the cost of the Vogtle units.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianwan … ower_Plant

The Vogtle PWRs are literally 10x more expensive than VVER units of comparable power in China. Are the Chinese really able to build these plants using one tenth of the energy input? I find that hard to believe.

The cost of nuclear powerplants has more to do with build time and discount rates. The Chinese are able to build quickly.

tahanson43206 · 2022-11-02 05:48:15

For Calliban re #47

If you were making a presentation, and Post #47 were intended to make a point, you might wonder if your audience got the point. I am just one member of your audience (of course) so I can provide only one data point of feedback.

What I distill from Post #47 is the idea that a person wanting to build enough power plants to provide all the hydrocarbon fuel needed by the global customer base would need to build them quickly.

If that is the point you were trying to make, then that advice would match up pretty well with the need faced by the population of Earth in 2022.

Assuming you are thinking about writing a short one page letter to King Charles, that (it seems to me) would be a point worth making.

The goal of such a letter would be to inspire King Charles to inspire a Nation (or cohort of Nations) to tackle the largest construction project ever attempted, short of World War II.

The security of such an undertaking is of World War II proportions. The Russians have shown themselves to be untrustworthy global co-inhabitants, and the Chinese are on a path to global domination.

Supply of hydrocarbons to a needy globe would be both useful and rewarding for those engaged in the effort.

One thing that absolutely ** must ** be included in such a plan is a directive to insure that a portion of the wealth generated is to be distributed to the entire population without means tests, in the form of stock dividends, which are distributed without means tests.

(th)

kbd512 · 2022-11-02 12:23:01

Calliban,

Part of that "extra cost" which you mentioned, is related back to quality assurance. America, for example, performs various inspections and holds regular training that the Russians clearly don't, given their safety record with naval nuclear reactors and naval systems in general, which definitely makes our reactors more expensive to operate as a result, but also prevents people from dying.

This is consistent with what we've seen of Russia's performance in Ukraine, whereby ships that should've been fully mission capable before they were committed to their war effort, were severely hamstrung by various material casualties and training issues (assuming our intelligence about this is correct, and we believe it is, meaning material conditions and training were serious contributing factors to their losses). They don't have an equivalent to NAVSEA (Naval Sea Systems Command), and if they do then they're unable to effectively execute their mission, as it relates to material condition of ships and damage control training. What that means is that it was not so much that Ukraine's naval defense strategy was so great, but that Russia's naval forces were so poorly prepared by either corruption or lack of appropriate funding, prior to joining battle.

NAVSEA is our QA team / BS-checkers for our fleets. Your Captain or crew may claim, "We know how to maintain our ship. We know how to do damage control. We're trained. We're ready." NAVSEA then says, "We're going to subject your claims to an acid test. We'll make an unannounced visit and our people will evaluate your ship's material condition, your training, and your overall response to anticipated combat scenarios. If you fail to meet standards, then you can't deploy with the rest of your fleet. This is your chance to make us believers."

That's done on the regular, meaning once prior to a deployment, and you don't deploy if you don't pass, and then people start losing their jobs. We conducted GQ once per day at times, or twice per day if the Captain or XO wasn't satisfied with any part of the overall drill. Gun crews could fail a drill, and then the rest of the ship suffers as a result. All drills are timed and execution times are progressively reduced as experience increases. The enemy doesn't care if you're trained and practiced or not, but if your goal is to return home at the end of deployment, then it's your responsibility to be better trained and more capable than your enemy is.

I'm not claiming that this stuff is impossible to do- far from it. America's Navy does it every day, but it's not cheap or easy, and we shouldn't pretend otherwise. We have institutionalized knowledge surrounding naval nuclear propulsion and damage control, and it's a regular part of our "normal" operations, rather than that "special thing that those people do over there". It's not simply a matter of money, either, although copious funding is required to maintain high operational readiness rates. If there is no desire to improve, nor honest recognition of your own limitations, then only disaster awaits.

So... Real talk:

Canada or Australia or the United Kingdom had several opportunities to purchase retired American super carriers, essentially for the cost of sailing them to your port of choice. Those ships could've been retrofitted in whatever manner made them most useful to your countries. For what Queen Elizabeth cost to build, you could've purchased and refurbished Kitty Hawk, Constellation, America, and John F Kennedy- Australia and New Zealand could've taken one, Canada taken one, and the UK taken two of them. If you were intent on operating a nuclear powered ship, then you could've purchased Enterprise. Given proper funding, ownership of those since squandered assets would've placed your countries ahead of both Russia and China in terms of practical blue water sea control capability.

Those vessels were some of the most capable warships afloat before they were scrapped or sunk as targets. Nothing would've prevented your navies from modernizing them, installing new gas turbine engines or nuclear reactors as you saw fit, and upgrading the sensors and defensive weapon systems. Building brand new aircraft carriers from scratch was even more costly, so that removes money as an excuse. Canada spent more money refurbishing some decrepit and noisy diesel-electric submarines than it would've cost them to refurbish a super carrier. Submarines can be quite useful if you have enough of them, as well as the money and manpower to maintain them, but so are aircraft carriers.

If your countries had taken those super carriers and acquired retired A-6s or retained your own F-4s that you previously operated, and modernized them with the latest sensors and weapons, then you'd have as much real power projection capability as any other adversary nation on the planet. As it was, the UK had great difficulty with their Falklands campaign using smaller but clearly far less capable warships. America's operation of large deck super carriers is not a matter of academic debate. They work so well that China is now in the process of building their own.

If it was so easy to sink one, then surely the Russians or Chinese, who were both deeply involved in the Viet Nam War, would've demonstrated the efficacy of their numerous and varied anti-ship missile systems by at least attempting to sink one. Since that never happened, it's reasonable to assume that they're not so easy to counter and do materially affect the outcome of major wars.

Anyway, all of this makes me question what lessons were learned, what concrete steps are being taken to restore some measure of independence from the United States, and whether or not allied nations continue to balk at the cost of rearmament when it's crystal clear that the United States can't and won't continue to assure freedom of navigation without significant help from allied nations. Basically, there's no real forethought being demonstrated on looming matters of national defense and freedom of navigation. The UK is an island nation, which implied having a very powerful naval force in the past to maintain its independence from hostile foreign powers, namely Germany, then Russia, and eventually China. The enemy gets a vote or a say in the matter.

So... I'm very pleased that the UK now has their Queen Elizabeth class in service, but the money spent for true capabilities provided has yet to be proven through enough real-world experience at the expected optempo of a significant conflict. Despite its considerable size, it can realistically embark only two squadrons of fighter jets and has no missile-based point-defense systems to intercept incoming anti-ship cruise missiles. Kitty Hawk, which actually displaced less with a standard load, was a far more capable design. Your naval engineers are perfectly capable of designing something as good as or better than Kitty Hawk, but this was some sort of typical British penny-pinching measure that will forever hamper operational use. Will large deck jump-jet carriers prove to be a viable lower-cost alternative to moderately more expensive but far more capable CATOBAR designs? I think the jury is still out on that one. That said, France, and historically the UK, both operated CATOBAR-equipped large deck carriers. India and China are both moving in that direction.

tahanson43206 · 2022-11-13 20:34:24

CSPAN (in the US) broadcasts from book shows every weekend.

This evening I channel flipped from a football game at half time, right into a lengthy interview with the author of a new book called "SuperAbundance"...

The author calmly made mincemeat out of the gloom-and-doom arguments from some folks who populate the Earth.

We have one or two members of the tribe in the forum membership, if I am interpreting their postings correctly.

I'm inclined to invest in the book, just to see if the claims made during the interview hold up to closer examination.

Working from memory, I ** think ** the author asserted that our (human) wealth is doubling every 20 years. The wealth is not measured with money, except incidentally. The argument appears to be that human ingenuity is able to reduce the cost of anything (in terms of time needed to purchase whatever-it-is).

He waved off the current worry about depletion of oil by asserting that the market will most assuredly deal with an opportunity caused by fading of a commodity (in this case oil) with invention of something better.

There were many more examples in the segment I watched (forgetting all about the ball game).

One of the aspects of the interview that really caught my ear was the author's understanding of atoms as the constituents of all material objects we might desire.

He asserted (as I remember the discussion) that it is the ** organization ** of the atoms that makes them desirable, and not the atoms themselves.

He gave (as one example) a $300,000 Bentley that the purchaser takes out of the show room and immediately piles into a tree. The atoms are still right there. It was their organization that made them worth $300,000.

I do not recall discussion of energy per se (oil was discussed but not in the context of energy), so I may have to invest in the book to see what the author offers as a counter to the constant drumbeat of declining supply of energy we occasionally hear/read in these parts.

(th)

New Mars Forums

Announcement

#26 2021-08-18 19:52:32

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#27 2021-08-21 10:49:07

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#28 2021-08-30 10:59:01

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#29 2021-08-30 13:40:59

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#30 2021-08-30 15:13:42

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#31 2021-09-03 04:20:50

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#32 2022-09-01 01:44:45

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#33 2022-09-01 05:19:26

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#34 2022-09-27 09:22:24

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#35 2022-09-27 09:39:43

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#36 2022-09-27 11:26:19

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#37 2022-10-12 07:34:34

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#38 2022-10-12 08:48:44

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#39 2022-10-12 14:02:57

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#40 2022-10-31 09:06:03

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#41 2022-10-31 10:17:49

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#42 2022-10-31 12:21:22

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#43 2022-10-31 15:23:44

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#44 2022-10-31 18:32:09

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#45 2022-10-31 18:46:22

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#46 2022-11-01 06:50:26

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#47 2022-11-02 03:55:17

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#48 2022-11-02 05:48:15

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#49 2022-11-02 12:23:01

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#50 2022-11-13 20:34:24

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

Board footer