Why I Don’t Believe Randers’ Limits to Growth Forecast to 2052 Jorgen Randers published a book in 2012 called 2052: A Global Forecast for the Next 40 Years. A note on the front says, “A report to the Club of Rome, Commemorating the 40th Anniversary of The Limits to Growth.” If we compare the new book to the book from 40 years ago, we see some surprising differences. Figure 1. A person reading the front cover of 2052 might think that the model is quite close to the model used in the original The Limits to Growth analysis. It is possible to do some detective work regarding how the current model is constructed. A second reason why I don’t believe Randers’ forecast has to do with limitations of the original forecast. A third reason why I don’t believe the forecast in 2052 is because a model of this nature necessarily cannot model events that are important to ultimate collapse, but which happen on a smaller scale, and trigger cascading failures. Thus, Randers tells us he believes that he already knows that no swift change will take place. Conclusion
Gregor.us Do the Math | Using physics and estimation to assess energy, growth, options—by Tom Murphy It’s a bit off-topic for the series, but I can’t even go to Google now without being reminded of the World Cup and soccer this, soccer that. (Apologies to non-Americans who know the sport as football—but don’t get me started on football!) I have often wondered: given characteristic low score values, is soccer anything more than Poisson noise? Any random process that produces discrete events in some time interval, with uniform probability per unit time follows a Poisson distribution. My thesis is that soccer is an amalgam of random processes whose net effect produces rare events—those more-or-less unpredictable events spread more-or-less uniformly in time. Normally I allow comments on Do the Math for ten days after each post. But getting back to soccer numerology, my question becomes: given a final score (which is taken to be the ultimate “truth” of the match) how likely is it that the victor is actually a better team? Continue reading
News Locus Energy named preferred supplier for Amicus Solar Cooperative Locus Energy named preferred supplier for Amicus Solar Cooperative Deal calls for Locus Energy to provide solar monitoring hardware, software and solar data analytics to Amicus members. 18 April, 2014 Adenium finances multimillion dollar solar projects in Jordan 10 MW of solar power projects will have a total value of around U.S.$26 million. 18 April, 2014 E.ON, Unipart embark on UK biomass heating project Arrangement calls for E.ON to install, operate and maintain a new 995kW biomass boiler at Unipart’s head offices in Oxford. 17 April, 2014 Samsung, Pattern Energy complete Canada’s largest wind project 270 MW South Kent Wind farm has the capacity to power approximately 100,000 Ontario homes annually. 17 April, 2014 IBC SOLAR enters Japanese market 1.6 MW solar park marks first of a series of large-scale PV plants for IBC SOLAR in Japan 16 April, 2014 ABB announces kickoff of two major renewable substation EPC projects
How Economic Growth Fails We all know generally how today’s economy works: Figure 1 Our economy is a networked system. I have illustrated it as being similar to a child’s building toy. Ever-larger structures can be built by adding more businesses and consumers, and by using resources of various kinds to produce an increasing quantity of goods and services. There is no overall direction to the system, so the system is said to be “self-organizing.” The economy operates within a finite world, so at some point, a problem of diminishing returns develops. 1. As nearly as I can tell, the way economic growth occurs (and stops taking place) is as summarized in Figure 3. Figure 3. As long as (a) energy and other resources are cheap, (b) debt is readily available, and (c) “overhead” in the form of payments for government services, business overhead, and interest payments on debt are low, the pump can continue working as normal. Commodity prices are also likely to drop too low. 2. Figure 4 Figure 5 3. 4. Figure 6 Figure 7. 5. 6.
Climate Change May Trap Hundreds Of Millions In Disaster Zones By Rebecca Leber on October 21, 2011 at 10:00 am "Climate Change May Trap Hundreds Of Millions In Disaster Zones" Climate change may cause hundreds of millions to be trapped in vulnerable cities and rural areas, affecting people who are unable to relocate due to poverty or the lack of a better option. A U.K. government committee’s study advises that those who are trapped will represent “just as important a policy concern as those who do migrate” in environmental disasters. Climate disasters displaced 42 million people last year alone, up from 17 million in 2009. The study warns: Reduced options for migration, combined with incomes threatened by environmental change, mean that people are likely to migrate in illegal, irregular, unsafe, exploited or unplanned ways. Poor and immigrant populations are especially at risk in disaster. Lacking infrastructure and access to sanitation and clean water, developing countries face an even greater challenge. -Rebecca Leber
Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT Philip J. Hilts, the director of the Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT and a former science reporter for The New York Times and The Washington Post, has announced that he will retire at the end of June. Hilts, who took over the program in 2008, expanded its international reach and added training in video and audio storytelling. "The Knight Program has been a tremendous asset to MIT, and a powerful resource for our understanding of the relationship between science and technology and the public," said Deborah Fitzgerald, the Kenan Sahin Dean at the MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences.
Energia.gr Deflationary Collapse Ahead? Both the stock market and oil prices have been plunging. Is this “just another cycle,” or is it something much worse? I think it is something much worse. Back in January, I wrote a post called Oil and the Economy: Where are We Headed in 2015-16? In it, I said that persistent very low prices could be a sign that we are reaching limits of a finite world. Needless to say, stagnating wages together with rapidly rising costs of oil production leads to a mismatch between:The amount consumers can afford for oilThe cost of oil, if oil price matches the cost of production This mismatch between rising costs of oil production and stagnating wages is what has been happening. Eventually, even at near zero interest rates, the amount of debt becomes too high, relative to income. A chart I showed in my January post was this one: Figure 1. The price of oil was trending slightly downward between 2011 and 2014, suggesting that even then, prices were subject to an underlying downward trend. Figure 2.
The scary prospect of global drone warfare An Air Force "hunter-killer" drone, the Reaper, takes off on a training mission at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, David Cortright: Up to 50 nations developing, buying drones, including China, Iran, Pakistan The prospect is a world in which every nation has drone warfare capability, he writesCortright: Drones give nations false impression wars can be waged with less risk, costsDrones precise, but kill civilians: up to 775 Pakistanis. We must rethink military trend, he writes Editor's note: David Cortright is director of policy studies for the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. (CNN) -- Drone technology is spreading rapidly. As many as 50 countries are developing or purchasing these systems, including China, Russia, India, Pakistan, and Iran. Even non-state actors are involved. What kind of a future are we creating for our children? David Cortright The development of drone weapons raises profound moral questions about the future of war.