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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   27791 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 27, 2023

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The answer is 10 000-20 000 sq miles(for electricity in the US),

I think that this is ignoring the massive infrastructure rollout costs, as well as the dramatically increased power requirements caused by the replacing of petroleum in transportation. This would be a fantastic project and I hope that it goes ahead, but I have my doubts that it would take place before rising energy costs make it infeasible. I'd love to be proved wrong!

They are vastly expanding their nuclear capacity as we speak.

I wasn't aware - I was under the impression that they were building more plants, but not that it was going to be such a major endeavour. I hope that their project works out and that they've done all the math, and they won't end up in the same situation France is in.

In 1939 the department of the interior projected that oil would last only 13 more years

When it comes to peak oil the calculations that I was interested in, and their sourcing, were the work of M. King Hubbert. He was actually correct in his predictions and managed to call the peak of US conventional oil production fairly accurately (though off on the amount), and he did so in 1956 at least.

And 30 years later they’re still doing the same thing, like a broken record – oh sorry, I meant 10 years from now… oh sorry, I meant 10 years from now… oh sorry, I meant 10 years from now.

Did you even read the link you provided? I mean, I'm open to being convinced if you have a good refutation of Limits to Growth/World3, but...

The rough trajectories of non-renewable resources, industrial output, and food do not differ much from BAU. Only the timing and height of the peaks are different. The food peak is higher and shifts a few years into the future. A similar behavior can be seen in the industrial curve, the peak rises, but moves into the past. The initial resource value is higher than in BAU, but the curve of the graph still follows the same course and the approximate value of this variable for today is almost the same. The population curve is almost identical to BAU. The biggest difference is in the trajectory of the pollution. The peak of the curve declines and shifts about 50 years into the future.

...

All of the sensitivity calculations mentioned here show a similar overshoot and collapse pattern for the key variables, that is, they are robust to the parameter variations done in this paper.

...

The fact is that the recalibrated model again shows the possibility of a collapse of our current system. At the same time, the BAU scenario of the 1972 model is shown to be alarmingly consistent with the most recently collected empirical data.

You're telling me that they're just constantly editing it and jigging with the numbers to push the collapse another ten years back into the future, and you're linking me an article which says that the original run is "alarmingly consistent" with the collected empirical data. Again, if you've got a really convincing and thorough refutation of Limits to Growth, I'd love to read it - but you've just given me an article whose central claim is that I'm right and the model is robust.

The timing of the peak is the entire prediction! That they were correct about the “growth” part of “limits to growth” does not make them half-right. Boomers say ‘growth, no limit, no peak’. The only contentious, falsifiable part of doomers’ predictions has been repeatedly falsified. If you love being proven wrong, you must love the doomer life.

I honestly have to ask - did you even read the article you posted? I can't understand how you can make a claim like this on the basis of a piece of evidence supporting my point.

If you love being proven wrong, you must love the doomer life.

...

the BAU scenario of the 1972 model is shown to be alarmingly consistent with the most recently collected empirical data.

What exactly do you think "alarmingly consistent with the most recently collected empirical data" actually means? You've also done absolutely nothing to engage with the works of the theorist I actually cited (Hubbert), presumably because he has been proven correct on a consistent basis for the past several decades.

If you love being proven wrong, you must love the doomer life.

Too snarky, I take that back.

What exactly do you think "alarmingly consistent with the most recently collected empirical data" actually means?

It means they cling to their falsified beliefs, unswayed by decades of evidence.

Which predictions have they made, that have come true? I have cited several, that were refuted.

I forgot, you have Hubbert's peak. Except, in 2017 the US blasted through the previous production record, when hubbert's peak was supposed to signal the perpetually diminishing trickle of our last oil. Honestly, do you think Hubbert predicted that?

It means they cling to their falsified beliefs, unswayed by decades of evidence.

You're not taking this remotely seriously. "The model matches up with the evidence" is a direct quote from the article, and you're saying that they're unswayed by decades of evidence. Did you even read the article you cited? They came to their "falsified" belief because they looked at the evidence and based their belief on it!

Which predictions have they made, that have come true? I have cited several, that were refuted.

Hubbert predicted the peak of US conventional oil extraction fairly accurately (I believe he was a year or two off the peak), though he was slightly off with the quantity (I don't believe he accounted for the off-shore oil, which explains the discrepancy). You haven't cited several that were refuted, you've misunderstood the claims that were being made and you even attempted to pass off an article directly arguing against your position as support for it.

Except, in 2017 the US blasted through the previous production record

Hubbert was predicting peak CONVENTIONAL oil. He was correct, and he did actually take shale oil into account, but he (also correctly) thought that shale oil wasn't a real replacement for conventional oil. Shale and conventional oil are extremely different energy sources with different depletion rates, quality, EROEI, etc, and you just make your thinking less clear if you conflate them. I can see how you would think that Hubbert was wrong if you can't even understand the arguments he's making or read the sources you're citing.

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