[Coral-List] Sustainability - getting off of oil.

[Andrew Pederson]

Something to take a look at regarding the enrichment and prolonged life and
sustainability of soils: Biochar

Google it w Amazon history & Terra Preta

On Monday, June 29, 2015, Durwood M. Dugger <ddugger at biocepts.com> wrote:

> Michael,
>
> Your perspective of getting off of oil is shared by the majority of
> people. However, it is incorrect. You assume the energy problem is
> technically limited - like Elon Musk, but the primary limitations to
> getting off of oil are economic/critical resource limited. The technology
> is the easy part - especially if you ignore the economic ramifications.
>
> Consider again that 95% of the global population is dependent on NPK for
> food production. The N is produced from natural gas which is in part a
> bi-product of petroleum fuel production. If you stopped the production of
> petroleum fuels you would seriously impact the economics  of natural gas
> production - and N for fertilizers (not a technical problem at all, but
> solely economic). Even more sensitive to the economy-of-scale of the
> petroleum fuel industry is the petro-chemical industry.
>
> Only about 5% of all petroleum produced goes to the petro-chemical
> industry. The petro-chemical industry however, produces the chemicals
> necessary to process and refine both phosphates and potassium (and make
> them bio-available) used in NPK - and it produces almost all of the ag.
> management and pesticide chemicals that western food production technology
> has become dependent upon. Additionally, all the new energy technologies
> and their economic feasibilities that you mention above are predicated on
> those technologies being produced with petro-chemicals that are being
> supplied under current petroleum industry economic scales and cost
> structures. Change the cost structures of the petroleum industry and other
> energy technologies are impacted as well.
>
> What I’m saying again is that if you eliminate the 95% of petroleum that
> goes to fuels - then the 5% needed by petro chemical industry suddenly
> becomes the sole economic burden of the petro-chemical industry. The
> petro-chemical industry would then have to do the exploration, drilling,
> transporting, refining of the petroleum - which they simply now buy at
> global market prices. In the absence of a petroleum fuel based industry
> economy-of-scales for petroleum production - the petro chemical industry
> scales to accomplish the same are dramatically smaller, the efficiencies
> proportionately lower and the result would be untenable prices for petro
> chemicals, the many products it produces that we take for granted price
> wise - and most important those unseen ag. chemicals (by consumers) used
> more and more in global food production.
>
> The spider web of economic strings attached to the petroleum industry as
> we know it today are far more complex than most people realize and the
> impacts of getting off of petroleum fuel far more difficult than just
> turning off the valve, capping wells and closing the related refineries.
> Consequently, to get off of petroleum, we need to address the related
> economic impacts in advance and be sure that we (globally) can not only
> afford them, but have work-arounds for our absolute dependency on the
> petro-chemical industry and the price structures it currently exists under.
> I’m seeing none of these economic being considered at present, so I think
> that the estimate of being off of oil in “15 years” is naive and not well
> considered economically.
>
> Just so you know, I have absolutely no connection to any petroleum company
> interests, are not defending their negatives, but you can’t take and in
> depth look at critical resource economic webs and not become familiar with
> their interconnections with petroleum economics. To say that modern society
> currently eats oil - maybe metaphoric and over simplistic, but its far more
> apropos than we might think.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Durwood M. Dugger, Pres.
> ddugger at biocepts.com <javascript:;>
> BCI, Inc. <http://www.biocepts.com/BCI/Home.html>
> On Jun 29, 2015, at 7:30 AM, Risk, Michael <riskmj at mcmaster.ca
> <javascript:;>> wrote:
>
> Hi Doug.
>
> I suggest that, as usual, events are moving faster than mindsets can
> change. Naomi Klein's new book, "This changes everything", outlines how we
> (globally) could be off fossil fuels in 15 years if we started right now.
> (She cites the research.) Then, post-publication, we have the game-changers
> of Elon Musk's Power Wall and the Stanford single-electrode battery that
> generates Hydrogen for peanuts. So anyone saying we cannot get off fossil
> fuels just isn't up to date.
>
> However. There is very little good news.
>
> Should we in fact start now to wean ourselves off that oily tit, say it
> would take 15 years...in that period of time, the world will have lost
> another (3%/yr) say 40% of already-depleted reefs. And there is no reason
> to believe that the great drivers of reef decline will have backed off.
>
> Mike_____________________________________
> _______________________________________________
> Coral-List mailing list
> Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov <javascript:;>
> http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
>