ALB
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Here’s a couple more articles from the time we last had to do battle with these people (Malthusians and Neo-Malthusians) in the 1970s:
“just intuitively you would agree that in order to get oil which is gushing from a well in 1919, you don’t need nearly as much energy/work as in order to squeeze oil from shale rock using tonnes of water and sand that you have to transport from somewhere else, no?”
Of course. But the real nut to crack to become independent of fossils fuels, as minerals whose extraction becomes more and more difficult quite apart from the effects of burning them rather than using them more rationally, is an efficient system of electrical storage. In his 1962 book Profiles of the Future Arthur C. Clarke saw this as happening towards the end of the 1980s. It didn’t and we are still not there but progress towards it is being made. Once the technology to do this has been mastered, humanity will never have any problem with energy since it will be able to be captured from the Sun’s rays and stored for later use. Of course its rational use depends on a society based on the Earth’s resources having become the common heritage of all humanity and used to produce directly to satisfy people’s needs and not for sale on a market with a view to profit.
Yes, those who argue that the Earth has a fixed human carrying capacity and that it has been or will soon be exceeded are making the same mistake as Malthus and his followers of assuming that humans are like other animals and have to accept what the environment throws at them. All that other species can do if they exceed an area’s carrying capacity is for some of them to die off and/or some of them to move to another area. Humans are different. We can control both our fertility and our environment. And did, proving Malthus wrong even in the 19th century. What both Malthus and they leave out is technology.
The article mentions Paul Ehrlich who became notorious for his 1968 book the Population Bomb in which he claimed, in the words of his Wikipedia entry, that
“The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate….which categorically stated that the world’s human population would soon increase to the point where mass starvation ensued.”
See also this review of his book Population Resources Environment in the April 1971 Socialist Standard.
I see that, despite being completely discredited at the time, he was still peddling his misanthropic views 30 years later. The wikipedia entry on carrying capacity quotes him as pontificating in 2004 that
“for earth as a whole (including those parts of it we call Australia and the United States), human beings are far above carrying capacity today.”
Despite their concern for the environment these people are not on our side.
Thanks but having looked at the Wikipedia entry on “Energy Return on Energy Invested” I am not that much the wiser as to what exactly it is.
Linguistically, it ought to mean the ratio of the actual direct energy as such used at the last stage of production (e.g. electricity to drive the drill or the nodding donkey) to the amount of material produced useable as energy, But that would be a pretty pointless measure as obviously it will be greater than 1 since such direct energy inputs are only a part of the total inputs to production. At the other extreme, it could be the ratio of all the energy used in producing all the materials used to produce the material, which could possibly be less than 1. But, as the wiki entry, asks:
“How deep should the probing in the supply chain of the tools being used to generate energy go? For example, if steel is being used to drill for oil or construct a nuclear power plant, should the energy input of the steel be taken into account? Should the energy input into building the factory being used to construct the steel be taken into account and amortized? Should the energy input of the roads which are used to ferry the goods be taken into account? What about the energy used to cook the steelworkers’ breakfasts? These are complex questions evading simple answers. ”
Indeed. The entry goes on to say that in practice a simpler method is used:
“However, when comparing two energy sources a standard practice for the supply chain energy input can be adopted. For example, consider the steel, but don’t consider the energy invested in factories deeper than the first level in the supply chain. “
OK, but that would be a quite different measure giving a quite different result.
I suspect that the figure that both you and they cite that “n the beginning of XX century EROI of oil was close to 100, and since then it has been steadily decreasing, being around 10 now, or even less for shale oil” will be a reflection of (a) the rising cost of extracting a mineral like oil as the easiest sources are exhausted and more difficult ones have to be used, and (b) increasing mechanisation, which means more energy used up in the course of making the machines.
This latter is not a problem, but then EROEI would just be another way of measuring what bourgeois academic economists call “increasing capital intensity” and what Marxian economists call “the increasing technical composition of capital”. Normally, this is a good vthing as it means that more can be produced with less human work, though in the case of mineral sources of energy such as coal, oil and gas this is countered by having to work more difficult to extract sources.
At some point, I suppose, it is theoretically possible that the increase of productivity through mechanisation could be wiped out by the fall in productivity through having to use more difficult sources. I wouldn’t have thought, though, that we are anywhere near there as the fact that some goal, oil and gas production is still profitable (on the basis of MROMI).
Going by what the wiki entry says about some theorists using EROEI to explain the fall of the Roman Empire and of ancient civilisations in Mexico and Cambodia, it seems to have been hijacked by doomsters who think we’re currently in or nearing the same position. Even if that were true, fortunately, humans have other sources of energy than mineral ones. Even if there is “peak oil” (which is open to question) there can be no question of “peak energy”.
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“EROEI (energy returned on energy invested). This is what ultimately determines the ability to extract oil, not price. It can cost millions per barrel, and still no one will get into business of getting the rest of oil if it takes more oil to get it out than what you will receive in the end. “
That sounds an interesting concept but I imagine that, like Marx’s labour theory of value which talks about the labour-time value of a commodity being the amount of necessary labour embodied in from start to finish, it is difficult if not impossible to calculate. Obviously, nobody is going to use more actual oil to produce it if they are going to end up with less than they started with (and of course the oil industry doesn’t do this), so we are talking about converting the other materials used in producing oil into “oil” or “energy” equivalents (presumably the amount of oil or energy used in producing them from start to finish (are we?)
I wouldn’t have thought that this would be something a capitalist company would be interested in calculating before deciding whether or not to invest in producing (more) oil. They apply rather MROMI (money return on money invested), i.e. nobody is going to invest money in producing something if they’re not going to get more money back in the end. I suspect that, if at some stage of the EROEI calculation prices are used, then the two might in practice be the same. I don’t know. I’m asking you. How is the oil equivalent of a drilling rig or a nodding donkey calculated?
Don’t you remember the leaflet we issued at the time of the big Countryside Alliance march to protest against the ban on fox hunting, in 2002 I think it was, which we headed “The Right to Hunt Landowners” and which began:
“The good old English sport of sending hungry hounds to chase aristocrats through the woods, catch them and rip them to pieces, has been slow to take off as a popular pastime. Despite claims that these predatory parasites are a foul rural presence, serving only to infect the countryside with their conceited greed and indolence, it has been hard to find dogs with sufficient brutality to enjoy this so-called sport.”
and stated:
“Their protest for the right to hunt and murder animals for fun is no more worthy of support than a campaign to reintroduce slavery or to bring back the deportation of criminals.”
I don’t think it was distributed on the Countryside Alliance march though …
In the meantime China has started a “currency war” with America by letting its currency float down (devalue). This may force the US authorities to let the dollar float down (weaken) too. But why should we support either side in this currency war any more than we would or should in a real war — unless you agree with Lenin’s position that in a war you should always want “your” state to lose as the prospects for seizing power are better in a defeated state, Machiavellian schemer that he was? Which of course we don’t, but which you sound as if you might, Admice. Anyway, it’s not a question of indifference, but of opposing both sides.
I tried one of those vegan “sausage” rolls just to show I’m not prejudiced. Nothing wrong with them. They taste like stuffing. That’s alright.
“When shale oil industry finally goes belly up, it will trigger a huge price spike, and a worldwide recession.”
But that’s not what the link you give says. The US shale industry is in trouble because, apart from the easiest to extract beginning to be exhausted putting up costs, the price of oil has fallen. The news item talks about the present being “a time when oil prices more broadly are in freefall” and “oil prices languishing below $60 per barrel” and quotes a shale company executive as saying:
“Sheffield said that he doesn’t see global oil prices staying below $55 per barrel over the next few years. That would likely mean WTI would be under $50, which he says is just too low for shale companies to be making money.”
In other words, if the US shale industry does go belly up this will be because oil prices generally have fallen and remain low. Its demise would not trigger a huge price spike. In fact, if there was a huge increase in the price of oil (which, if it was sudden as with the outbreak of a war in the Persian Gulf, Gulf, could well trigger another world recession) this would make the shale industry profitable again.
The real price of most goods tends to go down over time due to increasing productivity. The exceptions are minerals extracted from the ground. The easiest seams are exploited first but, once these have been exhausted, productivity falls and costs rise as more difficult seams have to be exploited; the price rises.
Oil is in this situation. As the easier sources are used up, if demand remains the same, its real price rises. If demand increases, the price rises further and other sources become profitable. In fact it was precisely because the price of oil had risen that marginal sources like shale became profitable.
This is where the concept of “peak oil” is a bit dubious or at least needs careful defining. Of course the amount of oil on Earth is limited and so in theory could eventually be all used up but this is not an immediate prospect. What is is that, at some point, the cost of extracting oil will become so high that it will no longer be profitable to extract it rather than use other sources of generating energy (e.g. nuclear, solar, wind power, etc). This could be said to be the point at which “peak oil” was reached but it wouldn’t mean that all oil reserves had been exhausted, only that the reserves that could be profitably exploited start to decline.
Whether or not this point has been reached is a matter of controversy and in any event depends on the price of other sources of energy which can also fluctuate, though, not being based on a mineral, the cost and so the price of renewable energies such as solar and wind is decreasing all the time as productivity increases.
It only remains to add that, in a socialist world, energy policy would not be based on such irrationalities as the changing price of alternative sources of generating energy relative to each other, as it is today under capitalism. Given the fact that burning oil contributes to global warming, a socialist world will be in a position to decide to use it to make plastics instead of burning it to generate energy. A capitalist world can’t as long as it is profitable to burn it.
“… a dangerous belief. This is the same as when people say that personal choices of consumers are responsible for the environment. No, we are not responsible. When they build cheap fast underground mag-lev trains I will stop flying, but demanding that I alone stop airplane industry by refusing to fly is nothing more than capitalist propaganda, it is impossible. “
Good point, Schekn, but I’m not sure that all those around XR have understood it. While their campaign is aimed at pressuring governments to do more to tackle the problems caused by global overwarming, it would also seem to be aimed at pressuring ordinary people into not flying, not driving a car, not eating meat, etc. As an attack on people’s lifestyles, this will not win them support. Just the opposite. Coupled with disruptions to everyday life, it will create resentment and antagonism not just to them but to their aim and so provide a potential mass base for vested interests to manipulate. Completely counter-productive. I’ve got no problem, by the way, with kids taking a day off school. That doesn’t harm anybody. Good luck to them.
It is not as if people don’t already know about the dangers of global overwarming. Most do and are sympathetic to something being done about it. We shouldn’t be antagonising them but explaining the cause (capitalism) and the way-out (socialism as the common ownership of the Earth’s resources). Not so exciting but more effective in the long run.
Good stuff, Alan. Liked the bit about the important distinction between resources consumption per head (which includes all the waste of capitalism represented by everything to do with buying and selling and with the military) and personal consumption; which means that, with the abolition of capitalism, personal consumption levels can be maintained (albeit more rational in the absence of advertising and adulteration with sugar, etc) and even increased in the parts of the world without using up more resources.
We are of course all “ordinary people” but there is another aspect. At the moment, when socialists are so very few, a higher degree of understanding of the workings of capitalism and the course of history, are required of socialists (at least of organised socialists) than will be the case when the socialist movement takes off and begins to become a mass movement.
To be a socialist, all that is required basically is:
- To realise that capitalism does not work and cannot be made to work in the interest of the majority, those excluded from ownership and control of the means of life.
- To want socialism (as the common ownership and democratic control of the means of life, with production and distribution to directly satisfy people’s needs) and understand its implications.
- To realise that socialism can only be established democratically by a majority who want and understand it.
These are relatively simple propositions and do not necessarily require much reading or even being literate for that matter.
However, today, most people do not accept (1) and don’t want (2). So the few of us today who are socialists have to be able to convincingly argue that capitalism can’t be reformed to work in the interest of the majority. Yes, this does require some reading (though it is also evident on the basis of lived experience). With regard to (2), most people don’t think it possible; so, here again, some knowledge of “human nature” and past societies is required. As to (3), the disagreement here is generally with people who already largely accept (1) and (2) but refuting the view that socialism could be achieved through some other means (minority insurrection, gradualism, following leaders, dictatorship) does, again, require some knowledge of past attempts to escape from capitalism and why they failed. More reading.
So, yes, socialists today do need to be more well-read than most people are or need to be. But when the movement takes off, people who want socialism won’t need to have read up on economics, history, anthropology, etc. They will just need to want socialism. Then the time of arguing against capitalism and for socialism will be over; which, incidentally, won’t have come about purely from the arguments of socialists but also, even mainly, from external events making people really discontented with capitalism (even, who knows, some eco9logical catastrophe or war). It will be the time for the growing socialist minority to be discussing how to bring it into being.
So, no, we are not saying that to get socialism a majority will have had to have read Marx.
