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No Population Bomb

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Re: No Population Bomb

#71

Post by ars »

richardjordan wrote: post #66

The argument that 'everyone has been wrong so far' is not a solid one. The green revolution was basically pouring oil (pesticides) and pumping natural gas (fertilizer) into the fields. As oil flow rates are peaking this is an increasingly costly process, and as EROEI lowers on what's left we run into more problems. Same for NPK inputs - they are getting harder and more expensive (both $$ and energy) to extract. To a…

Oil is not pesticides and natural gas is not fertilizer. (Why do you think they are?)

Both of those are energy, and you need energy to make pesticides and fertilizer - but you need ANY energy, it doesn't matter what kind. So even if oil flow rates were peaking (which they aren't), it wouldn't matter as long as we had another source of energy, and we do.

Re: No Population Bomb

#72

Post by ars »

kstenerud wrote: post #20

While the author is correct in terms of population growth, he has missed one critical point. We are heading into a population bomb not because of continued explosive population growth, but rather because of dwindling energy reserves. Industrialization and fossil fuels are what have allowed the population to exponentially grow this far. But now that energy is more expensive to extract, food is becoming more and more e…

If people start dying because we are not using enough nuclear power to supply our energy needs I think you will see public sentiment shift VERY rapidly.

Re: No Population Bomb

#73

Post by Thrymr »

ars wrote: post #71
richardjordan wrote: post #66

The argument that 'everyone has been wrong so far' is not a solid one. The green revolution was basically pouring oil (pesticides) and pumping natural gas (fertilizer) into the fields. As oil flow rates are peaking this is an increasingly costly process, and as EROEI lowers on what's left we run into more problems. Same for NPK inputs - they are getting harder and more expensive (both $$ and energy) to extract. To a…

Oil is not pesticides and natural gas is not fertilizer. (Why do you think they are?) Both of those are energy, and you need energy to make pesticides and fertilizer - but you need ANY energy, it doesn't matter what kind. So even if oil flow rates were peaking (which they aren't), it wouldn't matter as long as we had another source of energy, and we do.

Most of the hydrogen used in the Haber process (to produce ammonia for fertilizer) comes from methane (natural gas). Most of the hydrocarbons used to produce commercial pesticides come from petroleum. They are not just energy sources, they are raw materials.

Re: No Population Bomb

#74

Post by kzrdude »

youngerdryas wrote: post #69
kzrdude wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

bring your reasonable arguments instead of insulting the people you argue with, please.

Sorry, kzrdude. I meant that in general. The end is always nigh, yet it always fails to materialize, this is a known phenomenon. I should be more clear. Sorry to have offended you.

I'm not really offended. I'm only noting that you didn't have any arguments from reason to contribute.

Re: No Population Bomb

#75

Post by DavidAdams »

ars wrote: post #71
richardjordan wrote: post #66

The argument that 'everyone has been wrong so far' is not a solid one. The green revolution was basically pouring oil (pesticides) and pumping natural gas (fertilizer) into the fields. As oil flow rates are peaking this is an increasingly costly process, and as EROEI lowers on what's left we run into more problems. Same for NPK inputs - they are getting harder and more expensive (both $$ and energy) to extract. To a…

Oil is not pesticides and natural gas is not fertilizer. (Why do you think they are?) Both of those are energy, and you need energy to make pesticides and fertilizer - but you need ANY energy, it doesn't matter what kind. So even if oil flow rates were peaking (which they aren't), it wouldn't matter as long as we had another source of energy, and we do.

Nearly all pesticides are made from oil: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum

Many synthetic fertilizers are synthesized directly from natural gas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertilizer

Re: No Population Bomb

#76

Post by DavidAdams »

sirmixalot wrote: post #35
kstenerud wrote: post #20

While the author is correct in terms of population growth, he has missed one critical point. We are heading into a population bomb not because of continued explosive population growth, but rather because of dwindling energy reserves. Industrialization and fossil fuels are what have allowed the population to exponentially grow this far. But now that energy is more expensive to extract, food is becoming more and more e…

The author can't see the forest through the diaphragms. There is a bomb, and it's under-population. We've duped our daughters into equating motherhood with victimization and killed off the next generation of innovators.

There is an underpopulation problem, but it's not a global one. There's no danger to the human race if we enter a prolonged period of population decline. However, the local demographic problems can be severe. Many countries, particularly ones that don't permit a lot of immigration, are seeing their pension programs becoming insolvent because there aren't enough working people to support the retired people. And those who are worried about racial purity are always concerned with population decline, because it's always the immigrants who have higher birthrates.

Re: No Population Bomb

#77

Post by np422 »

benihana wrote: post #22
kstenerud wrote: post #20

While the author is correct in terms of population growth, he has missed one critical point. We are heading into a population bomb not because of continued explosive population growth, but rather because of dwindling energy reserves. Industrialization and fossil fuels are what have allowed the population to exponentially grow this far. But now that energy is more expensive to extract, food is becoming more and more e…

Malthus said the same thing - that we wouldn't be able to produce enough food because of whatever reason. And yet we humans found some way to continue living and producing food just fine. We increased our food yield and continue to do so. We found creative solutions to our problems with our available resources and there isn't any reason to think that we'll sudden lose the capacity to do this because of peak oil or la…

Just because one man said something back in the 18th century and was wrong does not mean that anyone who says something vaguely similar also is wrong.

World population, energy consumed, paper clips manufactured, fishes caught in the sea - all the graphs shows us a exponential growth.

There are physical limits to growth.

I would very much prefer to do something before we run into them rather then being around when it happens.

Re: No Population Bomb

#78

Post by ars »

Thrymr wrote: post #73
ars wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oil is not pesticides and natural gas is not fertilizer. (Why do you think they are?) Both of those are energy, and you need energy to make pesticides and fertilizer - but you need ANY energy, it doesn't matter what kind. So even if oil flow rates were peaking (which they aren't), it wouldn't matter as long as we had another source of energy, and we do.

Most of the hydrogen used in the Haber process (to produce ammonia for fertilizer) comes from methane (natural gas). Most of the hydrocarbons used to produce commercial pesticides come from petroleum. They are not just energy sources, they are raw materials.

They only get hydrogen that way because methane is also an energy source. It would be trivial to replace it with water plus external heating if you had some other energy source.

You can get hydrocarbons anywhere, petroleum is convenient, but certainly not required.

The raw material of fertilizer is nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, and sulfur. Methane is none of those - it's just a carrier for nitrogen.

Same with pesticides, they are organic molecules so need hydrocarbons, but you can use any hydrocarbon, from trees, grass, whatever. Oil is cheap, so they use it, but it would not be a big problem if you had to use something else.

Re: No Population Bomb

#79

Post by ars »

DavidAdams wrote: post #75
ars wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oil is not pesticides and natural gas is not fertilizer. (Why do you think they are?) Both of those are energy, and you need energy to make pesticides and fertilizer - but you need ANY energy, it doesn't matter what kind. So even if oil flow rates were peaking (which they aren't), it wouldn't matter as long as we had another source of energy, and we do.

Nearly all pesticides are made from oil: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum Many synthetic fertilizers are synthesized directly from natural gas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertilizer

See my reply here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5548378

Synthetic fertilizers are not synthesized from natural gas - they can't be. Methane has no elements that plants need. Methane is just a carrier for the elements acquired elsewhere.

Re: No Population Bomb

#80

Post by nwzpaperman »

michaelochurch wrote: post #33

I agree with the conclusion-- we won't face a population explosion-- but... Malthus was right and wrong. He was wrong about economic growth being linear (even then, it was a 0.5% per year exponential increase that just looked linear ). The Industrial Revolution kicked in and now economic growth is (for the first time ever) faster than population growth. That change happened around 1850; until that point, per-person e…

Financial--debt-asset--growth is exponential. Individual persons don't consume real resources geometrically, but linearly over a lifespan. Population does grow geometrically, so that is the underlying driver for geometric production and resource consumption. Unfortunately, there are a lot of service/non-producing cash-flows diluting the value of popular macro economic benchmarks like GDP and corporate benchmarks like EBITDA.

As CS engineers dominate this place, it should be standard practice to examine, both, the input and output sides of any system during load analysis.

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