Steve Bull's Blog, page 72
February 15, 2024
Major Gas Pipeline Explosion In Iran Deemed ‘Terrorist Sabotage’
In the overnight hours reports emerged of two explosions along Iran’s main south-north gas pipeline network. At least one of the massive fires that resulted was caught on video, which widely circulated, leading to speculation over whether it was an accident or attack.
Iran’s Oil Minister Javad Owji later in the day said the blasts were caused by sabotage, but did not name any suspects or possible external entity responsible. He also called it a “terrorist act”.
Via Iran International“This terrorist act of sabotage occurred at 1 a.m. local time on Wednesday morning (2130 GMT Tuesday evening) in the network of national gas transmission pipelines in two regions of the country,” Owji said.
He described that area settlements had suffered gas outages, but there were no mention of casualties as a result of the pipeline blasts which occurred in central Iran, near the city of Borujen.
According to Deutsche Welle, “Owji pointed to a similar incident in 2011, which he called an act of sabotage, that temporarily cut gas to four different regions of the country.” And according to more details of the fallout:
Fars News Agency, affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard, reported early Thursday that the targeted pipeline is the main conduit for transporting natural gas from refineries in the Persian Gulf to major cities including Tehran, Esfahan, and Mashhad.
These explosions resulted in the closure of roads in the surrounding areas for hours, forcing residents of neighboring villages to spend hours on the streets due to fear as large flames engulfed the surrounding areas. Reports indicate that the sound of explosions and the glow of flames were visible within a radius of 60 kilometers, leading to the gas supply being cut off to dozens of villages.
Videos of the aftermath showed flames expanding high into the air…
…click on the above link to read the rest…
What Everyone Is Missing About the Putin/Carlson Talk
“The Vorlons say, understanding is a three-edged sword: your side, their side, and the truth”
— John Sheridan, Babylon 5
The biggest media story of 2024 so far has come and gone. Tucker Carlson interviewed Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin last week.
Everyone, even the Davos/UK dominated media, has put forth their opinion on it. I gave out a quick take for my Patrons the morning after just like everyone else. And like everyone else I missed the biggest takeaway from this interview.
Now, if you go through the commentary what you will mostly see is people, as always, doing what traders call “talking their book.” In other words, as opposed to dealing with the information presented and the motivations of the people involved, most media outlets and commentators put forth their opinion on whether this interview satisfied their needs from it.
So, for the hardcore geopolitical types and armchair psychoanalysts, we heard a lot of opinions second-guessing Putin’s strategy to open the interview with a nearly thirty minute recitation of Russian/Ukrainian history. Why would he do this, was the common refrain.
I’ll use my former-bellwether-for-normies, Scott Adams, as an example of this.
This was the kindest of the ‘bad takes’ I found on this. But I’m having one of Scott’s “One movie, two screens,” moments here. Because Putin looked anything other than “unhinged.” In fact, he looked as calm as I’ve ever seen him, taking a relaxed posture to put Carlson, who was clearly unsure of where he stood at the beginning of the interview, at ease.
But this is the message that Adams wanted to see, framing Putin in relation to Biden, because he needed something unique to say to justify his even being in the conversation.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
February 14, 2024
Don’t Just Hope For Adequate Emergency Response
Lessons from the Oregon Ice Storm of 2024
Last month, I, along with many fellow Oregonians (and others in the Pacific Northwest), faced the chilling grip of a devastating ice storm. At work, I experienced the test of a power outage. The storm’s fury was evident in the menacing dance of falling trees and limbs, a stark reminder of nature’s unpredictable power. Navigating icy roads became a treacherous ordeal, each journey a test of nerve and skill.
At work, my worries deepened for a person I support. The biting cold seeped into the house rendered heatless by a power outage. The sealed fireplace, once a potential source of warmth, stood as a silent witness to our unpreparedness. Our reliance on modern amenities was laid bare when even gas-powered appliances, like the oven and furnace, became useless without their electrical control components.
This experience was not just mine alone; it was a shared ordeal across the state, highlighting the harsh realities of our infrastructure’s vulnerabilities and the limitations of governmental response in the face of such extreme weather. Several people died of hypothermia, injury from falling trees, and downed power lines. As we struggled through the darkness and cold, it became abundantly clear: we need to be better prepared, both as individuals and as a community, for the challenges that such natural disasters bring.
Failing Infrastructure
The Oregon ice storm of 2024 was a brutal lesson in the fragility of our infrastructure. The storm’s icy grasp strangled power lines, leaving them limp and lifeless, plunging neighborhoods into darkness. Roads, once arteries of our daily life, transformed into treacherous ice rinks, cutting off communities and halting the pulse of the city. Water treatment facilities, overwhelmed, faltered under nature’s assault, prompting advisories that turned the simple act of drinking water into a calculated risk…
…click on the above link to read the rest…
‘Safe’ Food Additive May Have Consequences for Gut Microbiome
A naturally derived antibiotic that helps preserve food by killing any threatening pathogens has kept our food safe for decades.
The World Health Organization and even watchdog groups have classified this additive, called nisin, as safe. Nisin is a lantibiotic—a peptide-derived antimicrobial agent synthesized from its natural form—first discovered in 1928 and commonly used in products such as cheese, beer, processed meats, and dipping sauces.Nisin is made when bovine milk or whey is fermented by strains of Lactococcus lactis that are concentrated and processed into small particles. In addition to being used as a food preservative, nisin can be found in beauty products, pharmaceuticals, and pet products.However, new research raises concern about whether nisin could be harmful to the human gut microbiome—the community of bacteria, viruses, fungi, and other microorganisms that work symbiotically to help with body functions such as digestion and immune response.Potency of LantibioticsA study published in ACS Chemical Biology examined human gut bacteria genomes to identify those that resemble nisin. Researchers then produced six lantibiotics, including four new ones, and tested them on microbes. While the researchers found that these new candidates kill pathogenic bacteria, they also discovered that they have varying effects on commensal (favorable) microbes, too.
“Even though it might be very effective in preventing food contamination, it might also have a greater impact on our human gut microbes,” lead author Zhenrun “Jerry” Zhang, a postdoctoral scholar and director of the Duchossois Family Institute at the University of Chicago, said in a statement.…click on the above link to read the rest…
AI and the new kind of propagandaSome dystopian nightmare fuel
Some dystopian nightmare fuel
Do you remember how the unconstitutional, pastel-authoritarian and totally batshit insane “Disinformation Governance Board” – with its Mary Poppins-cosplaying, Monty Python level of unintentional self-satirizing department head – was rolled out two years ago like a half-joke, half-beta-test of a version of the 1984 Ministry of Truth?
Well, kids, I wouldn’t really call this 4D chess or anything, but of course this was just bait. This parody and its rapid withdrawal reassures us that nothing of the sort could conceivably take place, while also seeding a visible, red-herring template for how we should expect heavy-handed, overt propaganda efforts to look in this day and age.
Meanwhile, there are currently massive efforts in the background and below the surface, all across the playing field, towards implementing big data and AI technology for not only the purposes of classical, increasingly obsolete propaganda or simple surveillance. No, this time, we’re exploring entirely novel methods of behavioural modification and narrative control intended to GET OUT AHEAD of the crystallization of discourses and even the formation of identities and worldviews.
They want to control the formation and reproduction of “social imaginaries”.
So the idea is to use massive data collection and AI pattern recognition to preemptively disrupt the formation of behaviourally significant narratives, discourses or patterns of information.
With these tools of “early diagnosis” of information that potentially could disrupt the power structure and its objectives, it then becomes possible to nip it in the bud incredibly early on, way before such information has even coalesced into something like coherent narratives or meaningful models for explanation or further (precarious) conclusions.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
February 13, 2024
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CLXXVII–Despite Warnings We Have Continued Business-As-Usual and Doubled-Down On Our Avoidance Behaviours
Rome, Italy (1984). Photo by author.Despite Warnings We Have Continued Business-As-Usual and Doubled-Down On Our Avoidance Behaviours
The following is my comment on The Honest Sorcerer’s latest piece that highlights the impossibility of bypassing thermodynamic laws (especially Entropy) in our quest for the Holy Grail of a sustainable civilisation; in this instance via a ‘circular’ economy.
While what you argue appears self-evident for the increasingly unlikely prospects of the ‘green/clean’ utopian future a lot of ‘futurists’ predict will unfold as the seemingly endless stream of technological ‘breakthroughs’ come to fruition, it seems that the vast majority of people who even show some awareness of our predicament will ignore/deny/rationalise away the evidence (universal thermodynamic laws or not) in order to cling to their dreams of infinite growth and ‘progress’ upon a finite planet. I even find the argument about physical, material limits is denied by many/most of these people.
This notion that limits are meaningless appears to have got its legs from economists and business ‘leaders’ who have argued that technological progress and human ingenuity trump material limits, particularly due to the idea of infinite substitutability and recycling. History has apparently demonstrated again and again that humans adapt their technology and resource use by finding alternative and/or new sources for their material wants.
What this approach does, however, is not only focus upon a relatively small slice of human pre/history where the leveraging of a number of catalysts to technological change have occurred (especially the creation of debt-/credit-based fiat currency and hydrocarbon use that both allow the pulling of finite resources from the future into the present), but cherry picks behaviours and events.
The processes that contribute to the recurrent collapse of complex societies are minimised/ignored, with a lot of rationalising that ‘this time is different’. We can recycle. We can elect ‘wise’ leaders’. We can work together. We can avoid past mistakes. We can mine passing asteroids. We can innovate. We can migrate to other planets. We can overcome limits. We can adapt. We can slow/control/halt the growth imperative. We can find a means of creating limitless ‘clean’ energy. We can do anything we imagine and set our minds to.
And while these assertions can make us feel better by avoiding the anxieties that arise when we frame things from a perspective where these ‘hopes’ are viewed as magical thinking that avoids reality, they are leading us to pursue the ‘business-as-usual’ scenario (of the 13 possible) painted by the original Limits to Growth study. A scenario where human ecological overshoot and the consequential collapse of population and industrial society were imminent during our current century.
The Limits to Growth researchers proposed that it was possible to avoid this scenario and achieve a sustainable lifestyle but required significant changes be made as soon as possible. In the intervening years, however, our species seems to have ignored the warnings and ‘motored’ ahead with ‘business-as-usual’. And rather than heed the signals our planet and its other species have been sending us (and increasingly so over the past handful of decades), we’ve doubled down on our avoidance behaviours — especially the stories we share about all this and how everything will be alright…somehow but mostly because of human ingenuity and technology, those god-like qualities we storytelling apes possess.
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh LXII–Magical Thinking About the Energy Transition
July 31, 2022 (original posting date)
Athens, Greece (1984). Photo by author.Magical Thinking About the Energy Transition
A really short contemplation prompted by an article posted in Resilience.org from The Rapid Transition Alliance regarding sustaining long-distance trade via electric ships.
The entire narrative around ‘electrifying’ everything is primarily about the marketing of ecologically-destructive and completely unsustainable industrial products while leveraging human emotions about well-meaning care and compassion for the world and fellow species.
I believe the reasoning is simple: those who own the industries and financial institutions that are required for such a transition stand to profit handsomely from the belief that we can have our cake and eat it too, so let’s pour all remaining capital into ‘transitioning’ to something ‘green/clean’.
Only this is a fantasy.
The denial of reality required to believe in this tale not only serves to reduce the anxiety from the cognitive dissonance created when we realise that we live on a finite planet that has blown past the natural carrying capacity for humans and have hit significant diminishing returns on the most important resources to support our various complexities, but also leads to significant magical thinking about our ability to ‘transition’ from fossil fuels (that underpin virtually everything in our complex societies, especially food production, transportation, and adequate shelter) to something equally effective but non-destructive and sustainable.
There is nothing ‘resilient’ about this narrative. Humanity (at least in the form of complex, industrial societies) is not going to ‘recover quickly’ from the energy cliff we have likely already begun our descent from. It seems a misguided and misinformed story that serves to dish out ‘hope’ as opposed to the harsh ‘reality’ that we are in significant ecological overshoot and the primary resource that has led us here (fossil fuels) is in terminal decline with no substitute available[1].
We seem to be flailing about telling ourselves and others comforting tales while deferring to our ruling elite who are hell bent on leveraging our various crises to their economic and political advantage.
It’s past time we stop looking for magical solutions and face the looming hardships that are before us.
Let’s divert our remaining energy and resources towards safely decommissioning those dangerous complexities we’ve created (e.g., nuclear power plants and their waste products, biosafety labs and their dangerous pathogens, and chemical production and storage facilities) and relocalising as much as is possible the procurement of potable water, food production, and regional shelter needs.
Telling ourselves and believing in lies and fairy tales is a sure recipe for the consequences of our well-meaning but ecologically-destructive ways to be significantly worse than they could otherwise be. Ramping up our industrial production of unsustainable technologies not only expedites the negative consequences of our overshoot but worsens our plight by further reducing the planet’s carrying capacity.
[1] This avoids the even more difficult discussion that even if we were to stumble upon a ‘green/clean’ energy substitute for fossil fuels, there are a host of other significant impediments to sustaining an 7+ billion population on a finite planet.
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh LXI–Peak Oil: Not Ready For Mainstream Consumption
July 29, 2022 (original posting date)
Athens, Greece (1984). Photo taken by author.Peak Oil: Not Ready For Mainstream Consumption
Today’s contemplation is based upon a post in a Peak Oil Facebook Group I belong to and the suggestion that the idea of Peak Oil is catching on more broadly and making its way into the ‘mainstream’.
I am not so sure that the idea of Peak Oil will catch on more broadly and make its way into the ‘mainstream’ — except perhaps on the margins during times such as we are currently witnessing where issues pertaining to energy and the cost of it dominates our worldview. This is what has occurred in the past, such as in the shadow of The Great Recession when oil reached it historical high in June, 2008. It will certainly receive more play amongst those who are aware of it and the consequences that flow from understanding it but amongst the general public I am not so convinced.
Not only is it likely that such mainstream recognition and discussions regarding Peak Oil will be limited in nature but I personally have to wonder how much the extent of the significant implications for everything in our complex societies will actually penetrate into a broader awareness, for a variety of reasons. The notion may gain more notoriety amongst an increased portion of the public than it currently does, but very likely not the existential consequences of the limits imposed by waning fossil fuel resources on the sociocultural complexities supported by them (i.e., pretty well everything in our complex societies, including but certainly not limited to food production, transportation, economic/financial systems, trade, etc.); nor is the notion likely to stick around for long or be widely discussed by many in the population given the media’s tendency to ignore/deny its more unsightly impacts on their prevalent narratives (e.g., chasing the infinite growth chalice is a great thing and needs to continue).
In addition, one can already see a wide array of alternative interpretations of our energy ‘crisis’ being put forward[1]. Some of these include: conspiracy by the elite to bring about The Great Reset; insufficient funding/capital towards all forms of energy production; a conspiracy to keep fossil fuel prices high (including the notion that ‘fossil’ fuels are limitless in quantity as they are abiotic/abiogenic in nature); geopolitical uncertainty, particularly in regions where fossil fuels are in significant quantities; misguided investment policy such as Environmental, Social, and Governance criteria; and, of course, the ultimate scapegoat for the world’s woes — Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
While some leakage of the idea of the finiteness of the resource or limits to its extraction has occurred[2], many mainstream pundits have completely ignored the concern as it seems unworthy of consideration, or have questioned the accuracy/validity of the idea and thereby dismissed it.
Some mainstream media has indeed already discussed Peak Oil and some of its implications[3].
Mostly, the topic has seemed to get more attention when fossil fuel prices, especially oil and gas, begin to experience significant increases. But when the prices stabilise (usually at a higher floor) or the media has moved its focus onto some other crisis, the discussion shifts away and it is quickly forgotten.
Why will the concept and implications of Peak Oil be mostly absent from the mainstream conversation and/or dissipate relatively quickly?
Here’s my take. There are two primary reasons that I believe the concept and certainly the significant consequences of Peak Oil are unlikely to penetrate very deeply in to the zeitgeist of our ‘modern’ society, and they are the two main themes I have tended to discuss previously.
First, the elite, as they invariably tend to do, will attempt to leverage the impending crisis (as they have been for some time) to meet their primary motivation — maintenance/expansion of the wealth-generation/-extraction systems that provide their revenue streams and thus power/prestige/privileged positions. The status quo power and wealth structures that arise within the organisational imperatives required in a complex society must be preserved!
Since the elite also ‘control’ the mainstream media, and political and education systems, I expect them to keep doing (perhaps with an even hardier push) what they’ve been doing: sell/market the hopium-laced narrative that human ingenuity and our technological prowess can ‘save’ us from the environmental horrors (i.e., global warming/climate change) of burning fossil fuels. It’s no coincidence that they happen to ‘own’ the industrial processes and financial institutions necessary for such an endeavour.
One need only read the majority of ‘news’ or opinions about Peak Oil and it becomes clear that the ‘solution’ is always to transition to ‘green/clean’ energy and to electrify everything.
Second, the psychological mechanisms that impact/influence human beliefs and attitudes will also kick into gear as stress/disorder increases due to the negative consequences of Peak Oil, especially those aspects that lead our thinking/beliefs astray by attempting to: avoid pain and seek pleasure; reduce our cognitive dissonance; lead us to defer to/obey authority; have us go along to get along (i.e., the need to belong to a group); and, perhaps most significantly, the heuristics and biases that simplify complex issues and confirm misplaced beliefs. Basically we tend to gravitate towards the simple narratives offered by our ‘leaders’ and alter our beliefs to avoid painful thoughts.
And all the above doesn’t even touch upon the overwhelming evidence that fossil fuels (and the concomitant leveraging of technology to expedite our drawdown of a number of finite resources) have been the primary impetus leading to our significant overshooting of the globe’s natural carrying capacity for the human species.
What seems to be completely absent in virtually every ‘mainstream’ discussion about Peak Oil is the importance of fossil fuels in supporting virtually all of our complexities.
There are fossil fuel inputs into everything but especially modern industrial agriculture and transportation. These cannot be replaced by non-fossil fuel energy to any significant extent, if at all. Without relocalising food production in particular, we are setting ourselves up for significant food shortages.
Naïve, then, seems the call to abandon fossil fuels forthwith[4]. There appears zero comprehension of the consequences of that for the very dangerous complexities we have created. But it is also a marketing ploy to shift capital towards non-renewable, renewable energy-harvesting technologies (that depend significantly on fossil fuels). It is increasingly obvious that it is quite counterproductive to continue to chase the perpetual growth chalice (that is one of our greatest challenges that needs confronting) while cheerleading a reduction in fossil fuels.
We have hit significant diminishing returns on our extraction of fossil fuels. This is extremely problematic not only because they support virtually all of the complexities necessary for our very survival but because we continue to be beholden to systems that perpetuate the predicament, especially the pursuit of the infinite growth chalice.
If we do not prepare ourselves adequately and do not abandon our pursuit of growth, we risk massive negative consequences. In fact, it may already be too late to avoid most (all?) of such negative impacts given how far we are likely into ecological overshoot — a predicament I haven’t really touched upon in this contemplation.
A summary of my thoughts is clear from a response I shared this morning on an excellent article by The Honest Sorcerer, entitled Peak Oil Is Back With A Vengeance:
While everything you state is factual and based upon solid data and geological evidence [regarding the reality of Peak Oil], I fear our penchant to deny reality (especially if it is ‘painful’ in nature), reduce our cognitive dissonance (to alleviate stressful thoughts/beliefs), and defer to authority (that we give all too willingly to our ‘elite’) — as well as a potpourri of other psychological mechanisms that impact our beliefs — will once again see Peak Oil discussions/awareness/understanding be sustained/grow only on the margins of society.
Previous bouts of ‘awareness’ have arisen during similar times of stress, especially with regard to energy, but for the most part get lost in the alternative narratives that drown out the clarion calls about Peak Resources and seem directed to distract us from the ugly underside of ecological overshoot and its implications for our misbeliefs about humanity’s future and the magical thinking required to hold that more of what has caused our overshoot — namely technology — will somehow ameliorate/solve our errant ways and existential crises.
The vast, vast majority of people will either choose to ignore/deny the reality of Peak Oil (and especially its implications for our complex societies that completely depend upon fossil fuels for existence) or acknowledge it and then hold on to the rope being dangled by the elite that our ingenuity and technological prowess will ‘solve’ our issues (and, of course, it’s no coincidence that the push by our elite is primarily because they own the industries and institutions that are offered as saviours and stand to profit handsomely from the capital flowing into them).
Even if the concept and some of its significant implications do re-enter the mainstream and actually stick or becomes a common concern, I have to wonder how it will be manipulated by the narrative control managers for the elite. Somehow things are bound to get even more distorted than they are currently, especially given the psychological mechanisms that help to mislead our beliefs (recency, optimism, and confirmation biases particularly).
As with all things, however, time will tell how this plays out…I’m guessing not very well.
[1] A few examples: https://internationalman.com/articles/david-stockman-on-the-all-out-commitment-to-destroy-fossil-fuels-will-it-succeed/; https://www.statista.com/chart/27807/european-gdp-output-losses-twelve-months-after-a-russian-gas-supply-shut-off/; https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/putin-turns-screws-gazprom-unexpectedly-halts-another-more-nord-stream-turbine-european-gas; https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Refinery-Shuts-Down-Due-To-Lack-Of-Crude.html; https://mises.org/library/trouble-oil; https://www.amazon.com/Myths-Lies-Wars-William-Engdahl/dp/3981326369/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=myths+lies+and+oil+wars&qid=1578501116&sr=8-1;
[2] https://www.reuters.com/world/macron-tells-biden-that-uea-saudi-can-barely-raise-oil-output-2022-06-27/; https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-27/macron-tells-biden-that-uae-and-saudi-pumping-near-oil-limits; https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/UAE-Saudi-Arabia-Pumping-Oil-Near-Limits-Macron.html; https://www.worldoil.com/news/2022/6/27/france-s-macron-tells-biden-that-uae-saudi-pumping-near-oil-limits/;
[3] Examples from my country’s national news institution, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation: https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/peak-oil-problems-and-possibilities-1.845183; https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/ex-premier-slams-province-over-peak-oil-1.1038638l; https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/record-gas-prices-blamed-on-peak-oil-1.1039028; https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/ihs-iea-electric-autonomous-ride-hailing-1.3983818;
[4] https://www.timesnownews.com/mirror-now/in-focus/world-must-abandon-fossil-fuels-urgently-say-scientists-as-they-prepare-to-present-landmark-ipcc-report-article-90642366; https://www.chesterstandard.co.uk/news/national/19621587.fuel-crisis-good-lesson-need-abandon-fossil-fuels-says-minister/; https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/opinion/local-view-abandon-fossil-fuels-to-avoid-climate-catastrophe; https://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/apr/08/can-world-economy-survive-without-fossil-fuels; https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/18/climate/climate-change-emissions-IEA.html
How De-Dollarization is Likely to Play Out
Much has been written in recent years about “De-dollarization” — the shift from the use of the US dollar as the “international reserve currency” in favour of more diverse bi-lateral and multi-lateral currency agreements and transactions.
The current system has a long and complicated history, but its most essential features are as follows:
In 1944, with the war grinding on and currencies in crisis, most countries signed on to the Bretton Woods Agreement, which “required countries to guarantee convertibility of their currencies into U.S. dollars to within 1% of fixed parity rates, with the dollar convertible to gold bullion for foreign governments and central banks at US$35 per troy ounce”. The US dollar hence replaced the “gold standard” with US dollar reserves, rather than amounts of gold, being what each country was required to maintain to support the fixed rates of exchange. The IMF was simultaneously established to enforce the Agreement.This replacement of gold with the US dollar created for the US what is called exorbitant privilege. It means that basically they can create (print into existence) additional US dollars without limit and without any requirement that they be supported by assets, and other countries are required to honour them as ‘real’ money. As a result, the US can run up unlimited deficits (eg through reckless military and ‘security’ spending), deficits that would render any other country bankrupt and lead to a crippling devaluation of their currency and severe IMF-imposed restrictions on future spending (as has happened to many ‘developing’ countries in the Global South).…click on the above link to read the rest…
The Arrow of Time
Photo by Brandon Molitwenik on UnsplashThe circular economy and an endless recycling of materials is an absurd proposal, and not only from a technical perspective; the very idea of a “sustainable” high tech society is in a direct conflict with the laws of physics.
After reviewing the technical reasons behind energy & resource cannibalism, as well as their combined effect on our prosperity, now I invite you to put on an even wider angle lens. Without further ado, let me introduce the subject matter of today’s post: entropy. ‘Wait, entro-what?! What does this mumbo-jumbo has to do with our dreams of a green economy centered around the endless recycling of products?’ Let me explain.
In general entropy is a measure of disorder or randomness. A sophisticated object like a computer chip, or a living organism like a flowering plant, has very low entropy (or minimal chaos) to it, while the same microchip left to disintegrate in the bottom of a landfill, or that plant thrown out to the compost heap, on the other hand, displays an increasingly higher and higher level of entropy.
The same is true for energy. Enriched uranium and petroleum are both sources of concentrated, high density energy, unlike diluted, lukewarm waste heat emanating from an engine, or dissipated through a cooling tower. You see, by using energy we are not destroying it, we simply harness its capacity to work. We take a concentrated low entropy energy source, utilize it to our purpose, and let it dissipate as heat. In this process energy becomes ever more diluted and dispersed, and thus its entropy increases. The more of our high grade energy has been transformed into waste heat in a system, the higher the level of entropy rises.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
