What follows are somewhat compressed, slightly edited excerpts from a TEXTBOOK called Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet by Professor Tom Murphy of UC San Diego.

Murphy’s mission is to lay out what he considers both humanity’s possibilities and limitations regarding energy and the sustainability of life as we know it on planet Earth.  And for me, he succeeds in that mission, admirably.

Murphy’s text is broken down into four sections:

• I     Setting the Stage: Growth and Limitations
• II    Energy and Fossil Fuels
• III   Alternative Energy
• IV  Going Forward

Below are my summary excerpts for Section I — Setting the Stage: Growth and Limitations.  I will follow with sections II, III and IV over the next several weeks.  All bolding, italics and underscoring are mine.

GROWTH AND LIMITATIONS

Limits to Energy Growth

• All kinds of reasons will preclude continued energy growth, including the fact that human population cannot continue indefinite growth on this planet.
• Physics places another relevant constraint on growth rate, and that concerns waste heat. Essentially all of our energy expenditures end up as heat.
• The waste heat scenario does not depend on the form of power source. It could in principle be fossil fuels, nuclear fission, nuclear fusion, or some form of energy we have not yet realized and may not even have named! Whatever it is, it will have to obey Thus, thermodynamics puts a time limit on energy growth on this planet.

Limits to Physical Growth

• Many factors will intercede to limit growth in both population and resource use: resource scarcity, pollution, aquifer depletion and water availability, climate change, warfare, fisheries collapse, a limited amount of arable land (declining due to desertification), deforestation, disease, to name a few. The point is only reinforced. By some means or another, we should view the present period of physical growth as a temporary phase: a brief episode in the longer human saga.
• Thermodynamics limits us to at most a few centuries of energy growth on Earth, and economic growth will cease within a century or so thereafter, assuming a target rate of a few percent per year. In practice, growth may come to an end well before theoretical extremes are reached.

Limits to Economic Growth

• The dream is that as development progresses, economic energy intensity may decline (greater decoupling) so that more money is made per unit of energy expended. If the economy can decouple from energy needs, we are not constrained in our quest to continue economic growth, bringing smiles to the faces of investors and politicians. Such a transition would mean less emphasis on energy and resource-intensive industrial development/manufacturing, and more on abstract services, broadly
• The dream is that as development progresses, economic energy intensity may decline (greater decoupling) so that more money is made per unit of energy expended. If the economy can decouple from energy needs, we are not constrained in our quest to continue economic growth, bringing smiles to the faces of investors and politicians. Such a transition would mean less emphasis on energy and resource-intensive industrial development/manufacturing, and more on abstract services, broadly
• In summary, decoupling and substitution are touted as mechanisms by which economic growth need not slow down as energy and other resources become constrained. We can make money using less of the resource (decoupling) or just find alternatives that are not constrained (substitution), the thinking goes. And yes, this is backed up by loads of examples where such things have happened. It would be foolish to claim that we have reached the end of the line and can expect no more gains from decoupling or substitution. But it would be equally foolish to imagine that they can produce dividends eternally so that economic growth is a permanent condition.
• Consider the global-scale challenges we have introduced today: deforestation, fisheries collapse, water pressures, soil degradation, pollution, climate change, and species loss, for instance. What makes us think we can survive a global demographic transition leading to a consumption rate many times higher than that of today? Does it not seem that we are already approaching a breaking point? If nature won’t let us realize a particular dream, then that of today? Does it not seem that we are already reaching a breaking point?

Space Exploration and Colonization

• Given the vastness of space, it is negligent to think of space travel as a “solution” to our present set of challenges on Earth—challenges that operate on a much shorter timescale than it would take to muster any meaningful space presence. Moreover, space travel is enormously expensive energetically and economically. As we find ourselves competing for dwindling one-time resources later this century, space travel will have a hard time getting priority, except in the context of escapist entertainment.

• Building a habitat on the ocean floor would be vastly easier than trying to do so in space. It would be even easier on land, of course. But we have not yet successfully built and operated a closed ecosystem on land! A few artificial “biosphere” efforts have been attempted, but met with If it is not easy to succeed on the surface of the earth, how can we fantasize about getting it right in the remote hostility of space, lacking easy access to manufactured resources?
• If, in the fullness of time, we do see a path toward practical space colonization, then fine. But given the extreme challenge and cost—both energetically and economically, and for what could only be a tiny footprint in the near term—it seems vastly more prudent to take care of our relationship with Planet Earth first, and then think about space colonization in due time, if it ever makes sense.

GOT ALL THAT?  ACTUALLY, IT’S PRETTY STRAIGHTFORWARD.  OVER TIME, THERE’S NO FREE LUNCH.

EARTH GIVES OUT.

I only read Blain occasionally though sometimes HE DOES NAIL IT.  For instance, these 2022 calls of his seem more than reasonable  And I quote:

• Inflation will not be transitory – it will grind away at savings as wage demands, labour shortages, supply chain instability, and energy costs undermine the global economy.
• Two economies matter – the US will do relatively well. China is going to suffer from major energy dislocation, deepening the global supply chain crisis. Europe – really? UK – please…
• There is a moderate probability of stagflation – recession plus inflation.
• Central Banks have limited choices: destroy the global economy long-term by doing nothing to unwind monetary distortion, or destroy the global economy now by normalising interest rates. (Basically..)
• Stock markets are not at record levels because of productivity gains or soaring earnings, but because money has been overly cheap and central banks accommodative – fuelling the rally. Mean reversion is not a risk – it’s a rule.
• Credit spreads don’t reflect current real risks, which will magnify as rates rise. Credit Markets are my number one pick for a chronic liquidity crisis.

• Too much easy money and minimal returns have fueled massive speculation, financial asset inflation, crushed returns and is generating a pensions crisis.
• FOMO and social media pressure reached a crescendo with retail desperately gambling on meme stocks and praying that crypto will make them rich. Hope is never an investment strategy.
• Politics – especially in the US – will have major consequences for markets.
• Regulatory risk in terms of tech and finance are substantial.
• Climate change is now recognised as a major risk – policy makers will act.
• Inequality is an even larger risk – policy makers are unlikely to act.

Sound about right to you?  Certainly does to me.

Here’s the piece in full:

Politics Will Be a Worry, but Credit Will Be the Big Risk

Hmm.

From Chris Macintosh via InternationalMan.com:

“Here is what a reasonably objective study from the Geological Survey of Finland concludes on just how much more electricity generation will be required to retire natural gas and coal…

The answer: a stink load!

“But you need batteries to provide power when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing. Here is an indication of just how much materials would be required to produce all these batteries:

TUDOR PLACE: Seriously, what body could be more pristine and planet-friendly than the Geological Survey of Finland? No 21st century nation has built a purer, more efficient, user-friendly society than FINLAND. Not Norway. Not the other three Nordics. So, if Finland has doubts about zero emissions, it’s more than just channeling E.F. Hutton.

We were going to have WORLD PEACE once. The UN would simply talk war away. THAT’S the FANTASY we Boomers were spoon-fed. Today’s BIG HUSTLE is no more carbon. This time, it’s DAVOS via the PARIS ACCORD pitching it.

But if existing “green” technology doesn’t become significantly more productive, there will be millions of disillusioned Greta’s out there.

Spoiler alert: YOU DON’T HAVE TO PICK UP THE THREADS’ ROTATION TO KNOW YOU’VE BEEN THROWN A CURVEBALL.

Key points from a piece by Irina Slav of OilPrice.com.  Though not in quotes they’re all verbatim.  The underscoring’s are mine.

• “Our products make the world run.” This is what Chevron’s chief executive Mike Wirth said at this week’s World Petroleum Congress in Houston. The statement echoed a sentiment expressed by other oil executives attending the event—oil and gas are indispensable and will continue to be indispensable for the observable future and beyond it.
• This is not something that a lot of people want to hear. It is certainly not what environmentalist organizations want to hear. It is certainly not what the Biden administration and the EU want to hear. Yet, it appears to reflect a hard reality.
• The price of electricity is already getting intolerably high in many parts of Europe that were until recently used to affordable and secure energy. This, unless it is tackled urgently, could indeed lead to social unrest—there are few things more flammable than public opinion in the middle of winter amid an energy shortage and the risk of blackouts.
• “Underinvesting in oil and gas before renewables and other low-carbon technologies that are ready to scale up to meet energy demand could create recurrent energy crises of the kind we saw in Asia and Europe over the last few months,” said IHS Markit’s Daniel Yergin in comments on the report. He added that these crises could lead to adverse economic consequences. These, in turn, will in all likelihood spark the social unrest Aramco’s Nasser talked about at the WPC.
• The big energy problem appears to be one of prematurity. The buildup of renewable generation capacity in Europe and the U.S. was accompanied by a premature retirement of fossil fuel generation capacity, leaving countries short of baseload energy when they need it.
• The premature shift to relying on wind and solar is leaving countries vulnerable to the weather and effectively increasing their dependence on fossil fuels. Perhaps the current crunch will teach some important lessons to those willing to learn.

DON’T HIDE FROM THIS, FOLKS — ESPECIALLY WHEN DEALING WITH ELECTED OFFICIALS.  THEY ALL SEEM TO THINK THAT WE’LL SKATE THROUGH UNSCATHED.  THAT’S NOTHING BUT MAGICAL THINKING.

AN ENERGY SHORTAGE COULD LEAD TO COLLAPSE.

What a HOOT this is.  Yet, people are making MILLIONS OFF IT.

Yet, I wonder.  Is the goal to DEMATERIALIZE VALUE?  Will only the ETHEREAL/DIGITAL count?

From the VISUAL CAPITALIST:

And for those who prefer only words:

What are NFTs, and What is Fungibility?

NFTs are non-fungible tokens that have their history of ownership and current ownership cryptographically secured on a blockchain. These tokens can represent anything, whether it’s a piece of digital art in the form of a jpeg or a song as an mp3 file.

By storing transactions of these tokens on a blockchain, we can have digital proof of ownership and markets for these digital goods without the fear of double spending or the tampering of past transactions and ownership.

Figuring out Fungibility

This all sounds pretty similar to cryptocurrencies, so what makes NFTs so special? Their non-fungibility. Unlike cryptocurrencies like bitcoin or ethereum, non-fungible tokens represent goods or assets with unique properties and attributes, allowing them to have unique values even if they are part of the same collection.

Fungible: A good with interchangeable units that are indistinguishable in value. Examples: U.S. dollars, bitcoin, arcade tokens

Non-Fungible: A good with unique properties, giving it a unique value when compared to similar goods. Examples: real estate, paintings, NFTs

What a BALANCING act.  Or is it IM-BALANCING?

Here’s How Reserve Currencies Have Evolved Over 120 Years

The US Dollar which once enjoyed 84.8% dominance is currently at 59%.  But it’s been lower.  So, are we waving goodbye to the dollar any time soon or not?

Just, PLEASE — don’t ask Jerome Powell.

He’s just the FIXER.

This is from Kurt Cobb via OilPrice.com:

Has the EIA Massively Overestimated the Potential of US Shale?

Yes, apparently.

Here are the reasons:

• Highly productive “sweet spots” are a small proportion of what are often depicted as very large plays.
• Worsening geology ultimately trumps technology.
• Wells can only be so close together.
• The rate of technological improvement is slowing.

The piece ends with this:

“The Barnett Shale . . . where ‘fracking’ was developed by [George] Mitchell in the 1990s . . . went through the full cycle—drilling off sweet spots, spreading out to poorer quality areas with decline in new well productivity to uneconomic levels, and a gradual fall in overall play production at terminal decline rates as very few new wells were being drilled.  Production has declined 60 percent since the play peaked in 2011.”

We are now headed into a future “foretold by the Barnett Shale much sooner than the EIA will admit and policymakers and the public realize. We are not ready for that future.”

GET READY TO NOT BE READY.

When will the NOMENCLATURE POLICE realize you DON’T change social conditions simply by changing what you call things.  And if all of these groups are so IDENTITY-PROUD AND ROOTS-CONSCIOUS, why are they CONSTANTLY REIDENTIFYING?

Here’s an opinion piece on this from SEMI-LATINO, Xavier Bonilla, who does NOT see himself as LATINX.

And he’s aimed his remarks at LIBS.

Latinx Democrats Don’t Understand Latinos . . .

And here’s why:

“Democrats need to exercise a sophisticated nuance that understands the various sub-categories in a wide-ranging ethnicity that has a lot of overlap with other members of the working class in America.

“The message here is clear: Democrats don’t understand Latinos because they seem disinterested in the economic challenges of working-class people.”

In other words, CHUCK IDENTITY POLITICS!

This one’s EXCELLENT.

Two smart, ARTICULATE women — one black, one white but both largely liberal — discuss this INTRACTABLE ISSUE.  If you strip out the logic, erudition and wit, what’s left is one’s view of POWER DIFFERENTIALS.

Regardless of what you THINK you believe, it ALWAYS comes down to POWER — specifically, WHO GETS WHAT.  Still, this LIGHT DEBATE is as sound a means of confirming again that AXIOM.

The two women featured — Briahna Joy Gray, hosting HER PODCAST, and Batya Ungar-Sargon, an opinion editor for Newsweek and author of the book, How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy — both play fair with the FACTS.

Ungar-Sargon, a white Jewish populist, is critical — albeit thoughtfully — of all things WOKE, CRT and INTERSECTIONAL.  Briahna, who is black but looks and sounds a lot more white-privileged than most whites, counters that each of these phenomena is in its way DEFENSIBLE.

An example of the kind of honesty you’ll find here is Briahna’s comment that THE NEW YORK TIMES’S CULTURAL LIBERALISM CONCEALS ITS ECONOMIC CONSERVATISM.

I’ll never forget my grandfather MAKING THAT VERY POINT to me as a boy, viz. how the Times was (and still is) a) the HEART AND SOUL OF US CAPITALISM and b) WILL ALWAYS PRESENT ITSELF IN A WAY THAT MAKES BOTH THE CAPITALIST CLASS — ITS SPONSOR — AND THE PAPER ITSELF SEEM BENIGN.

To me, any podcast that triggers a THOUGHT or MEMORIES OF THOUGHT is worth viewing.

As society unravels, the effects are felt in good neighborhoods.  Especially so, when a “beloved black philanthropist” is murdered in her Beverly Hills home.

And let’s not overlook the “cover” criminals get from RACIAL JUSTICE PROTESTS which, turning violent, morph into looting and property destruction sprees.

From Michael Shellenberger via the New York Post:

As Violence Arrives in Rich Neighborhoods . . .

“’I’ve always been anti-gun,’” said Debbie Mizrahie of Beverly Hills. “’But I am right now in the process of getting myself shooting lessons because I now understand that there may be a need for me to know how to defend myself and my family. We’re living in fear.’”

“During Black Lives Matter protests last year, Mizrahie told The Post, her neighbor’s home was firebombed with Molotov cocktails.”

LOOK OUT, JOE BIDEN.  VOTERS WILL GO AFTER YOU FOR THIS.  THE SPECTER OF NIXON IS ABROAD IN THE LAND, RISEN FROM HIS LAW & ORDER GRAVE.

AND, JOE, DON’T FORGET THOSE HARSH CRIME LAWS THAT YOU AND THE REST OF CONGRESS COULDN’T WAIT TO PASS BACK IN THE 90’S.  BEFORE WOKENESS.  REMEMBER?  DAMN, THOSE PENDULUMS ALWAYS SWING BACK!