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Basic Complex Systems for eco-social analysis again

December 25, 2020

This is another go at formulating a list of basic systems which need to be considered for eco-social analysis. For earlier versions see here, here and here.

Introduction

As a guide to the factors involved in eco-social relations we can point to a number of different, but interacting systems. This list is not claiming to be complete, but it can be used as a set of reminders when we try to make analyses of our contemporary situation, and we may be able to make some general statements about how they interact. The order of relative importance of these systems is a matter for investigation, and the order of their presentation, in this blog post, is not a claim about their relative importance.

The seven main systems, discussed here, are

Political;
Economic (extraction);
Energy;
Waste, pollution and dispersal;
Information;
Technological;
Planetary Boundaries (geography) :

All these systems are complex systems, and it is generally impossible to predict their specific course. They are also prone to rapid change, gradual instability, and the ‘seeking’ of equilibrium.

Political System

The political system, includes:

the modes of struggle encouraged, discouraged, enabled or disabled,
the patterns and divisions (the ‘factioning’) within the State and wider society,
the differing effects of different bases of power: such as monetary power, communication power, power through violence or threat, hierarchical power, religious and cosmological power (the power to delimit the official views of the way that the cosmos works), organisational power, etc.,
who gets into positions of power and how, and so on,

Politics can affect all the other human systems. What activities (extraction, energy use, organisation etc.) are encouraged or discouraged, the kinds of regulation that apply, what counts as pollution or risk, what information is easily available, and who is to be trusted, and so on.

Political systems can forcibly ignore pollution or the consequences of energy production, economic extraction, the wage system, and so on, effectively rendering them part of a general unconscious, which eventually ‘bites back’.

Economic System

Most of the dominant economic systems currently in action can be described loosely as ‘capitalist’. The economic system involves modes of appropriation, extraction, property, commodification, exchange, circulation of ‘products’, technological systems, energy use, as well as accumulation of social power and wealth and so on. Most of which depend upon the State for their existence and reinforcement, although they may also challenge organisation and politics within the State. There is no inherent stability in current economic systems.

In many sociological theories the patterns of economic organisation and behaviour are known as the ‘infrastructure’ and are held to be determinate of most other social behaviours, primarily because the economic system seems the most obvious determinate of what people have to do in order to survive.

This organisation may have apparently unintended consequences, such as producing periodic crashes, or destroying the ecological base of the economy, and therefore threatening that organisation. They also may have quite expectable consequences, which are downplayed. In capitalism, political and economic patternings tend to be describable as ‘plutocratic’; as wealth allows the purchase of all other forms of power. However, different factions in the State can ally with different or competing factions in the economic system. For example, different government departments or political factions can support different types of energy: fossil fuels, renewables, or nuclear. The political system legitimates and enforces, allowable modes of extraction, property and pollution, and regulates economic behaviour among different social groups. Economics always involves political as well as economic struggle; politics is part of ‘the market’. ‘Crony Capitalism’ is normal capitalism.

Extraction

The Extraction system is part of the economic system, but it might be useful to separate it out from the economic system because extraction is one of the prime ways in which economies interact with ecologies and because different kinds of economies can use similar extraction systems. Extraction not only involves extraction of what gets defined as ‘resources’ (minerals, naturally occurring substances such as oil, coal or timber, and so on) but also the ways that human food gets extracted for consumption, via agriculture, gathering, hunting, industrial fishing, and so on. Ecologies are not passive, and they respond to human or other actions in ways which are often unpredictable in specific, but still disruptive. Ecologies seem to need attention, for survival to be possible in the long term.

Extraction in capitalist and developmentalist societies, often seems harmful to the functioning of ecologies, perhaps because of the need for continual growth, and thus a need for increasing extraction. Clearly, not all forms of extraction need to be destructive of the ecologies and geographies they depend upon. Extraction systems can allow the ecologies to repair after extraction, or attempt to rehabilitate the land. However, repair of ecologies can be considered an expense leading to reduction of profit, and hence is not attractive in a profit emphasising system.

As such, we can distinguish recoverable extraction, in which the ecologies and economies repair the damage from extraction, from irrecoverable extraction in which the ecologies and economies do not repair the damage from extraction within a useful time frame.

The Global Footprint network, suggests that:

Today humanity uses the equivalent of 1.6 Earths to provide the resources we use and absorb our waste. This means it now takes the Earth one year and eight months to regenerate what we use in a year.
Global Footprint network. Ecological Footprint

If this is correct, then the current extraction and pollution systems are generally irrecoverable, and deleterious for human and planetary survival. Investigating the differences between harmful and less harmful modes of extraction may well produce useful insights.

Economies are not the only possible harmful extractive systems – cosmologies can also require irrecoverable extractive behaviour to build temples, or to show the ‘other-worldly’ specialness of humans, and so on.

Energy System

All life and its resulting ecologies involve transformation of energy. These transformations stretch from transformation of sunlight by plants, the digestion of plants, to thermal gradients in the deep sea, to atomic power. Eco-systems require a system of energy release, energy generation and energy transformation.

Transformation of energy, together with effective ecological functioning, is necessary for any human actions to occur. The human energy system powers all other human systems. Because food is necessary for human labour, cultivation of food can be considered to be part of the energy system. The energy system and its ‘infrastructure’, could seem to be as important as the economic infrastructure.

The human energy system is organised, at least in part, by the political and economic systems, and by the environmental systems available. The environmental system includes possible energy sources from plant material, animal strength and docility, fossil fuels, sunlight, wind and moving water. Human labour, and its organisation, is (and has been) part of the energy system, and while not yet, if ever, superseded completely, can be supplemented and possibly overpowered by technological sources of energy. Coal and oil power, for example, provide masses amounts more directed energy than can human labour, and this ability is important to understanding the patterning and possibilities of the economic and extraction system, and its relationship to colonial/imperial history. Modern military expansion and colonialism, largely depends on this ability to apply large amounts of energy to weaponry, movement and organisation.

Important parts of the energy system include the amounts of energy generally available for use, and the capacity for energy to be directed and applied. Non-directable energy is often wasted energy (entropy), and usually unavailable for constructive use.

Another vital point is that human production of, or using of, energy takes energy. No energy is entirely free.

The availability of energy is influenced by the Energy Return on Energy Input (EREI) or ‘Energy Return on Energy Investment’. The larger amount of units of energy applied to gain a unit of humanly directable energy output, the less excess energy is available.

Fossil fuels have historically had a very high EREI, but it is possible that this is declining otherwise nobody would be tempted by fracking, coal seam gas, tar sands, or deep sea drilling. All of which require large amounts of energy to begin with, have very high risks of extractive destruction, and fairly low profit margins when compared to the dangers.

Renewables and storage currently have a high energy cost to manufacture (and possibly a high extractive cost as well) but for most renewables, after they are installed, the EREI changes, as very little labour, or energy expenditure, is required to gain an energy output – it is more or less free – whereas fossil fuel energy generation requires continual energy use to find and process new fossil fuels and keep the power stations turning, and produce continual pollution from burning.

Social power and economics may affect the ways that energy is distributed, what uses are considered legitimate and so on. However, the energy system also influences what can be done in other systems, and in the costs (social, aesthetic, ecological or monetary) which influence choices about the constituents of energy systems The system’s pollution products, which may be significant factors in producing climate and ecological change, may eventually limit what can be done.

As the energy system determines what energy is available for use, it is not an unreasonable assumption that social power and organisation will be partly built around the energy system, and that changes in energy systems will change energy availability, what can be done or who can do it, and thus threaten established social orders. Threats to established orders will be resisted. If an energy transition does go ahead, it is likely that the established orders will try and preserve the patterns, of organisation, wealth and social power which have grown up under the old system.

One important question is ‘how do we transform the energy system without continuing a damaging extraction and pollution system?’

Waste, Pollution and Dispersal systems

Transformation of materials through energy use, or through energy production, produces ‘waste’. The simplest human society imaginable (and this is an overt simplification), turns edible material into energy and human excreta, which in this case can usually be processed by the ecology – although, even then, dumping excreta into rivers may not help those downstream.

Understanding the Waste, Pollution and Dispersal systems is also vital to understanding possible energy and economic transformations.

In this book we will define ‘Waste‘ as material which can be re-processed, or recycled, by the economy or eco-system, and ‘Pollution‘ as material which is not re-processable within an arbitrary useful time frame, say over hundreds of years or more. ‘Dispersal’ occurs when some essential material is dispersed into the system, and becomes largely unavailable for reuse without ‘uneconomic’ expenditures of finance or energy – as occurs with helium and phosphorus.

When too much waste for the systems to re-process is emitted, then waste becomes pollution. This is what has happened with CO₂. CO₂ is normally harmless, even required for the system to work, but too much CO₂ changes the ways eco and climate systems work. CO₂ has also been dispersed into the atmosphere which makes CO₂ extraction, which is stated to be essential by the IPCC and IEA for climate stability, difficult and costly in terms of energy expenditure.

These concepts, along with ‘extraction’, directly import the ecosystem into the economy, while pointing out that what counts as allowable waste, pollution or dispersal can change, economically, politically, scientifically and ‘practically’.

Waste, pollution and dispersal from the energy system and from modes of extraction, enter into the political system because that system decides and regulates what can be emitted, and where, and who is too valuable to be poisoned by the pollution. The political makes the laws allowing, diminishing or preventing, pollution. Often localisable pollution is dumped in ‘wasted’ zones or on poorer, less noticeable and less powerful people.

Energy and extraction may not the only significant sources of pollution, and other sources of pollution need to be curtailed, or turned into sources of waste.

Information about pollution from the fossil fuel energy system and from the extraction systems, provide a major driver for energy transformation, partly because this issue seems ‘economically’ politically and energetically solvable, while other sources of pollution seem more difficult to deal with.

However, even facing the problem, provokes a likely politicisation of the information system. How would people, in general, become aware of pollution and who primarily suffers from its effects, especially when it threatens established systems of power?

Information System

What people become aware of, what can be understood or done depends on the Information System. This system determines what feedback is available to conscious humans, about what is happening in general. The information system, in theory, could allow humans to recognise eco-feedback in response to systems such as waste and pollution, or extraction. Information is vital to social functioning, and part of social functioning. Accurate information is even more useful.

Unfortunately, information about complex systems, such as societies or ecologies, is almost always limited and inadequate. Some information may tend to be symbolised rather than literal, because of the difficulties of representing the information in a literal form (these difficulties can be political as much as in terms of human capacity).

Information systems can also hide, or distort, ecological feedback, because of flaws in their design, or because powerful people do not want it to bring the problems to general attention. This adds to confusion, and to the possibilities, that the information system primarily reflects human psychological projection, fantasy and shadow politics.

The political and economic systems also directly impact on the information systems, as politics often centres on propagation of politically or economically favourable information and the inhibition of politically unfavourable or economically information. Economic power, ownership and control of sources of information can also influence what information is collected, processed and made widely available.

Information is not so much ‘received’ as interpreted, so Cosmologies and politics which provide a framework for interpretation, play a big part in how the information is interpreted and, then, what kind of information is transmitted.

Government, Religious, Economic, or military (etc) regulation can be a further important part of both the information and political systems, sometimes affecting what is likely to be transmitted. Information systems, in turn, indicate the availability or coherence of regulation and the understanding of problems and predicaments. Regulation is based on information selection as well as political allegiance, and regulations can be opaque, or hidden, as well as easily decodable. For example, until recently it seemed very difficult to find out what the NSW governments regulations for Renewable Energy Zones, meant in terms of business, building, or connection to the wider system.

The information system does not have to be coherent, thus we can be both informed and disinformed of the progress of climate change and energy transformation by the system. Certain groups are more likely to be informed than others, even though everyone tends to frame themselves as being well informed – especially in an ‘information society’ when being well informed is a matter of status. Information does not have to be accurate to have an effect, it is also part of socially constructed propaganda – as we can see with climate and covid denial, and this can influence political process, victories and inaction.

In summary, most information distortion comes from: economic functions such as business hype, secrecy and deception; from organisational functions such as hierarchy, silo-isation, lack of connection and channels; from politics where information is distorted for strategic advantage; and from the complexity of the systems that the information tries to describe and the inadequacy of the language or approach being used.

Technological Systems

Technological systems enable the kind of energy use, direction and availability, a society can have, the kinds of extraction it can engage in, the range at which political and economic systems can have an effect, the modes of transmission of information, and the types of waste pollution and dispersion which are likely to happen. Technologies also necessarily use properties of the environment and ecologies around them in order to work, and thus interact with those environments and again cause unintended consequences.

People use technology to extend their power over others, extend their capacity, escape regulation, or render previous technologies less dominant, and hence technologies tend to be caught in struggles between groups, thus provoking unintended social consequences.

We could hypothesise that technologies, as used under capitalism (and perhaps elsewhere), tend to extract people out of their environment, and break the intimacy between humans and ecology, or shift human perception onto the technology rather than the world, therefore making it easier to regularly engage in processes of destruction.

In the contemporary world, technologies become objects of fantasy, and metaphors by which we think about the cosmos in general. For example the clockwork universe is now almost replaced by the information processing universe.

Planetary systems and boundaries

Finally we have planetary boundaries. The planetary boundaries are ways of conceiving the limits and constitution of ecosystems, and are, as such, fairly abstract. These boundaries represent systems necessary for human and planetary functioning.

They do not necessarily form the one system, and can be separated out for purposes of analysis. They act as guidelines, and probable reactive limits which are essential for the consideration of ‘eco-social’ relations, and the likely long term success of those relations. Measuring the boundaries may have a wide margin of error, as due to the complexity of these systems and their interactions. We will not know for sure when they will collapse until they do, and once they start collapsing they will affect the resilience of other boundaries. So the known limits on the boundaries will change as we take more notice of them, and keep challenging them.

Exceeding the boundaries almost certainly leads to the rundown, or breakdown, of ecological functioning, and this breakdown then adds difficulties to maintaining other systems. If they are maintained ‘artificially’ then this requires extra energy expenditure, and may have further consequences. Kate Raworth’s ‘donut economics’ presents a quick and easy way of conceiving functional economies in terms of ecological boundaries and human betterment [1], [2], [3].

Any global system which does not preserve or reinforce planetary systems will probably give impetus to global ecological collapse.

The systems are usually listed as involving: climatic stability, biospheric integrity (distribution and interaction between lifeforms, balance between species, rates of extinction etc), water flows and cycles (availability of drinkable, non-poisonous water, and water for general ecological functioning), biochemical flows (phosphorus and nitrogen cycles, dispersal of valuable materials which literally form the ‘metabolic rift’, etc), ocean acidity or alkalinity (which affects the life of coral reefs, plankton and so on), levels of particulates or micro-particulates (which poison life forms), ozone levels, and the introduction of novel entities into the global ecology and their unknown systemic consequences (new chemicals, plastics, microplastics etc.). [4]

It is the functioning and disruption of these boundary systems which make processes of pollution and extraction problematic. Thus they impact directly on society, and appear to limit the kinds of economic growth, extraction, energy and technological systems that can be deployed safely.

Capitalism and developmentalism tend to recognise boundaries only to ignore them, and claim that ingenuity and willpower, will overcome those boundaries forever without limit.

Geographic Systems

Then we have Geographic systems as a subset of planetary boundaries. Geography affects the layout of energy systems, the potential reach of political and economic systems, the ‘natural’ flow of air and water, changes in temperature, the availability of sunlight, and the kinds of extractions which are ‘economic’ or economic in the short term, but deleterious in the long term. Geography is relational, giving layout in space between spaces and constructions. Geography shapes and is shaped by politics, social activity, economics, pollution and so on.

Mountain ranges, forests, plains etc may affect the layout of Renewable Energy, or the RE may affect the land, if trees are felled, fields converted etc. Wind may be severe, putting a limit on size of turbines, or the angles of solar panels. Winter darkness, or heavy seasonal rain can affect the possibilities of solar power.

Geography constitutes the human sense of home, and transformation of geography or relations of geography can produce a sense of ‘unhoming’, or dislocation in place and in the future of place.

Conclusion and Provisional Advice

Recognition of the interactions of these systems, with their differing but interacting imperatives, seems vital to getting a whole and accurate picture of the problems and opportunities presented by energy transition.

All the systems that have been discussed here, are complex systems. They are composed of ‘nodes’ which modify themselves or change their responses in response to changes in the ‘system as a whole.’ The systems are unpredictable in specific. The further into the future that we imagine, the less likely our predictions are to be specifically accurate. We can, for example, predict that weather will get more tumultuous in general as we keep destroying the ecology, but we cannot predict the exact weather at any distance. Complex systems produce surprise and actions often have unexpected consequences. If we seek to apply a policy, we cannot expect it to work exactly as we think it should. For example, the political move to make ‘markets,’ the most important institution, did not deliver either efficiency or liberty, as was expected, almost the opposite in fact. In all cases of actions within complex systems we should seek for unintended consequences. Sometimes the only realistic way to approach unintended consequences is to realise that our theory could not predict those events, and without looking we might never even have seen the events, or realised their connection to what we did. Working in complex systems, all politics becomes experimental.

While complex systems adapt or seek balance, they do not have to arrive at the best conditions for human beings. From a human point of view, they can be maladaptive. For example, a social system can be maladaptive and destructive of our means of living. The ecology could arrive at a balance within which many humans could not live.

People involved in promoting Energy Transformation have to deal with the various complex systems we have discussed above. The complexity does not mean we cannot make any predictions, although we need to treat them cautiously.

People engaged in transition have to consider the effects of the political systems involved, and be aware that politics influences what is likely to be possible. A transition may be delayed by political action, and political patterning, no matter how sensible or affordable the transition is.
The Economic system will be entangled in the political system, and those who dominate the economic system will have disproportionate input into the political system, and this can cause problems. This recognition reinstates the economic process as both a political and a business process.
A transition has to fit in with existing economic patterns, or its supporters may have to be prepared to change those patterns.
Patterns of extraction, pollution and dispersal have to be less harmful than previous patterns or the harm will be continued, even if in a different manner.
Changing the energy system is a political problem, and may require a change in the economic system as well as in power relations.
We need to have the available energy to build the transformed system. As we are supposedly aiming to replace the existing harmful system without lowering the energy availability, this may prove difficult. Where does the energy come from to build the new system if not from the old? And we need to demolish the old system, because of its dangers.
We need to avoid using renewables to simply add to energy availability, without reducing energy from fossil fuels.
The new system and the path of transformation, has to reduce pollution and extraction damage, or ecological and climate crises will continue, and planetary boundaries will be given no chance to recover. A transition plan which does not consider this problem is probably futile.
Considering these problems may lead to conclusions about the necessity of some kind of degrowth.
Transition plans should consider diminishing the dispersal of rare and valuable materials. More of what is currently pollution and dispersal has to be transformed to waste, in amounts the systems can process.
The current information system does not seem to be functioning in favour of the transition. It seems highly politicised and does not report ecological feedback accurately, either denying crisis, or delaying the supposed arrival of crisis.
Our current information system is largely owned and controlled by the neoliberal fossil fuel based establishment, which is defending its power, wealth and ways of living in the world. Without an independent information system, it will be impossible to win the political struggle. At the same time accurate information will be attacked and dismissed as political.
Likewise, many people will see accurate information as political, because it potentially disrupts their way of living, or because of interpretation and projection issues.
At the least, people engaged in energy transformation have to be aware of the nature of complex systems and the normal arising of unintended and unexpected consequences. We need an information system that allows us to perceive such consequences, without attacking the transformation as a whole.
Geography will affect the layout and possibilities of the transition. Renewables appear to require far more land than fossil fuels per unit of energy although fracking and coal seam gas seem to require similar amounts of land and do far more permanent damage to that land.
Renewables should probably never be installed through deforestation.
Renewables should not monopolise agricultural land. They should co-exist with previous land use, or help rehabilitate the land.
We should note the capacity of any new form of energy generation, or large scale technology, to ‘unhome’ people. Fossil fuels are especially bad at this, and often also poisonous, but the information systems tend to find this easier to ignore.
The energy transformation should aim to avoid disrupting the planetary boundary systems as much as possible. They should be installed with the longer term target of restoring those systems.
Pointing to the range of boundaries will possibly remind people that climate change is not the only problem we face, and it should be clear that no energy, or social, system is going to survive if it violates these boundaries in the long term.

Tags:complexity, Disinformation, ecology, economics, Energy, politics
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Basic Systems for eco-social analysis

September 2, 2020

This is another go at formulating a list of basic systems which need to be considered for eco-social analysis. For earlier versions see here and here.

As a guide to the factors involved in the socio-ecological dialectic we can point to a number of different, but interacting systems. We can use this list as a set of reminders for analysis and we can make general statements about how they interact. The order of importance of these systems is a matter for investigation.

The main systems are as follows:

Political System

The political system, includes the modes of struggle encouraged, enabled or disabled, the structure and divisions (factioning) of the State, the differing effects of different bases of power (monetary, communication, violence, hierarchy, religion etc), who gets into positions of power and how, and so on.

Economic System

The economic system can presently be described as ‘capitalist’. The economic system involves modes of appropriation, extraction, property, commodification, exchange, circulation of ‘products’, and accumulation of social power and wealth and so on.

In capitalism, political patternings tend to be describable as ‘plutocratic’, although different factions in the State can ally with different or competing factions in the economic system. For example, different government departments or political factions can support fossil fuels, renewables, or nuclear. The political system legitimates and enforces, allowable modes of extraction, property, pollution and regulates economic behaviour among different social groups. Economics always involves political as well as economic struggle.

The Extraction system is part of the economic system, but it might be useful to separate it out from the economic system because extraction is one of the prime ways in which economies interact with ecologies and because different kinds of economies can use similar extraction systems. Extraction not only involves extraction of what gets defined as ‘resources’ (minerals, naturally occurring substances such as oil or coal, and so on) but also the ways that human food gets extracted for consumption, via agriculture, gathering, hunting and so on. Clearly not all forms of extraction need to be destructive of the ecologies and geographies they depend upon, and investigating the differences may well produce useful insights.

Energy System

The energy system powers the economic system and is organised, at least in part, by the political and economic systems. Human labour is part of the energy system, and while not yet, if ever, superseded completely, can be supplemented and possibly dominated by technological sources of energy. Coal and oil power provides masses amounts more of directed energy than human labour, and this is important to understanding the patterning and possibilities of the economic and extraction system, and its relationship to colonial/imperial history.

Important parts of the energy system include the amounts of energy available for use, and the capacity for energy to be directed. Non-directable energy is wasted energy (entropy), and usually unavailable for constructive use.

The availability of energy is influenced by the energy return on energy input. The greater the amounts of energy applied to gain a humanly directable energy output, the less energy is available. Because food is necessary for human labour, cultivation of food can be considered to be part of the energy system.

Social power and economics may affect the ways that energy is distributed, what uses are considered legitimate and so on. However, the energy system also influences what can be done in both other systems, and the costs (social, aesthetic, ecological or monetary) which influence choices about the constituents of energy systems The system’s pollution products which are significant factors in producing climate and ecological change, will also limit what can be done.

As the energy system determines what energy is available for use, it is not an unreasonable assumption that social power and organisation will be partly built around the energy system and that changes in energy systems will change what can be done, and thus threaten established social orders and be resisted. If an energy transition goes ahead, it is likely that the established orders will try and preserve the patterns, of organisation, wealth and social power which have grown up under the old system.

Waste, Pollution and Dispersal systems

Understanding the Waste, Pollution and Dispersal systems is vital to understanding current energy transformations. We can define waste as “material which is re-processable by the economy or eco-system”, and pollution as not being so re-processable. ‘Dispersal’ is where some essential material is dispersed into the system, and becomes largely unavailable for reuse without ‘uneconomic’ expenditures of finance or energy – as occurs with helium and phosphorus. These concepts directly import the ecosystem into the economy, while pointing out that what counts as allowable waste, pollution or dispersal can change, economically, politically and ‘practically’.

When too much waste for the systems to re-process is issued, then waste becomes pollution. This is what has happened with CO₂. CO₂ is also dispersed in the atmosphere which makes CO₂ extraction, as recommended as essential by the IPCC and IEA, difficult and costly in terms of energy.

However, energy is not the only significant source of pollution, and if we are to discuss transition this has to be remembered.

Information about pollution from the energy system and the extraction system, provides a major driver for energy transformation, partly because this issue seems ‘economically’ politically and energetically solvable, while other sources of pollution seem less easy to deal with. This involves a likely politicisation of the information system. How would people, in general, become aware of pollution and who it is that primarily suffers from its effects?

Information System

What people become aware of, what can be understood or done depends on the Information System. This determines what feedback is available about what is happening in general, but also the information which allows people to act politically, economically, in response to the actions and reactions of the ecological system to other systems such as waste and pollution, or extraction.

Regulation is an important part of both the information and political systems. Information systems indicate the availability or coherence of regulation of energy and extraction, and the understanding of problems and predicaments. Regulation is based on information selection as well as political allegiance, and regulations can be opaque as well as easily decodable.

The political and economic systems also directly impact on the information systems, as politics often centres on propagation of politically favourable information and the inhibition of politically unfavourable information. Economic ownership and control of sources of information also impacts upon the information available. Economic power may also influence what information is collected and processed.

The information system does not have to be coherent, thus we can be both informed and disinformed of the progress of climate change by the system. Certain groups being more likely to be informed than others, even though everyone tends to frame themselves as being well informed. Information does not have to be accurate to have an effect, it is also part of socially constructed propaganda – as we can see with climate and covid denial, and this can influence political process, victories and inaction.

Geographic Systems

Then we have Geographic systems. Geography affects the layout of energy systems, the potential reach of political and economic systems, the ‘natural’ flow of air and water, changes in temperature, the availability of sunlight, and the kinds of extractions which are ‘economic’ or economic in the short term, but deleterious in the long term. Geography is relational, giving layout in space between spaces and constructions. Geography shapes and is shaped by politics, social activity, economics, pollution and so on. Geography constitutes the human sense of home, and transformation of geography or relations of geography can produce a sense of ‘unhoming’, or dislocation in place and in the future of place.

Planetary systems and boundaries

They do not necessarily form the one system, and could be separated out for purposes of analysis. They act as guidelines, and probable reactive limits which are essential for the consideration of ‘eco-social’ relations, and the likely long term success of those relations.

These planetary boundaries appear to be either under significant pressure, or breaking down. Any global system which does not preserve or reinforce planetary systems will probably give impetus to global ecological collapse.

The systems are usually listed as involving: climatic stability, biospheric integrity (balance between species, rates of extinction etc), water cycles (availability of drinkable, non-poisonous water), biochemical flows (phosphorus and nitrogen cycles, dispersal of valuable materials, which literally form the metabolic rift, etc), ocean acidity or alkalinity, levels of particulates or micro-particulates, ozone levels, and the introduction of novel entities into the global ecology and their unknown systemic consequences (new chemicals, microplastics etc.). It is the functioning and disruption of these systems which make processes of pollution and extraction problematic. Thus the impact directly on society.

Conclusion and Advice

All the systems that have been discussed here, are complex systems. They are composed of ‘nodes’ which modify themselves or change their responses in response to changes in the ‘system as a whole.’ The systems are unpredictable in specific. The further into the future that we imagine, the less likely our predictions are to be specifically accurate. We can, for example, predict that weather will get more tumultuous in general as we keep destroying the ecology, but we cannot predict the exact weather at any distance. Complex systems produce surprise and actions often have unexpected consequences. If we seek to apply a policy, we cannot expect it to work exactly as we think it should. For example, the political move to make ‘markets,’ the most important institution, did not deliver either efficiency or liberty, as was expected. In all cases of actions within complex systems we should seek for unintended consequences. Sometimes the only realistic way to approach unintended consequences is to realise that our theory could not predict those events, and without looking we might never even have seen the events, or realised their connection to what we did. Working in such systems, all politics becomes experimental.

Complex systems do not have to be seek the best conditions for human beings. From a human point of view, they can be maladaptive. For example, our social system can be maladative and destructive of our means of living.

People engaged in transition have to consider the effects of the political systems involved, and be aware that politics influences what is likely to be possible. A transition may be delayed by political action, and political patterning, no matter how sensible or affordable the transition is.
A transition has to fit in with economic patterns or its supporters have to be prepared to change those patterns. It may help or hinder the process if patterns of extraction, property and control are not changed. This reinstates the economic process as both a political and business process. Patterns of extraction also have to be less harmful than previous patterns or the harm will be continued, even if in a different manner.
We have to have the available energy to build the transformed system. As we are supposedly aiming to replace the existing harmful system without lowering the energy availability, this may prove difficult. Where does the energy to build the new system come from if not from the old? We also need to avoid using renewables to simply add to energy availability, without reducing energy from fossil fuels. Considering these problems may lead to conclusions about the necessity of degrowth, in the same way as slowing down the damage from extraction may do. Changing the energy system is a political problem, and may require a change in the economic system as well as in power relations.
The new system and the path of transformation, has to reduce pollution and extraction damage, or ecological and climate crises will continue, and planetary boundaries will be given no chance to recover. A transition plan which does not consider this problem is probably futile. Likewise a transition plan should consider diminishing the dispersal of rare and valuable materials. More of what is currently pollution and dispersal has to be transformed to waste, in amounts the systems can process.
The current information system does not seem to be functioning in favour of the transition. It seems highly politicised and does not report ecological feedback accurately, either denying crisis, or delaying the supposed arrival of crisis. Our current information system is largely owned and controlled by the neoliberal fossil fuel based establishment, which is defending its power, wealth and ways of living in the world. Without an independent information system, it will be impossible to win the political struggle. At the same time accurate information will be attacked and dismissed as political. At the least, people engaged in energy transformation have to be aware of the nature of complex systems and the normal arising of unintended and unexpected consequences. We need an information system that allows us to perceive such consequences, without attacking the transformation as a whole.
Geography will affect the layout and possibilities of the transition. Renewables appear to require far more land than fossil fuels per unit of energy although fracking and coal seam gas seem to require similar amounts of land and do far more permanent damage to that land. The capacity of renewables to take up agricultural land has to be factored in, as does the capacity of any new form of energy generation to ‘unhome’ people – especially fossil fuels which are also poisonous.
Finally, the transformation should aim to avoid disrupting the planetary boundary systems as much as possible, with the longer term targets of restoring those systems. Pointing to the range of boundaries will possibly remind people that climate change is not the only problem we face, and it should be clear that no energy, or social, system is going to survive if it violates these boundaries in the long term.

Tags:ecology, economics, Energy
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More considerations on decarbonisation

August 3, 2020

What I’m trying to do, however badly, in the previous comments is to figure out what are some of the more important eco-social systems in play in decarbonisation, and the ways they interact. It is impossible to specify all such factors in advance, so these are limited, and could be discarded. The main point is to avoid reduction of reality to the two blocks of ‘society’ and ‘ecology’ although I’m limited in my ability to do this because of lack of ecological knowledge.

When I use the term ‘eco-social systems’ I’m deliberately placing ecologies first. Humans do not exist without ecologies, while ecologies can and have existed without humans.

The eco-social systems selected out here, are:

Energy,
Waste/pollution
Extraction
Information
Planetary boundaries, and the limits of ecological functioning or resilience.

Energy system

This is obviously based in eco-physical functioning. The ecosystem itself can be considered to be a system of energy release/generation and transformation.

I’m suggesting Labour is part of the directed energy system, but no longer should count as the major and only significant part of that system, as in Marxism or classical economics for example, due to the bulk of directed energy coming from other than human sources.

It is useful to explore the dynamics of the limits and stresses of the energy system, and its transformation. For example, we have the possibility that renewables could simply become an addition to the continued use of fossil fuels, unless we have a specific programme to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The Waste/pollution system

I think it is useful to specify a conceptual difference between ‘waste’ and ‘pollution’ (waste is re-processable by the economy or eco-system, and pollution is not), because the ecological feedbacks, and eco-social consequences are different. It suggests how eco-social activity can overpower ecological resilience even through such apparently harmless action as the production of CO₂ – the CO₂ waste becomes pollution after it passes certain levels, and the more the ecology is destroyed the more waste becomes pollution.

I also hope naming this system reminds people that the manufacture and distribution of renewables may produce pollution. We need to cut this pollution down, but it seems that renewables are relatively non polluting after installation (before decommission), unlike fossil fuel energy, which only functions through continuing pollution. However, waste and pollution are not removed from the system.

If renewable energy, after the initial costs, is almost free, until the installation reaches the ‘waste/pollution’ stage, that has a large disruptive capacity in itself.

The Extraction System

The eco-social extraction system can damage itself, through ecological ‘revenge’ effects and feedback. There is obviously nothing unusual about asserting this, although it does not seem to be recognised in orthodox pro-capitalist economics.

The damage does not have to be gradual or linear. It can be abrupt and excessive as systems breakdown.

Extraction systems do not have to be harmful – they can pay attention to ecological information, and moderate themselves as needed. However, largely, unconstrained extraction/destruction, pollution, and expansion (or what is usually called ‘growth’) have historically been part of both capitalism and developmentalism, and are the main factors which seem to produce the current eco-crisis. Capitalism and Developmentalism also tend to suppress, downplay, or ignore information about ecology. We can also note that pro-corporate neoliberals tend to remove limits on extraction, pollution and expansion, as soon as they can.

Given this, we can raise the question of ‘how we can transform the energy system without continuing a damaging extraction system?’

If economic growth is linked to increasing extractive destruction, then either growth has to go, or we need to find new ways of extraction. This may cause ‘climate justice’ issues if growth remains our main solution for poverty.

The Information system

This is how humans generally recognise eco-feedback. However, the information system can be distorted by organisational, economic and political processes.

It seems useful to have some idea of how this distortion occurs, and where it is dangerous, and maybe how to diminish it .

Planetary Boundaries and the limits of eco-social resilience.

This is pretty crude but, that is because of a lack of ecological knowledge. However, it does place constraints within the model.

Firstly we need to consider the physical layout, geography, climate, and spatial configuration of a place. This can effect the possibilities of the renewable energy being used, and the way it is deployed. Changing the environment can produce the experience of people being ‘unhomed’. Land not only shapes human activities but is shaped by them. Possible uses of land depend on political struggle and sometimes violent displacement of those originally occupying the land.

As well as this the world’s systems are effected by what people call planetary boundaries, which are themselves systems. The formal planetary boundaries and the eco-social systems which encapsulate them are:

Climate stability,
Biospheric integrity (balance between species, rates of extinction etc),
Water cycles,
Biochemical flows (phosphorus and nitrogen cycles etc),
Ocean ph (acidity or alkalinity),
Particulate levels,
Ozone depletion, and
Novel entities (new chemicals, microplastics etc.).

We can think of these as essential planetary geo-bio cycles – they are necessary to human functioning, and to the functioning of the planet. They can be broken, and appear to be being broken at this moment. Adjustment will eventually happen, but there is no reason to think that this adjustment will automatically be friendly to current human societies, or even to humans themselves.

It seems that capitalism and developmentalism, both seek to avoid limits, and claim they can transcend those limits, usually though innovation and new technology. But this is likely to be a fantasy. Going by the evidence so far, it is a fantasy – however consoling it might be.

Even if we have massive unexpected technical innovation in the next twenty years (say, fusion power), then it still may be too late, and we still have to stop pollution and ecological damage from other sources.

It almost certainly will not hurt more to stop breaking the geo-bio cycles, than it will hurt to continue breaking them.

Further comments

All of the above systems are obviously interconnected, but specifying them out, might help us factor them all in to our analysis, all the time.

I didn’t particularly bother about the class system and its political dynamics (plutocracy) at this time, because I figure I’m unlikely to forget that, but it affects all of the above. Likewise the political system and its patterns affect all of the above.

Politics can affect the energy system. People can encourage and hinder certain forms of energy. They can forcibly ignore the consequences of energy production and so on.

Politics can affect the waste/pollution system such as the kinds of pollutions accepted or banned. Who is allowed to pollute. Where the pollution is dumped. What kind of penalties apply, and so on.

Politics affects extraction. Who can do the extraction. What kind of royalties are paid. What kind of property is made. What kind of limits to extraction exist. What local benefits arise.

Politics affects what kinds information are promulgated. The kinds of truth standards to are applied. The modes of distribution of information. The suppression of information and so on. What kinds of people who are ‘trusted’ with respect to information. The kind of information is accepted by different groups?

In later blogs I’m planning to try and incorporate the property/accumulation system, and the class/plutocracy/group-categorisation systems into the analysis.

Decarbonisation

Decarbonisation seems obviously affected by all of these factors:

How do we generate the energy to decarbonise, without disrupting ecologies, through waste/pollution and extraction processes? How do we decarbonise without harmful growth?

How do the information systems work to recognise, or not recognise, what is happening? how do they play out through the political and economic processes? Is it possible to improve them?

How do ecological limits affect decarbonisation pathways when they are not in good shape. We face doing decarbonisation in an era of compounding eco-social crises, which increases energy expenditure as people attempt to control them. This adds to the difficulties of decarbonisation.

To reiterate: we cannot successfully decarbonise, without generating enough energy to decarbonise. It also seems we must generate this energy at the same time as cutting pollution, ending extractive destruction, ending growth, refining information, and protecting ecological resilience, etc.

Conclusion

If there are any points that I would really like people to take from any of this it is that:

It takes energy to ‘release’ energy – and usually leads to waste or pollution somewhere in the cycle. Pollution must be minimised to keep geo-bio cycles functional.
In this sense, no energy is completely free.
If it takes more energy for humans to make energy than energy is released then, over the long term, the human system will collapse.
Human action is limited by available energy. It is also limited by the amount of destruction, and damage to the geo-bio cycles produced by the energy system.
The Information System and its confusions, is not an addenda to the other systems, it is vital to any analysis.
Human energy, extraction, waste/pollution, information and other systems, interact with planetary geo-bio-cycles or planetary boundaries, and if the human systems disrupt those geo-bio cycles, they will be limited and disrupted in turn – probably violently.

Tags:ecology, economics, Energy, politics, renewable energy, Social change
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Considerations on decarbonisation processes

August 2, 2020

Basics

Social life only exists because of ecological processes, and is shaped by those processes.

All economies (modes of production, distribution and consumption) involve systems of energy, waste, extraction, information and ecological limits. [They almost certainly involve systems of accumulation/property, class/plutocracy and regulation/politics, but I’ll leave those out for another blog]

These other systems are not necessarily subsumed or determined by economies.

If an economic theory ignores the interactions between energy, ecology, waste, information, social organisation and conflict, it is more or less pointless.

It can be helpful to think of eco-social relations in terms of flow or flux, of patterns rather than structures, or of disruption rather than stability, or as guidable but not controllable .

Ecologies and eco-social relations are inevitably what we call ‘complex systems’. Their trajectory cannot be predicted with complete accuracy. If we are working with them, we should be on the look out for unintended consequences and surprise – as these are sources of information.

Every being in the system is interdependent with others, and responding to others. It has the characteristics it has, because of those interactions and their histories.

All ecologies and economies involve transformation of energy, from the transformation of sunlight by plants, to atomic power.

Transformation of energy, plus effective ecological functioning, is necessary for any human actions to happen. The less effective, or functional, the energy or the ecology, the more restrictions and difficulties.

Labour power is just one form of humanly applied and directed energy. Labour, itself requires energy from the organic transformation, and breakdown, of food into waste.

Humans have appropriated animal labour, the flow of water, wind and tides, the burning of biological material, the burning of fossil fuels, the energies inside atoms, and so on. These processes magnify, and transcend, human labour.

Once you develop large scale directed energy generation and application, then labour, and the organisation of labour, becomes secondary to the organisation of energy production and transmission in general. This is why energy is so fundamentally important to social capacity and organisation – and why changes of modes of energy generation are so threatening and unsettling to that established order.

Human producing, or using, of energy takes energy. Understanding this is vital.

The more energy is produced by the energy used to produce it, the greater the energy availability and the greater the activity possible. This is what we can call the “Energy Return on Energy Input” or EREI.

Fossil fuels have had a very high EREI. It look as though the EREI of renewable energy is much less. However, for most renewables after they are installed, the EREI changes, as very little labour, or energy expenditure, is required to gain an energy output – it is more or less free – whereas fossil fuel energy generation requires continual energy use to find and process new fossil fuels, and continual pollution from burning.

It looks as though the EREI of fossil fuels is decaying. Gas and oil sources are diminishing, requiring uneconomic and ecologically dangerous practices like fracking, or they are having to be found in places with increasingly difficult extraction practices – such as being under deep and stormy waters. Extraction of fossil fuels seems to be doing more ecological damage and requiring more energy to obtain. The ‘low hanging fruit’ has been taken and it cannot grow back, as once used it is consumed forever.
- Coal could be an exception to the decline in EREI, but this may be because contemporary open cut coal extraction processes are much more ecologically destructive than previously, and the energy costs of transport are being ignored.

The decline in the EREI of fossil fuels, with the possible exception of coal, means that the energy expense of finding new fossil fuels to provide the energy for fossil fuel power stations is probably increasing in general.

It also means that there is less available energy around.

Waste/Pollution

Transformation of materials through energy, or in energy production, produces ‘waste’. The simplest human society imaginable, turns edible material into energy and human excreta (this is an overt simplification).

‘Waste’ is here defined as excess, or unwanted matter which can be used, or ‘recycled’ by the economic or ecological system within an arbitrary, but functional, ‘reasonable’ time.

‘Pollution’ is defined as waste which cannot be so processed in a ‘reasonable’ time.

Perfectly harmless waste can become pollution if there is so much of it that the economic or ecological systems cannot process it, and it accumulates and disrupts, or poisons, functioning ecologies.

Contemporary Greenhouse gas emissions are wastes which have become pollution because of the volume in which they are emitted.

The more that pollution damages the system, the less waste can be processed by it.

Extraction and ecology

Economies can also extract materials, and life forms, from the ecology in ways that destroy the ability of the ecology to regenerate and, as a consequence, produce eco-social change, minor or large depending on industry wide levels of destruction.

Ecologies are not passive, and respond to human or other actions in ways which are often unpredictable in specific.

It is possible to imagine an economy in which destruction of ecologies was not standard practice.

Indeed the impact of humans on ecologies was, until relatively recently, mostly fairly gentle. Although some human systems appear to have been unintentionally destructive of their ecologies, before the large scale use of fossil fuels, and carried out the destruction fairly quickly.

Increasing economic growth, which seems essential in capitalism and developmentalism, nearly always seems to involve increases of ecological damage. Such growth has often come out of destruction.

For decarbonisation, the fundamental question is “how we can transform the energy system without continuing a damaging extraction system?”

It can be postulated that the economic system is not the only cause of ecological destruction. Religious systems can demand the cutting down of trees, the use of plaster which blocks water supplies, as apparently the case for the Maya, and so on. That is another reason why we talk of eco-social relations, and indicates the importance of worldview and information.

Information

Economies require information distribution and restriction. At the minimum, people need to know what to extract, how to transform it, how to consume it, and how to keep the system going. This knowledge may be restricted so that only some people know how to do some tasks properly (through gender, age, class, education, etc.), and the information may be limited, incorrect, or influenced by its role in politics.

The information system is how humans generally recognise eco-feedback.

Any information about complex systems, such as societies or ecologies, is almost always limited and inadequate, because it is inherently impossible to map all the relevant links and exchanges in real time. Any representation, however useful, is a distortion.

Not all information is literal, some can be ‘symbolic.’ There is the possibility that symbolic information may be useful in dealing with systems that ‘resist’ ordinary language.

Information distortion is not just a product of the limits of human conception. The information system can be distorted by organisational, economic and political processes.

For example, information distortion can result as a normal function of capitalist accumulation. There is the production of opaqueness of pricing to hinder customers finding out the best price (competition through obscurity), the use of rhetorical, or overly hopeful, information as part of market strategy to capture markets and discourage competition, and the use of information to capture, or influence, states.

The information needed to know that aspects of the economy, are destroying the ecologies they depend upon, can be ignored or suppressed as part of the functioning (and protection) of that economy.

Politics also damages accurate information, through using information as a mode of persuasion, through concealment of information, and through the inability to co-ordinate coherent information in a zone of information excess, such as an information society, when information justifying almost anything can be found.

Organisational forms, such as punitive hierarchy, can also distort information transmission. In such a circumstance, people try to give those higher up in the hierarchy than them the information they think those above them require, and hide mistakes to avoid punishment or gain reward. Likewise, those above have incentives not to reveal exactly what is going on to those below them, or to ever admit ignorance, as that implies vulnerability. This situation can be reinforced if the organisation is justified by adherence to a correct dogma which has to be kept safe from challenge.

Information has value, and its value to a group may depend on how restricted or how available it can be made, in different situations.

Ecological systems 1: Human Geographies

Before considering planetary boundaries as features of eco-systems, lets first briefly consider geography, climate and landscape.

Obviously, mountain ranges, forests, plains etc may affect the layout of Renewable Energy, or the RE may affect the land, if trees are felled, fields converted etc. Wind may be more geographically more prevalent than sunlight, or vice versa. Wind may be severe, putting a limit on size of turbines, or the angles of solar panels. Winter darkness, or heavy seasonal rain can affect the possibilities of solar power. Weather features such as presence of wind and sunlight, and the presence of water for hydro-electric generation, can be affected by climate change. Distances between centres of population and the areas in which renewables can be deployed, are all important, although cities may need to become renewable centres (there are plenty of wind canyons, and high roofs ). All this means that simple geography, spatial layout and its effects, cannot be ignored.

Landscape and vegetation is also something that people related to, and end up in relationship with. Disruption, or change, of landscape can disrupt and unsettle people and their activities, and often their livelihood, to the extent of them feeling ‘unhomed’.

Unhoming is a common feature of development, which is usually ignored by the established powers and thrust upon people living in that landscape. For some reason it is far more significant when the unhoming comes from renewables.

Ecological Systems 2: Planetary boundaries

All planetary eco-social systems are currently bounded. Exceeding the boundaries leads to the rundown, or breakdown, of ecological functioning, and this breakdown then adds difficulties to maintaining other systems in their previous flourishing.

As ecological systems breakdown, they cease performing all of their ‘essential services’ at previous levels.

If these levels are to be maintained ‘artificially’ then this requires extra energy expenditure, in addition to normal energy expenditure.

It appears that growth, in the contemporary world, is likely to eventually lead to the breaking of planetary boundaries

Capitalism and developmentalism tend to recognise boundaries only to ignore them, and claim that ingenuity and willpower, will overcome those boundaries forever without limit. However, just because a technology is needed and would be profitable, does not mean it will be developed in time to save the system.

Capitalism downplays any limit to growth, and any fundamental role to the world ecology. This is one reason it is currently so destructive.

The main planetary eco-social systems which form these boundaries are:

Climate stability,
Biospheric integrity (distribution and interaction of organic life forms),
Land layout (geography),
Water flows and cycles,
Biochemical flows (phosphorus and nitrogen cycles. The possibility of ‘Metabolic Rift’),
Ocean acidity or alkalinity,
Particulates,
Ozone levels,
Novel entities such as new chemicals, plastics and microplastics.

All of these factors should at least be glanced at.

To emphasise again: humanly propelled destructive extraction and pollution are the main current disruptors of these boundary systems.

Capitalism and developmentalism

Capitalism and developmentalism have been incredibly successful at increasing standards of material life for many people. This success means that changes to their processes are likely to be resisted, at many different points in society.

So far, this success has involved refusals to live within ecological (or planetary) boundaries and processes. The eco-social relations of these systems seem doomed.

Capitalism and developmentalism, run a several pronged attack on ecologies. They a) emit pollution, b) destroy ecologies through over-extraction, and c) attempt to grow themselves to increase their ‘benefits’ (such as profits, development, spread, production, consumption and extraction). They attack planetary limits, and produce compounding destruction.

Dumping pollution and poisoning without cost is defined by these systems, as an ‘externality’, and helps to increase business profit. This means that pollution escapes being ‘accounted’ for (or noticed) by members of the emitting organisation.

There are no ‘externalities’ once we accept society and ecology always intermesh, and that there are boundaries to the planet and its functionality.

To reiterate: organisational structure can limit the observation, and conscious processing, of feedback and useful information. It is involved in creating patterns of ignorance or unaccountability. It is likely these patterns of ignorance also hide other information vital to the general survival of the organisation.

Capitalism leads to the classic tragedy of the commons, in which individuals and organisations acting independently, in their apparent self-interest, over-exploit and over-pollute a resource destroying the common good.

By diminishing ecological functioning as part of their own functioning, capitalism and developmentalism, suffer from what Engels called the ‘revenge effects of nature’.

Climate Change

One of these ‘revenge effects’ is climate change. Climate change is a subset of the consequences of the ecological damage produced by capitalism and developmentalism, as should be clear through looking at the list of planetary boundary systems. We probably should not ignore the other ecological problems we are facing at the same time.

All the systems I have been discussing, are bound into a shared set of eco-social processes, and as they are all active (although not coherently or harmoniously), any change in the relationships, or interactions, produces further changes in eco-social relations.

Ecological damage probably always portends some change in eco-social relations. The greater the damage the more likely the greater the change.

This is summarised in the concept of the Anthropocene, in which it is recognised that human activity can influence planetary activity, and vice versa.

Climate change disrupts the possibility of a smooth continuance of the established eco-social relations. This means change, whether voluntary and planned, or otherwise. There is no necessity the change should be beneficial.

Accelerating social breakdown produced by climate change may render all forms of transition more difficult.

Energy Systems and Transformations

Through the introduction of new energy systems and a simultaneous ongoing reduction of pollutions and destructions, the global greenhouse effect could be diminished and climate disruption ameliorated.

It needs to be emphasised that an increase in renewables without a cut back in pollution (especially from burning fossil fuels) and a slowdown in destructive extraction (which will probably need to be connected to a slowdown in growth etc.), will not generate stability and the eco-climate crisis will continue.

If establishing a new relatively stable set of eco-social-energic relations is successful, then social relations will have changed – and probably unpredictably.

As energy systems influence the capacity of a society’s ability to act (to produce, consume, struggle, invent, extend itself, produce information, or promote dominance of various groups and nations,), a change of energy system will cause political eruptions, and unpredictable change, which potentially threatens losses for powerful sections of society, not just fossil fuel companies.

For example:
- cheaper energy might threaten the capital accumulation of energy companies of all kinds; it may even threaten capital accumulation itself.
- Cheaper energy might increase eco-destruction, as more damage can be done at low cost.
- More jobs may threaten economic platforms which depend on maintaining a “reserve army” of unemployed labour.
- With localised energy production, nations may be able to break up with greater ease.

Our solutions to poverty have so far depended on increasing energy supply, emitting cheap pollution, destroying ecologies and economic growth. If we stop these practices to save the world, do we know how to reduce poverty in the short term? I suspect not. If those in favour of transformation are in favour of what is loosely called ‘climate justice’, then this is a problem they have to face.

Unintended consequences are possible everywhere and should be expected.

Any energy transformation depends on the production of energy to power and build that transformation.

It may not be possible to provide all this energy immediately from other renewables, or non-greenhouse-gas emitting sources. Without care, the organisation of transformation could lead to a catastrophic increase in the use of fossil fuels to ‘temporarily’ provide the energy for the transformation, which would then appear to ‘lock-in’ the use of those fossil fuels for some time.

As stated earlier, the EREI of fossil fuels seems to be declining, which could mean there is both less energy available from them and the harm of using them increases.

A program of transformation may also generate heavy pollution from the manufacturing, and installation, of the new energy system.

If the old forms of social organisation remain, then renewables may be used to allow increasing energy supply on top of fossil fuels, rather than replacing energy supply from fossil fuels.

This would be a so called ‘Jevons effect’ in action.

The energy costs of transformation, when added to the power of established fossil fuel industries, may lead to state and business encouragement for locking in fossil fuels.

Potential conflict between the state and capitalist accumulation, may lead to the state abdicating its role in the transformation, to the extent that its governors depend on corporate subsidy for their campaigns or for other forms of income.

The energy transition is largely occurring because of recognition of climate change, not through normal socio-political reasons such as increase of profit for already powerful people, or increase of state power, or the dangerous increase in the EREI of fossil fuels. Fossil fuel energy production is still relatively cheap, efficient (for certain values of efficiency) and is an established and understood technology. Transformation can be seen as an unnecessary cost, with little benefit for the already successful.

Accepted behaviour that previously generated wealth and power, now generates (disputable) harm – in the sense that any information can be disputed. Recognition of this problem, could produce an existential crisis, which may well lead to people lowering their anxiety by enforcing familiar ways of problem solving.

Cost, lack of co-ordination among, and between, capitalists and states, and presence of competition between business and states, is likely to increase problems of freeloading and non-cooperation.

It may seem beneficial for an organisation to allow other organisations to bear the cost of transformation, or catch up later assuming that costs will have decreased.

Every country has possible excuses for why it should be exempted from action and allow other countries to have the primary expense of conversion.

In Australia it tends to be argued that we are an exporting nation, contribute relatively little in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, or that we are large country which needs to burn fuel for transport etc.

It also tends to be argued that we should only change after others have done so, so we do not lose out through: a) the higher competitiveness of nations which retain or boost fossil fuels; b) loss of coal sales; or c) through the greater cost of early transformation.

We also tend not to be informed of the steps to transformation that are happening elsewhere. Even the success of Conservative British Governments in reducing greenhouse gases tends not to be reported here, or skated over. That India has a carbon price is almost completely unknown.

Information is hidden or lost, probably by ‘interested parties’ to reinforce inertia.
- Australians also have to deal with an extremely confusing, and hidden set of energy regulations, which vary from state to state. There is no apparent co-ordination of energy legislation or regulation.

“How do we overcome organisational inertia and freeloading within a state and capitalist framework that puts local profit first?”

Renewable Energy

Renewable energies can be presented as:

a simple technical fix,
a retro-fit of the existing system,
an ‘energy transition’,
a wide-scale ‘energy transformation’
a wide-scale social and energy transformation, which makes either radical break with the present or for continuing change,
the inevitable process of societal decarbonisation under climate change,
a co-ordinated socialist plot to increase government control over daily lives,
a false hope – too little too late. Or even,
the end of civilisation and a reversion to barbarism with a return to “living in caves”.

The information presented about renewable energy is not always entirely positive, and analysts should not pretend otherwise, or claim that a transformation will inevitably occur. Transformation to renewable energy involves social struggle, partly because we do not know the consequences of the transformation, and imaginations of the transformation involve, and produce, politicised information geared at social persuasion.

Transformation also involves technical and organisational difficulties.

According to some estimates, the amount of fossil fuel energy we need to replace is truly massive. Real renewables (not biofuel, not hydro) currently compose less than 3% of the world’s total energy requirements, according to the IEA. Other estimate seem more optimistic, but we are still, once biofuels are removed, talking about 5-7% of the world’s total energy usage.

Estimations suggest that Australia’s renewable capacity is about 11% of electricity supply, not of total energy usage, even though “more than two million, or 21 percent, of Australian households now have rooftop solar PV, with a combined capacity exceeding 10 GW”. Huge amounts of building and installation needs to be carried out, together with a lessening of energy usage (which is probably unlikely) to help lower the pollution.

To make incursions on the non-electrical energy system we have to electrify these other uses of energy (diesel in Australia). This requires even more energy use to build.

The technical difficulties of achieving this replacement, without producing further ecological destruction or pollution, is huge, especially given that energy needs to be highly available to make the transition. It is a problem which has to be faced.

Transition to renewables also faces powerful political opposition. This renders the imposition of renewables upon people through standardised neoliberal non-consultative planning processes, which do not benefit local populations, even more harmful than usual. Renewables may face difficulties not faced by more established industries.

We also appear to have significant time constraints. If we keep delaying the transformation, climate change and eco-social destruction will become more severe and make the transformations far more difficult.

As the ecological crises get worse, we may well require more energy use to keep eco-social relations stable, or repaired, after more frequent, and compounding, disasters
- (such as covid and intense storms, which spread the virus because people cannot keep clear of each other, which lessens the energy available to deal with the problem).

The crises may possibly take energy away from transition, or require still more energy generation.

Organisational breakdown resulting from climate turmoil will also impede the transitions and add to the energy expenditure.

Conclusion

We cannot successfully decarbonise, without generating enough energy to decarbonise. It also seems we must generate this energy at the same time as cutting pollution, ending extractive destruction, ending growth, refining information, protecting ecological resilience, dealing with compounding problems, and fighting political wars etc.

Energy transformation is not easy, and is being rendered more difficult, by the current forms and dynamics of eco-social relations, and our ways of problem solving.

Tags:economics, Energy, politics, renewable energy, Social change
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Bjorn Lomborg again

April 14, 2020

Revised 8 May 2020

I’ve been reading quite a bit of Bjorn Lomborg recently, for my research on climate technologies and their social consequences – and I’ve been reasonably critical of some of his writing and mode of argument (see [1], [2]). However, somewhat to my surprise I found it possible to extract an interesting, and relatively consistent position on climate and ecological problems from his work.

The main problem with Lomborg is that he almost always seizes on the most optimistic figures for the economic and other consequences of climate change, and never questions the consequences of current economic structures and drives. He is similarly cheery about the consequences of the current pandemic and the ways to deal with it. He always appears to try and diminish the problems. This ‘optimism complex’ (found in those supporters of renewables as well, who think transition is inevitable and easy) is a problem when the situation seems a lot worse than most people realise.

Another problem is that he appears to not ‘think ecologically’ ie in terms of complex systems. Thus he appears to argue that a few degrees cannot make that much difference – we can all survive 2 degrees no real problem. However, a minor change in one part of the systems can make massive amounts of difference as it courses through the systems, triggering other effects and compounding crises. For example, global warming will probably not just mean our highest temperatures are one or two degrees (the average) higher but much higher, and the high temperatures will not be separated out into single days which might not be too harmful, but over continuous days or even weeks. This significantly magnifies human and animal deaths, water and crop problems, so that they can become catastrophic. These failures then add to other stresses (say pandemic, flood, fire etc) on what should be manageable days. The more stressed the society, the more vulnerable it becomes, and the more catastrophic minor incidents become.

Finally he does not seem interested in any action which restricts air pollution, or emissions. It is probably right to be cynical about the bone fides of any position which claims to be about benefiting human life and which does not recognise air pollution as important harm.

However, this post is an attempt to summarise what I believe to be the strongest points of his underlying argument. The result may not be exactly what he would put forward himself, but seems worth considering. While I don’t agree with all aspects of this argument, and would be far more intense about the problems we face, it does seem to be a useful position, and I have put it as strongly as I can.

At the moment, the whole world faces a set of interlinked problems that cannot be solved by a narrow focus on just one or two of these problems. We have to approach these problems from many directions, and be generalists.
There is a climate crisis which needs to be fixed. It may not be immediate, and it may not be the primary problem we face today, but we do need to fix it. Now, I do think it is an immediate problem, but Lomborg tends to postpone it, as part of his optimism complex. However, let’s begin with it.
The current systems of climate talks, agreements and targets are not working. The Paris targets are costly and nowhere near strong enough, and we are failing to achieve them anyway. There is little point continuing on in the same way and keep failing.
We do not have anything like the amount of green energy we need. We may be increasing green energy enormously, but we have been increasing fossil fuels even faster, so the percentage of truly green energy remains tiny. According to the IEA, the OECD has 2.3% hydro and 2.6% of “geothermal, solar, wind, tide/wave/ocean, heat and other.” To this we can add 9.6% Nuclear and 6.1% of Biofuels and waste, if you really wish to classify these other sources as clean (IEA 2019 Key World Energy Statistics, p7.)
Governments should immediately stop subsidising fossil fuels, at all stages of production. This is a complete waste of money and time. It helps make the situation worse. If companies go bust, then they go bust; that is the market in action. Established companies which depend on bailouts and subsidy should not be supported, as their weakness indicates either bad management, poor financial choices, unwanted products, or some combination of the three.
Pollution and ecological destruction should not be free. At the very least, we need a mechanism to establish a carbon price to help fund research. Lomborg’s position is inconsistent and it’s easy to find counter examples, but I think his position moves towards this over time. I’d add that other ecological destructions should not go uncharged, and uncurtailed, either..
Green energy should not be subsidised. This might result from good intentions, but it is distorting and, according to the IEA, governments are spending way too much for the observable results. Strangely, while Lomborg questions calculations for fossil fuel subsidies he does not seem to question the figures he objects to for renewable subsidies. For example, does the IEA count feed-in-tariffs as subsidies when these could be considered the price paid for electricity generation? We need to be sure what is a subsidy.
Some of the processes receiving subsidy are not that green to begin with. For example, carbon capture and storage is a waste of money. It has no hope of solving the problem, and merely prolongs fossil fuels use.
In the US and Europe, wood burning is classified as green or renewable. This is also deceptive. Burning wood emits more CO₂ than coal, and destroys forests and wildlife. The forests may not be replanted, either and it is dubious planted forests have the bio-complexity and resilience of natural growth in any case. Biofuels take away land from agriculture, especially from poorer farmers, and they are largely energy inefficient with low EREI.
Green energy’ should mean every energy source without GHG emissions after set up, including small scale nuclear.
Currently, research into green energy does not receive anything like the money needed.
Instead of subsidising renewables, governments should put at least half that money (or “an annual global commitment of some $100 billion”), into research into green energy [1], [2], [3]. This could be funded from abolished fossil fuel subsidies, so it is not an extra cost. Government led research is effective, and stripped of commercial bias. It can also lead to ‘public domain’ patents, available to all, thus increasing economic productivity.
As we are on track for climate or ecological devastation in the long term, we also need to increase societal resilience.
Poverty and disease are major causes of suffering and decrease societal resilience Removal of poverty also increases life-span and productivity.
Most people who suffer badly from disasters [and climate change] are the poor. The better off people are the better able they can handle, or negotiate, disaster.
Poor people tend to be less worried about climate than about day to day survival. Action on climate often may not seem to benefit, or engage, them but action on their immediate problems can be embraced enthusiastically. However, it can be added, that given that some problems are already coming from climate change, we should not ignore this either.
One reason for massive fossil fuel use is that this easily available, well understood, and centralised form of energy is promoted as helping to lower poverty in the developing world. Without solving the poverty problem, we will not solve the pollution and ecological destruction problems.
There is little point having green energy if it seems to be as harmful to people in poverty, as fossil fuel energy generation and mining can be. We should probably stop coal mining were it hurts, or displaces, poor locals.
We need to keep the economy strong enough and organised enough to lift people out of poverty.
It is notable that Lomborg does not ask whether the current structure of the global economy enables a general lifting out of poverty without harmful consequences. For example does the increase in living standards in the ‘third world’ or ‘the South’ come at the cost of increasing inequality of wealth and power in ‘the North’, along with the decline of the ‘first world’ working and middle classes? Do current methods of raising living standards destroy ‘community’ and mutual aid? Yet the general idea of raising living standards and prosperity, as a help towards problem solving, increasing political participation and resilience, is important and requires more investigation.
These problems also stretch to his support for ‘Free Trade’. The problem is we don’t get really free trade. Neoliberal free trade, has tended to suppress government programmes aimed at providing the social amenities and common good which was not provided by ‘the market’ in the vague hope that they would be provided by the market. This amounts to a suppression of democracy in the corporate interest. Free trade negotiations also seem to have allowed the market to be regulated by the major players in the market to benefit, and protect, themselves. So care is needed here.
Another cause of instability and suffering is disease. TB, for example, is debilitating, and could apparently be eliminated with enough spending. The same is true of Malaria.
Governments also need to protect water and its flows. Improved sanitation and latrine technology help reduce disease, and no one can live without drinkable water. Convenient water also frees up time from collecting it. At the moment we seem to be damaging water at an increasing rate. In dry countries, like Australia, it seems obvious to me that projects which could harm, or restrict, the water supply, even in 200 years or more, should not be considered. It is easier to damage than to protect water supply, in particular underground water.
Research is needed into improving agriculture and food supply in the long-term. It is obvious that short term improvements should not be at the expense of long term sustainability. Although Lomborg does not seem to mention it, this may require research into regenerative agriculture. At the least we need to lower the emissions from agriculture and stop leeching soils of nutrients, salt rising, topsoil loss, and deforestation to provide new fields because old fields are exhausted.
Indoor air pollution from cooking, needs reducing. I would suggest solar cookers, where possible, as this allows wood to remain uncut and dung to fertilise the soil, but Lomborg goes for ventilation – this is also useful and cheap addition. Outside air pollution is also a problem. The World Health Organisation estimates 3.8 million people die per year from household pollution and 4.2 million people die from outdoor pollution. This requires reduction of burning, of coal, gas, oil and so on, but Lomborg seems largely uninterested in lowering this cause of death.
Another source of instability and poverty is the lack of effective birth control, [1], together with the lack of educational and economic opportunities for women. Again it is relatively easy and cheap to fix this – although it will encounter a lot of religious opposition and the amounts being spent seem to be declining.
By reducing the number of children, birth control helps provide better nutrition for existing children and this renders them more physically and mentally capable of education and resilience.
Education needs improvement and more accessibility, especially pre-school – but this is difficult as some dominant groups don’t want people to be well informed, or able to think critically or creatively; they just want them accepting and obedient. A critical and creative population is dangerous for incompetent, or unjust rulers.
It also needs to be added to this summary of Lomborg’s remarks, that any reform program that is actually going to deal with this whole series of problems which interact with each other and magnify each other, may involve a disruptive politics. Particularly when one of those serious problems, is the structure of power relations themselves, and those power relations will affect all attempts at reform.

These ideas seem to be worth considering, wherever they come from, as increasing disasters point to global systemic causes and effects, and they demand systemic strategies in response.

One final addenda. It seems common for people supporting Lomborg to say that:

Spending on green tech research,
Fighting poverty,
Doing our best to end TB, Malaria and other health issues,
Improving food and agriculture,
Improving access to drinkable water and protecting water supplies,
Lowering indoor pollution and
Boosting education, particularly for women,

is somehow incompatible with lowering emissions and pollution and reducing ecological destruction. They repeatedly imply it’s one or the other. However it is probably more accurate to say we cannot carry out Lomborg’s plans, unless we reduce pollution and ecological destruction. The poor end up with the harmful consequences of pollution and eco-destruction and usually live in the places which are most badly affected. We cannot, for example, reduce poverty when corporate or government interests are destroying local agriculture, and poisoning the water and air.

Tags:activism, Anthropocene, Energy, renewable energy
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Climate Emergency Summit 02: Action?

February 16, 2020

Part 1 of this discussion deals with the current state of the world and what the emergency looks like. We can now move on to what constitutes an adequate response.

The minimum actions seem to be something like the following. How they are organised is a political question which is vital, but open for discussion.

Firstly we need to stop all new fossil fuel mines and exploration. We almost certainly won’t do this, because of the power of fossil fuel companies and the (dis)information they disperse, and because some people cannot imagine life without fossil fuels, but it’s absolutely necessary. More fossil fuels will only make the situation worse.

This means no Adani mine, and no Clive Palmer mine. We apparently have plans for another 50-80 coal mines in Australia and even more new gas wells. This stops, Now. Personally I don’t think there should be any compensation for this. These companies were trying to profit from our destruction, so I have little pity for their loss, and we need all our resources to help the transition, but that is not my decision – that is part of the political process.

All existing fossil fuel mines need to be phased out over the next ten years. For the purposes of climate change, it is irrelevant whether these materials are burnt overseas or here. They have to be stopped.

We immediately start building, as public works, a grid that is capable of handling renewable energy and connecting new sources of energy to its markets. We also make it possible to directly transmit generated energy from a rooftop to another building without having to use the grid; this will make community energy developments much easier. The actual building of solar and wind farms can be left to companies or preferably communities, as there seems considerable will to build these.

We begin to reduce emissions in all fields (energy, transport, industry, building, agriculture etc) to zero by 2030. We start by phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, and by having a carbon price that rises every year in a predictable manner. We phase out ‘natural gas’ through renewably generated hydrogen and ammonia for transportation of the hydrogen. The hydrogen or ammonia can act as storage, along with weights, batteries etc. We mandate that all new buildings should have 7* energy efficiency by the end of this decade, exploring energy efficiency as best we can, and make sure regenerative agriculture becomes the norm. We may need to increase all taxes to raise money for action and research. At the minimum, no company should trade here and not pay tax on their local income.

People may say that being planned this is not going to deliver things as well as the market, but the market alone shows no signs of delivering what we need within the time frame in which we need it. The market is one of the factors which has generated the problem and it has failed to generate a solution. This does not mean we destroy the market, we just provide better parameters for it to function in. Parameters which are not determined by fossil fuel companies.

All the workers in these fields need to feel and perceive there is a progression to a new stable financially comparable and interesting employment. This will require more planning.

We need to engage in drawdown, not to offset burning fossil fuels, but to remove existing emissions from the air. Regenerative agriculture, biochar and massive tree replanting (that is not just planting the same tree over and over, but planting ecologically appropriate distributions of trees and bushes) might be useful here, as will be bans on land clearing and clear felling. We also need massive investment in research into carbon removal and reuse, as current tech is nowhere near adequate.

Drawdown, even to preindustrial levels, may not be sufficient. If the ice caps have melted enough then the world will be warmer and may not shift back into cooling fast enough. In which case we may need to do solar radiation management; that is cooling the earth by reflecting light back into space. This is dangerous with unintended consequences almost certain to arise. It requires worldwide co-ordination, and some plan to compensate those who end up worse off than previously. It is not to be contemplated before all other methods are found to fail and a time limit should be set for its use and slow withdrawal.

We almost certainly need to plan for migration inland resulting from sea level rises, and to protect coastal cities, towns and infrastructure where possible (nothing much is possible if we don’t prevent the 25 m rise). We almost certainly will need to have huge flexible and well equipped emergency services. And we will need to organise people to protect and tend changing eco-systems.

These requirements are truly massive in terms of preparation and expense (probably overwhelming) and we will not be able to protect everything. However the problem needs to be acknowledged, so we can do our best in advance, and it should create plenty of jobs.

The difficulties of such a project are enormous and possibly insurmountable. But the neoliberal elites from Keating onwards have derailed any attempts to solve these problems previously, and have politicised these problems in order to carry out their prime directive of making corporate power and hierarchy safe by destroying the power of ordinary people to affect their corporate overlords. In the long term, they have failed. In twenty to thirty years, without action of the kind discussed here, the whole economy will be falling apart and that includes the corporate sector, not to mention the billions who will suffer and die as a result of that refusal to act. If we had been able to start 30 years ago, we might not be needing this kind of ‘excessive’ action now.

This is not an exaggerated bid to gain action, it is a minimum bid for what is needed. Going still further would be better.

It is unlikely the State will go with these proposals, so we will have to work outside the State and build a new participatory democracy from the grass roots up. Some people will argue that the project violates their rights. But if we don’t have a working ecology, and a functional society, then no one will have rights. If we do nothing, we face dictatorship as the Corporate State tries to enforce its rule in a crumbling war torn world.

However if the best we are offered is 2050 targets (as, in Australia, with Zali Steggall’s Bill) then we should go with them, and press further. Anything serious is better than nothing. Even if it won’t work, it will get people thinking about what we need to do, and that might make the dangers clearer than if people keep running away from them in the hope that they personally will be special enough to escape the consequences.

This is a hard set of demands, which will not encourage unity. But it is extremely difficult to have unity with climate change deniers, after all they are seeking a unity in denial of the challenges and in flight from the challenges. However, as Zali Steggall said at the summit, as an athlete you live with failure: you have to be prepared to put it all on the line, and sometimes you will fail and sometimes it will be wonderful.

Part 3: The lack of political interest in the Emergency

Tags:Anthropocene, climate change, Disinformation, Energy, politics
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Confusion in Australian Energy Policy….

February 10, 2020

This is a two part post. News from the last week helps capture the total confusion and incoherence of Australian energy policy. The first post discusses the incoherences and the second discusses the consequences of those incoherences.

Firstly, Australian electricity prices are falling. This is supposed to be of great concern to the Coalition government, which campaigns heavily on the idea of cheap electricity, and of blaming renewables, or a repealed carbon price, for any price increases…

However the reason the prices appear to be coming down is because of renewables…

In its Quarterly Energy Dynamics report for the fourth quarter of 2019, the Australian Energy Market Operator says spot wholesale electricity prices averaged $A72/megawatt hour (MWh), marking a 19 per cent fall from Q4 2018, and the lowest prices since Q4 2016….
The market operator said that a “key driver” of this fall in spot prices was increased supply from wind farms and solar farms, whose combined output increased by a massive 39 per cent compared to Q4 2018.

The largest fall in price occurred in the renewable rich state of South Australia, “where the average price for the quarter was $68/MWh”

The Energy Security Board, which reports to the Council of Australian Governments is expecting further price reductions:

Looking forward a downward trend in retail prices is noted. Over the period to 2021-22 a decrease in prices of 7.1% (about $97) is expected. A decrease in wholesale prices is the main driver and this decrease is in turn driven by new low-cost renewable generation entering the system.
ESB Health of the National Electricity Market Media Release

There were also a large number of coal outages in 2019 – we have old coal power stations which are unreliable in the heat – so much for the stability of coal power. The system used to collapse quite regularly when the generators where young as well, as many older people can tell you. What is worrying about the breakdowns is not the breakdowns of the old lignite fired power stations, but of the most recent and biggest power station, built in 2007, Kogan Creek. These collapses, and other factors, lead the AEMO to say:

black coal-fired generation around the country decreased by 1,061MW on average compared to Q4 2018, its lowest quarterly level since Q4 2016

So more black coal is not needed all the time, even now. Gas can also be problematic. RenewEconomy reports:

Origin [a major electricity provider] has been hit by a long-term outage at its Mortlake gas generator in Victoria, and at its Eraring coal generator in NSW. These outages alone slashed $44 million from its first half earnings, while a 7 per cent slump in volumes due to the growth of rooftop solar and expired business contracts cut profits by $46 million, and price controls in Victoria and federally cost another $55 million.
Renew Economy 20 Feb 2020

This apparently cost Origin $170 million in electricity earnings, an overall drop of 11% for second half of 2019.

There was so much renewable energy around, that not only did it reduce profits for some corporations, but prices were occasionally negative and some renewable sources were told to curtail production.

[R]enewable energy curtailment across the National Electricity Market – the main grid covering the eastern states – increased to 6 per cent of total output in Q4 2019, the highest amount on record.

With typical realism, former minister Matt Canavan (who left the ministry to support Barnaby Joyce’s leadership bid) declared that “Renewables are the dole bludgers of the energy system, they only turn up to work when they want to“. The reality is that they have to sometimes be laid off to keep the coal energy industry in business. He continued to argue that Australia apparently needs coal for our remaining manufacturing. Supporting manufacturing has not been something the Coalition has been that interested in for a while.

As the article quoted above states, it is close to “impossible to name a single federal Coalition MP that recognises the potential of wind and solar”, even with the latest research from the CSIRO and AEMO stating that renewables with storage are cheaper than coal, and far cheaper than nuclear. Some other research suggests storage and “dispatchability” could potentially no longer be a problem; a report from the ANU states that there are around 22,000 potential pumped hydro storage sites in Australia, and Professor Blakers from the ANU Research School of Engineering says:

“Australia needs only a tiny fraction of these sites for pumped hydro storage – about 450 GWh of storage – to support a 100 per cent renewable electricity system…”

There are large scale plans to sell renewable energy generated in Australia to Singapore, or to generate hydrogen gas and export it instead of methane (especially in South Australia), but the Federal government appears to ignore these ideas, or realities. Coal is still its god, and needs taxpayer support. So it is not surprising that:

The Australian Coalition government has announced a new $4 million grant to pursue a new 1GW coal fired generator in north Queensland in one of the first acts of the new pro-coal resources minister Keith Pitt.

Taxpayers’ money is being given to Shine Energy to conduct a feasibility study for a proposed 1GW HELE coal plant at Collinsville in Queensland.

Let’s ignore the probability that Northern Queensland already has more energy than it needs.

“The problem is it makes little commercial sense to build more generation in Queensland at the moment. The state is in oversupply. Queensland’s 13GW of conventional generation has been augmented over the last decade by more than 5GW of new rooftop solar and large-scale renewables. There’s more on the way”.
Australian Financial Review

Richard Denniss of the Australia Institute commented:

there is absolutely no evidence suggesting that marginal electorates are the cheapest or best places to build new power stations. …
The former resources minister Matt Canavan even pulled out the schoolyard defence of ‘they started it’, arguing on Twitter that: “I see some are saying that we should not help coal-fired power stations provide jobs because we should leave it to the market. Well if that’s the view be consistent and argue against the billions we give to renewables every year!”….
First, no federal government has spent billions per year on subsidies for renewables. None. While it’s true that the government mandates that minimum amounts of renewable energy are supplied to the grid, such obligations don’t cost the budget a cent.
Australian Financial Review 24 Feb 2020

Denniss also points out that:

Only one coal-fired power station is being built anywhere in Western Europe, North America or Australia; a German plant that is nine years overdue. Even in Trump’s America, no coal-fired power stations are under construction.
as above

What this grant to Shine shows is that nobody is prepared to even look at building coal power in Australia without subsidy. Just as Adani is constantly demanding subsidy for its coal mine (free water, royalty holidays, train lines, apart from straight money gifts), and this mine is unlikely to benefit any Australians at all, and likely to damage a few.

We now know:

The only physical trace of Shine Energy, which wants to build a $2bn coal-fired power station in north Queensland, is a small post office box next to an Asian grocer at a suburban Brisbane shopping complex….
Company documents show Shine Energy is worth a nominal $1,000 on paper. It has no registered financial obligations, and no physical office at its listed address.
On its website, Shine describes its business as providing “renewable energy solutions”, but the company could offer no evidence that it or its directors…. has ever previously worked on an energy generation project.
The Guardian 29 Feb 2020

Superficially, this looks like a strange company to entrust with the task.

The PM justified all of this by saying “We listen to all Australians and we listen to Australians right across the country, not just those in the inner city.” I suspect they only listen to Australians who sponsor them, or agree with them, after all “60% of a sample of 1,083 voters believes Australia should be doing more” and 64% of another poll see climate change as the prime critical threat to Australia, and most of them think we should act even if it involves significant costs. Quite a few people, including Coalition voters, think their lack of climate policy is problematic.

And of course this spending on coal is being justified as it will “help drive down prices for businesses and their customers.” The Prime Minister apparently said: “we won’t be bullied into higher taxes and higher electricity prices.” Barnaby Joyce argued that the government needs to ensure that “the poor people can get affordable power, and that we can get dignity in people’s lives.”

However, prices are already going down without coal, and coal emissions will have disastrous effects on poorer people in fire and flood zones – they won’t be able to afford the insurance hikes. No one in the Coalition seems at all concerned about the cost to the ecology in terms of climate change. The future costs of the loss of agriculture, loss of water and through storm, flood and fire damage appears completely opaque to them. It does not count. Effectively fossil fuels are being subsidised by ignoring the costs that will fall on ordinary people and the economy in general.

We already have problems of too much energy for the market, subsidised coal will not solve that problem, and if it is more costly to build, then without even more taxpayer subsidy, it will cost more and pollute more, and take more water and damage climate even more. Coal is a loose/loose situation.

And then we learn that:

Renewable Energy Partners has been given $2 million in funds from the Coalition government to advance a feasibility study into a project that would combine 1.5GW of pumped hydro, with seven hours storage, along with up to 1.3GW of solar PV, 800MW of wind energy and a 200MW hydrogen electrolyser, fuelled by the green energy sources.

The CEO states:

“Our initial studies have already shown that our site is well suited for solar generation, the topography is ideal for the construction of a large-scale wind farm and a recent study by the Australian Energy Market Operator has confirmed the need for a large pumped hydro facilities in North Queensland, the Urannah Renewable Hub is the battery of the north,”

There is no evidence of coherency in this policy. The government could strongly point out that they are trying to find the best system, by linking or comparing the projects, but they don’t and probably can’t.

The government has also apparently started leaking that it would prefer to “favour technology over taxation” because, according to the PM:

“currently no one can tell me that going down that path won’t cost jobs, won’t put up your electricity prices, and won’t impact negatively on jobs in the economies of rural and regional Australia.”
PM Transcript 18 Feb 2020

We have seen electricity prices seem to be coming down and the CSIRO working with other people such as the National Bank and other businesses (so this is not some ‘crazy’ left wing report) have argued:

Australia faces a Slow Decline if it takes no action on the most significant economic, social and environmental challenges. But, if these challenges are tackled head on, Australia can look forward to a positive Outlook Vision. This could mean higher GDP per capita, ‘net zero’ greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, strong economic growth and energy affordability, and more liveable major cities
CSIRO Australian National Outlook 2019

They go on to suggest that this could lead to 2.75–2.8% annual growth in GDP (ok there are possible problems with this, but from the Coalition’s point of view this is good), 90% wages growth by 2060, and $42–84 billion increase in returns to landholders (Executive Summary p.9). This is much better than the option of failing to “adequately address the global and domestic issues, resulting in declining economic, social and environmental outcomes.” So the Prime Minister can’t really say that nobody has told him that going renewable would be good for the economy and the country.

The PM continues his argument by suggesting that:

There’s a lot of people at the moment wanting us to put more taxes on people to solve problems. I don’t believe higher taxes are the solution to our problems.
PM Transcript 18 Feb 2020

He does not say who these people are, but another commentator in the not leftwing Australian Financial Review remarks:

far from being mutually exclusive, technology and a carbon price can be complementary in driving down emissions. …
without a market-based carbon price to incentivise lower emissions technology and private sector research and development, the government will resort to heavy-handed interventions to try to spur new emissions-reduction technology. It’s remarkable that on climate and energy policies, a Liberal government favours big government picking winners instead of market principles.
Australian Financial Review 22 Feb 2020

In a later speech the Prime Minister seems to assume that:

“hazard reduction for keeping people safe as, frankly, as important as emissions reduction when it comes to addressing these climate issues…. And, you know, rural and regional Australia is tough. They’re resilient. And it’s a great place to be.”
PM Transcript 17 Feb 2020

You almost certainly cannot reduce the hazard from 3-4 degree temperature rises and and sea level rises, enough to keep people safe.

Then we hear there are:

Record levels of investment in renewable technologies, beating our Kyoto emissions reduction target by 411 million tonnes.
PM Transcript 17 Feb 2020 b

Ignoring the Kyoto accounting trick [2] [3] [4] [5] and its effects, in this statement, the government, with Labor support, are running down the finances of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, which helps fund the establishment of renewable energy systems and research into renewable energy. ARENA expects to exhaust its funds by the end of the year. This is simultaneous boasting of spending on renewables and inhibiting that spending. It is not coherent. Unless of course, by technology, they do not mean renewables, or greenhouse gas free technologies.

Indeed we have to assume that incoherency is the standard response of Australian politicians when faced with climate change. The Labor deputy leader responded to all this, by saying:

“I absolutely support coal mining jobs and coal miners, and the role that that plays within our economy, and it will continue to play a role for a long time to come,… [we should] acknowledge the significant role that coal miners play and the communities play within our economy” [but] “A Labor government is not going to put a cent into subsidising coal-fired power. And that is the practical question as to whether or not it happens”

Yes look after the workers, but don’t poison the planet. This is not a difficult idea; the climate movement has been talking about “just transitions” for a long time. A few days after this, Labor leader Anthony Albanese said, in response to questions about coal fired energy plants:

You may as well ask me if I support unicorns…. I don’t think there’s a place for coal-fired power plants in Australia, full stop… The truth is no private sector operation will touch a new coal-fired power plant with a barge pole
Canberra Times

However,

Business and industry groups are urging the government to commit to zero carbon emissions by 2050…. Mr Albanese refused to give a clear answer when pressed on whether Labor supported their calls, saying his party would cement their climate policies closer to the next federal election in 2022.
same as above

Later Mr Albanese objected to the proposal to give Shine Energy taxpayer’s money, saying:

“they are using $4m of taxpayers funds to give to a private operation that has no record of building a new power station anywhere”

However, he went on to support the Adani mine saying:

“It’s a good thing those jobs have been created. I support jobs regardless of where they are [and, he supports] and the economic activity that will arise from them…..Our priority is jobs and jobs here in Queensland, and we make no apologies for that.”
The Guardian

As I have argued on several occasions there are not that many jobs in the Adani mine, and there are severe disputes about the economic flow on benefits, especially granted the royalty holidays, taxpayer subsidies and risk of destroying water flows. It might be cheaper just to use the subsidies to start new local industries in Queensland to provide real jobs.

Late last year Albanese also said:

“the proposal that we immediately stop exporting coal would damage our economy and would not have any environmental benefit”.
Brisbane Times

Nobody I am aware of, is arguing that we “immediately stop exporting coal,” so this is not a real point, but lots of people are arguing that we should not open new coal mines or expand the coal exports. This is because, climate change is a global systemic problem. It does not matter where the fossil fuels are burnt, they affect, and worsen, Australia’s climate, causing job losses in other parts of the country.

In an interview on the ABC’s Insiders, after the policy speech, Albanese agreed there was still likely to be coal mining and export in Australia after 2050. “[The target is] net, that’s the point.” He said that exported coal was not counted in Australia’s greenhouse gas budget. “You don’t measure the emissions where the original product comes from.” This avoidance of responsibility is despite him recognising the targets are economy wide, and not cutting back emissions affects the world.

If Labor supports the mining and burning of coal, they do not have an effective climate policy, they (at best) only have a ‘get Australia out of coal fired energy policy’.

Conservative Independent Zali Steggall has proposed legislation which would enforced zero net emissions by 2050, and give a series of targets on the way, but Albanese appears not to be keen to support her move, giving the excuse that the Government would not allow debate, leaving his climate change spokesman Mark Butler to try and say they would engage with the possibility of supporting the proposed legislation. Later Albanese said:

the world must achieve net zero carbon emissions by the year 2050…. [so that] the amount of pollution released into the atmosphere is no greater than the amount we absorb which can occur through agriculture, forestry and other means.
Speech: Leadership in a New Climate 21 Feb 2020

Nothing in this speech, or in what he has said elsewhere, gives any interim targets to get to “net zero carbon emissions by the year 2050”. This indicates little planning, or expectation of planning, and the apparent refusal to take on Steggall’s interim targets suggest this lack, is part of the policy.

He continued:

We pride ourselves on always pulling our weight. And we have seen climate change be a factor in our devastating bushfires. We could see it, smell it, even touch it. Our amazing continent is particularly vulnerable. So we have a lot to lose. But the good news is we also have a lot to gain. Action on climate change will mean more jobs, lower emissions and lower energy prices….in recent months we had some foreshadowing of the costs of inaction.
Speech: Leadership in a New Climate 21 Feb 2020

So, we are told both that action on climate must be sacrificed for jobs and produces jobs. And that we can sell climate change elsewhere and suffer here, and not suffer here. Labor is not coherent either.

One problem with neoliberalism, and Australian politics is primarily neoliberal, is that because it only recognises the virtues of profit, and preferably profit by established companies, it looks like corruption. Neoliberals will always support established corporate power and give it handouts, but they don’t have to be bought, they just do it anyway.

Then I guess there is the problem of existential crisis, and the difficulty of recognising that we cannot do what we have previously done, as it will harm us. This may well be affecting politicians and many high level business people, and if so then that leaves us in a storm without a rudder, clinging to what worked in the past and destroys us now.

The next post discusses the consequences of this confusion

Tags:disorder, Energy, neoliberalism, politics
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Problems with Shale Oil in the US

February 9, 2020

This is a summary of a series of blog posts by another writer. He is trying to sell you ‘precious metals’ as a hedge against economic collapse, but his analysis of a coming crisis in US shale oil production seems highly plausible…

He suggests that activity in the world’s economy has been driven by cheap energy availability, and this has largely been provided by cheap US shale oil.

Nowadays, it appears that Peak Mainstream oil is already here. Each year the world needs to replace 3 million barrels per day of supply no longer provided from mature and declining oil fields at the same time as meeting growth in demand for oil. Any growth in contemporary world oil consumption was allowed by the US shale.

However, the decline in US shale oil production is even more dramatic than that for mature mainstream oil wells. The top 4 U.S. shale oil fields have suffered a 44% decline in their rate of production in less than a year, between Dec 2018 to Oct 2019.

It will take a massive amount of investment spending and thousands of new wells to offset these losses in production from shale oil, and keep the output stable. As the easily available shale oil has by now been taken (as businesses generally go for the easy targets first), it is probable that new shale oil will also require a lot more energy to retrieve. The ratio of Energy Return to Energy Input (EREI) will be much lower, so overall energy availability will be lower.

The spending and oil output is almost certainly ungeneratable, and unsustainable, in any kind of financial system. This situation is made worse as the author has argued elsewhere, because shale oil has largely survived on borrowed money, with investors hoping for long term stable production which has not eventuated. There will likely be large scale losses of this borrowed money, which could start a general financial collapse.

Lack of production also means that oil based energy collapse is extremely likely, and this will probably reinforce the financial collapse.

It is also likely to make the necessary transition into renewables harder, although it might ‘help’ through unplanned and catastrophic degrowth.

Tags:degrowth, disorder, economics, Energy, politics
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CO2 and Drawdown technology

January 11, 2020

There is lots of new drawdown technology, which claims to be able to make plastic and fuel out of CO2 extracted from either the air, from coal power, from cow farts and so on. I’m not being sarcastic about the cow farts, that is apparently a real claim (although I doubt it is functional).

The argument seems to be that as this tech exists, and people seem to keep demanding new electricity, we can happily extend, or increase, the use of fossil fuels and be ok with any ‘temporary’ increase in Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions.

To me there seem to be a number of problems with this approach.

1) We seem to be perilously close to massive tipping points. This is vitally important:

If we get a run of summers like the one we have just had in Australia (and there is no reason to assume that we will not, as the trend for average temperatures has been increasing steadily over the last 20 years), then, we will have little surviving natural bush, we will have no place for the bush fauna, and we will lose a large number of our farmers, for economic and fertility reasons. We have almost certainly lost some normally non-inflammable rainforest forever.
The fires have come close to increasing Australia’s carbon emissions to 175% of normal.
The fires have significantly reduced our natural extraction of CO2. We hope that regrowth will compensate, but regrowth could be problematic and slow (See previous post).
Rivers and creeks will continue to breakdown and dry up. The water supply situation will get worse. Fish and other fresh water creatures will continue to die. Local food supplies for people outback will decline.
It is highly probable, that large numbers of Aboriginal people (and other outback based people), will no longer be able to live on their land, or maintain their ways of life.
Other countries are likely to follow a similar course. Australia is just more sensitive to global warming than most other places, we are a country of erratic weather, droughts, floods and storms.
The permafrost is melting elsewhere in the world, due to global heating. There is thought to be a large amount of methane and other green house gases stored in the permafrost. If so, there will come a time when this gas starts to leak. Some reports suggest this is already happening. When it does, climate turmoil will accelerate even more rapidly than it is doing. It is extremely likely that the resulting weather changes will affect the world disastrously.
There are other effects which will accelerate as well, but you probably already know this.

Summary: We cannot afford to increase the amounts of Greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere.

If we increase GHG emissions we are heading for destruction. It is that simple.

We need to lower emissions now and we need drawdown of CO2 from the atmosphere now. Technological drawdown is a great idea in principle. Whether it is currently useful is another issue.

2) Historically, drawdown technology has not eventuated, but the promise of drawdown technology has been used to increase GHG emissions: “Soon we will be able to extract all this, and fossil fuels will be clean!”

In Australia, the government has given the fossil fuel industry significant amounts of money to build this technology.

The coal industry largely used the money for dinners and promotion of coal. No vaguely working extraction and drawdown technology emerged. Naturally they did not have to pay the money spent on parties and promotion back.
Some gas companies did some work, but this was primarily to use extracted CO2 to push more gas out of wells. The successes in extraction, or storage, were minor, or significantly less than the increased emissions, arising from the use of the field.
No commercially useful long term, non-propaganda, successes were reported, or implemented outside the test sites.

3) It is possible that the empty promises of drawdown tech are not essential to the talk about it any more. We may even have working tech. If so, the basic conditions for acceptable working tech are:

If it is making fuel, then the total amount of energy consumed is considerably less than the amount of energy emitted (ie it has an Energy Return on Energy Input greater than 1).
If making plastic or any other substance, then it has to have significantly less emissions than the normal production of the substances, and it has to be economically competitive with recycling and normal production. If it is massively more expensive, then it will not be deployed, or be deployed as a novelty, or demonstration of capacity to be discontinued when the costs do not come down.
If we are storing the extracted CO2, then we have to be able to test the stored CO2 for escape into the atmosphere. If such tests are impossible then storage should not be undertaken. Theory of success is not enough.
If extracting CO2 directly from the atmosphere, then the technology has to be able to deal with the small amounts of CO2 in real atmospheres and again not be dependent, in any way, on GHG emitting sources of energy.
It should be competitive with reforestation, regenerative agriculture, or education of women, over the long term, otherwise let’s use an existing (simpler) working technology.
Technical data and the results of experiment has to be freely available. In most of the sites dealing with the new tech, the technical data seems to be mainly hype, based on assumptions of success. They rarely tell you current data. Sometimes there is no technical data at all. This may not be the case about every product, but it is common enough that we cannot assume it is not the case in advance.
Independent testing is needed before we risk the technology’s use for GHG reduction.

Summary: We cannot assume, without thorough investigation, that the hype about drawdown technology is accurate, and the technology is ready for commercial or effective layout now rather than in some distant future.

4) Given these issues, if we are to increase the amount of fossil fuels we use, for whatever reason, then we need to be sure that:

We reduce the use of other fossil fuels so that the amount of GHG emissions does not increase.
If the drawdown technology is being used to extract new fossil fuels, or otherwise unviable fossil fuels, then the total levels of emission (including those from burning the fossil fuels extracted) has to be zero or less; otherwise we are increasing emissions.
Drawdown tech has to be installed, thoroughly tested, and shown to be viable, before any new emissions get released. AND we measure the drawdown accurately, and make sure there is no escape.
We increase the fossil fuel emissions by less than we are actually drawing down through tech now, so the emissions trend really is downwards.
We do not increase the fossil fuel energy supply, or GHG emissions, to power the drawdown technology.

If drawdown technology is ready and functional, then these conditions should seem fairly straightforward. If these conditions seem onerous, then the drawdown technology is not ready, and we need to stop increasing GHG emissions now. The easiest way to stop increasing emissions is to stop increasing fossil fuel based power.

5) We should spend the limited amounts of money, and energy available, primarily refining technology we already have that works to reduce emissions now. If that includes drawdown tech that meets the criteria above, then great.

Tags:climate change, drawdown, Energy, technology
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Energy crisis

January 8, 2020

Another big update of an earlier set of comments about an article in the Sydney Morning Herald on the Energy Crisis, which is at the place of the original article. Basically, the article seems determined to excuse the Coalition, or sidestep around their political commitments to fossil fuels, and the author ignores the ecological crisis which is both largely caused by the energy being used, and impacts on our problems with energy.

Tags:Energy, politics
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Climate, technology and chaos Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Energy’

Basic Complex Systems for eco-social analysis again

Introduction

Political System

Economic System

Extraction

Energy System

Waste, Pollution and Dispersal systems

Information System

Technological Systems

Planetary systems and boundaries

Geographic Systems

Conclusion and Provisional Advice

Basic Systems for eco-social analysis

Political System

Economic System

Energy System

Waste, Pollution and Dispersal systems

Information System

Geographic Systems

Planetary systems and boundaries

Conclusion and Advice

Bjorn Lomborg again

Climate Emergency Summit 02: Action?

Confusion in Australian Energy Policy….

Problems with Shale Oil in the US

CO2 and Drawdown technology

Energy crisis

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