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The Forum > Article Comments > We can't go on living like this > Comments

We can't go on living like this : Comments

By Ted Trainer, published 20/4/2007

We say we want to save the environment, have peace, and eliminate poverty. And we do - but only until we see what this requires.

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And there's the rub...doing...rather than talking. Most of these posters would be hypocritical to the extreme in reality. What an eclectic bunch of views, some just downright scary. Thankfully most of them will never see the light of day.

ChrisC said "Where did you pull that number from? Please provide a link or reference.That's 150 years, not 600."
ChrisC your confusing proven reserves with extractable reserves, big difference. Extractable coal reserves with current technologies is closer to 600 years (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal)
This doesn't mean we will still be using coal that far into the future as technology will bring us cleaner energies.
Posted by alzo, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 8:03:24 AM
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Nice work Ted. I attended a talk you gave back in about 1993. It was similarly inspiring and yet somehow too difficult to comprehend. Despite the detractors, I think the evidence, logic and consensus are in your camp. It will indeed be hard to find a couple of extra planets nearby to grow our vegies. So, how do we re-build a society to have localised no-growth economics without first collapsing into chaos? Your website "The Simpler Way" has plenty of thoughts for how to get there. They make sense, all grounded in small, local community activity. I struggle to see these ideas being palatable to the vast majority who crave the latest gadget. I found a glossy in my letter box yesterday from Aussie Post advertising mobiles with the line “changing seasons, changing phones” - so I’m encouraged to buy a new friggin phone because it’s Autumn?? Cripes, I’m part of the mad hoard. Sure, I have chooks and I reuse my greywater, but I’ve got a whopping mortgage and I want to buy a 27 speed roadie. I’m reading this stuff because I’m interested in the future, but of course I can only do that because I’ve got a wiz bang computer and internet connection. I’ve got a 13 year old kid who gives me grief because she doesn’t get the stuff her friends get. If she grows up feeling deprived but aware of the world, have I done a good thing or not? Perhaps I’m looking for absolution here?

You point to a nasty time ahead, with us sitting on the tracks and the train is coming. I also see it coming and I don’t like the look of it. I think most of us worry, but struggle to talk to their neighbour, let alone consider a neighbourhood farm.

I sometimes wonder why the Good Life was a funny TV show
Posted by howie, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 10:05:55 AM
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Hi Ted and readers.
Well done thou good and faithful servant...But your analysis does not get to the fundamental problem, which is psycho-spiritual unawareness. For example, over consumption yes; deeper level greed; deeper level fear of not having enough, deeper level unawareness/disconnection from the Source and/or other entities thereof; a psychopathology if you like stemming in essence from childhood trauma (conditioning) with neuropsychological sequelae (a simple shut-down or the closed mind syndrome).
Indeed 'attitude is all'. Our society is going to change only when enough personal attitudes have changed, whether that be from personal or collective disaster (the hard way) or a personal decision to change (the easy way). That last can result in the Buddhist 'enlightenment' in this life when the necessary work has been done, resulting in indeed a fundamental change in attitude. This in turn touches on the Noosphere theory of Teilhard de Chardin and certain thoughts in the Revelation of St.John, all consistent with eachother. Note that the Spiritual awakening referred to above is for many, not just for those who are 'special', that being a grievous misunderstanding and self-limitation. Siddartha Gautama (or was it the other way around?)was NOT a special person, just the son of a local chieftan, and his enlightenment was not complete either. We in this day and age can do better.
'Sleepers awake!' Regards.
Posted by himself, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 1:18:37 PM
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Alzo, Alzo, Alzo, we reading the same article?

Looks like you only glanced at the first paragraph, saw what you wanted, and ran with the link. BP talks about 155 years PROVEN.

"British Petroleum, in its annual report 2006, estimated at 2005 end, there were 909,064 million tons of proven coal reserves worldwide (9.236 × 1014 kg), or 155 years reserve to production ratio. This figure only includes reserves classified as 'proven', exploration drilling programs by mining companies, particularly in under-explored areas, are continually providing new reserves. In many cases, companies are aware of coal deposits that have not been sufficiently drilled to qualify as 'proven.' There is, therefore, much more recoverable coal in the world than indicated by proven reserve figures."

OK, so there might be more but here's the thing. A reserves to production ratio works on the 3 most misleading words in all energy reporting: "At current rates".

If you factor in economic growth requiring about 2% increase per year — which is what Ted's article was really all about, growth — you get far less. Peak coal could in fact be in about 15 to 20 years! And just as with peak oil, we are then into an era of dwindling, vastly harder to extract, vastly more expensive coal.
http://www.energybulletin.net/27524.html

2 page PDF of the Energy Watch Group here.
http://www.energywatchgroup.org/files/Coal_English.pdf

Gregson Vaux argues that coal to liquids programs (as recommended by the Hirsch report on Peak Oil) will also vastly speed up the onset of peak coal.
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/052504_coal_peak.html

Sorry Alzo, but you need to read some more and always do the math for yourself. "At current rates" has not been an economic or political reality since the Industrial Revolution. We have almost always used exponentially more (except for the oil crisis — and the economic fallout from that kind of proves my point hey?)
Posted by Eclipse Now, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 1:45:23 PM
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EclipseNow says "Alzo, Alzo, Alzo, we reading the same article?"
I think so but you may be under the influence of some rather mind altering substances.

Proven reserves indeed mean drilled. I was talking about KNOWN extractable reserves using current technologies. This isn't even taking into account UNKNOWN reserves which cannot be estimated. There is probably even more of the stuff down there.

As for your peak coal references...well I'm speechless. Your first, the very important sounding "energybulletin.net". After viewing the linked article I saw the following at the bottom "This is Museletter #179 from Richard Heinberg." A Museletter? wtf? very scientific. #179? Boy this guy can Muse. And here is some excerpts from the about us page of "energybulletin.net":

"The opinions, inferences or calculations within individual news items are the responsibility of the author alone, and the editors of EnergyBulletin.net do not necessarily support them." ie. any fool can submit a story

"On the issue of resource depletion we will be favouring geological pessimism over economic theory based optimism." They musn't know many geologists...they're an optimistic bunch

Hmmm slightly biased?

EclipseNow's next mind blowing reference has a homepage that isn't even in english. Probably dodgy hard to tell.

As for "http://www.fromthewilderness.com" the URL said it all for me and in one word. Garbage.

I have never commented on the cost of extracting coal rising, falling or staying the same. I just prefer to try and put a few facts into the hysteria that Trainer and his ilk like to brew.
Posted by alzo, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 4:55:50 PM
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600 years reserve to production ratio sounds nice and comforting, especially because it's TRUE! We probably would have 600 years of coal left if we used it only at today's rates.

But I note that while you get busy psychoanalyzing WHY the sources I quote are wrong, you are not proving THAT they are wrong at all. You avoid discussion of economic growth requiring extra coal like the plague. Why? Because it's the uncomfortable mathematically provable reality that makes Ted Trainer actually look like he's onto something.

Look at the maths of growth. If you take one human lifetime of 70 years, the numbers work nicely. If you use x coal, but increase coal consumption by 1% per year, you'll need 2x at the end of 70 years. If you increase consumption by 2% per year, you'll need 4x. 3% is 8x. 4% per annum growth means 16x.

So that means, at just 4% growth per annum brought on by peak oil and coal to liquids programs, after 70 years you would require 16 times the coal per year. Debunk my sources all you like, all they have done is attach various growth scenarios to various government coal reserves data and energy agency reports. Go figure.

Even the Sydney Morning Herald was asking how much coal NSW really has.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/reserves-to-dry-up-as-clean-coal-becomes-viable/2007/04/09/1175971023057.html

Sorry if you could not read the report from the Energy Watch Group?
If this link does not download a 2 page English report, please tell me.
http://www.energywatchgroup.org/files/Coal_English.pdf
Posted by Eclipse Now, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 5:43:37 PM
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