The Omnitir Blog

To blog or not to blog

2006-09-20T11:38:00.000+10:00

Apologies for a lack of bloging lately. I’ve been extremely busy with my other life (er, that is, my real life), but more to the point, I’ve been contemplating the point of bloging. I originally started a blog just as an experiment. I had no idea what I would blog about (see first post), but I thought it would be nice to have a bit of an outlet. Looking back, many of the posts I’ve made have been ranting about silly little things, like how amusingly over the top the doomsday crowd is, or alternatively I’ve posted little news articles that I’ve come across and found interesting.

But ranting about morons that are convinced the world is about to end serves no purpose except to blow some steam off. And I’m beginning to wonder why I should make an effort to post about all the cool technology developments that are occurring more and more frequently. I’ll find some great piece of news, but then I realise that it’s already been discussed in many dozens of locations, usually in places that enjoy many more hits then my humble little blog does, and I kind of wonder why should I bother writing up a piece that won’t be adding anything new to the wealth of information out there?

Blogging is a strange beast. Some people, such as those I link to in the sidebar, do fantastic jobs of writing up interesting commentary on their subject matter, whereas some people often just post quick links to news items of interest they have come across, and little else. Some people blog about their professional careers, some blog about some hobby or interest (like in this blog for example, I blog about what personally interests me – technology and the future of human kind). Many people just blog about their daily lives, their blog serving as a kind of online diary.

So I guess the question to be asked, is why blog, and in what form? I’m often tempted to post links to various news items I find, but then I wonder, why? I guess for me blogging only makes sense if you are going to add some interesting commentary, but personally, I find it very difficult to find the time. I’m just not sure if I should bother. I suspect my time would be better spent reading what others have to say rather then adding my voice to the chorus of millions.

Today’s rant has basically been an outlet to voice my concern for my feeling of the pointlessness desktop journalism. I’m thinking that I won’t be posting news articles anymore unless it’s something that really fascinates me.

But after having this little rant, it becomes clearer to me why I bother with bloging. Voicing ones opinion, no matter how small that voice may be, is a remarkable privilege and a fantastic opportunity. Even when you’re too busy to update more then once a fortnight.

Sustainability is inevitable

2006-08-30T10:41:00.000+10:00

I post here a response I gave in a recent discussion about peak oil regarding my position on sustainability and debunking the notion that a mass dieoff of billions of people is inevitable.

Ludi from the peak oil community asks:

Omnitir, can you explain how the transition to sustainability is "inevitable"? I'm not sure what you mean by that. Do you mean it is inevitable we will transition to sustainability before a major die-off?

Yes, I believe so.

Our capabilities of adapting are far more advanced then I suspect many people acknowledge. It comes down to the sometimes overlooked benefits of greater complexity. With today’s unprecedented levels of complexity we have the ability to do what we have always done on a much larger scale, far more quickly, and far more effectively.

What we have always done is adapt. Our species has the unique ability to understand a situation, then create virtual scenarios to experiment and test hypothesis (early this was done in the mind, then in more complex ways with new tools such as writing and mathematics etc., and now in exceedingly complex ways with highly advanced tools such as massive parallel computer networking etc., in each case resulting in ever more effective solutions), and finally we put these solutions into action.

I believe that we already are making a gradual but definite transition towards sustainability, and that this transition is the inevitable result of human progress. We understand the situation far better then ever before, and more and more people are becoming aware of the need for change. We are using hugely more advanced tools to both understand the problem and to calculate and develop various solutions, which give ever more effective results. And the last stage is implementing these solutions, which contrary to doomer positions is something that is occurring in earnest (just not instantaneously).

Thanks to our greater understanding of the problems, a greater number of bodies are striving for solutions. This phenomenon will gain impressive momentum the more the truth of unsustainability is revealed to the world, and the better it is understood.

Long before a great dieoff occurs, to coin a phrase, the ‘symptoms of the greater problem’, will manifest themselves in greater number, causing an increasing amount of effort towards sustainability. There will indeed be a breaking point, but not one in which civilization collapses around us, rather one where the movement for sustainability gains critical mass and can no longer be resisted. Democracy, capitalism, the free market and increasing complexity will then display their inherent benefits as the push towards sustainability overwhelms current paradigms and takes priority in a world where oil is soon to peak. The dieoff will be adverted.

But don’t rest easy guys, there’s still a lot of work to do ;)

The future of cars and the end of car culture

2006-08-22T23:03:00.000+10:00

A doomer recently made a sarcastic comment to my post about the short-sightedness of peak oil doomers with regards to high technology and its role in our future:

So now we have cars that can drive themselves without running into things or people... in the desert! Yeah, that'll solve all our problems!

While this comment misses the point I was making that artificial intelligence is indeed advancing and will have a big influence on our future, the comment did get me thinking some more about cars and their importance to peak oil.

Firstly, let’s cut the crap. Peak oil is about cars. Doomers can rant all they want about phantom carrying capacity, the great die-off, suburban sprawl, oil dependent currencies, the essential role of oil in maintaining civilization, and so on and so forth; but the bottom line is it’s really all about cars. If you could hypothetically replace every car in the world with a magic fuel-less flying carpet, suddenly oil consumption would be irrelevant. However there is still the issue of the ever growing number of people in industrialising countries wanting to taste the freedom of efficient transport. Even with cars that don’t consume oil, we still won’t be able to manage every person on the planet owning a car. And we wouldn’t want too!

So the trick then, is to do two things:

Make all the cars in the world run on alternative fuels,

Get people to adopt better transport alternatives to cars.

That first one is obviously a bit tricky, but there is a simple solution: the electric car. Martin Eberhard, CEO of Tesla Motors, the guys that developed that high performance, sexy and 100% electric sports car, has an excellent post in their blog outlining why the future of cars is electric.

His completely logical position is nicely summed up in the first two sentences of the post:

Not too long from now, most cars will be electric. Why? Two reasons: because electric cars are far more efficient than any other kind of car, and because they are the ultimate multi-fuel cars. Sound bold, maybe crazy? Read on.

Electric vehicles really are the future. They make so much more sense on so many levels. We have the technology, and the transition is beginning.

Okay, now for the second, and perhaps more important question; how do we get large numbers of people to adopt better alternatives to cars?

I’ve always thought that there must be better options then cars. One possibility that I like the sound of is a sort of hybrid rail and private car setup, such as MegaRail. There are a lot of public transit system concept that could revolutionise the world, if only they could get support. As always, funding large scale projects frequently stands in the way of potentially hugely beneficial developments.

MegaRail concept - an electric vehicle hybrid rail system

Mmm, sexy.

However, when you consider how much money must get spent on cars, from the purchasing, maintenance and operation costs of the cars themselves, to the massive infrastructure and real estate that car culture demands, this huge amount of money could surely be better spent? If every dollar that goes into cars instead went into a public transit system, surely we would have a system vastly superior to private car ownership? Unfortunately there is a century of car culture standing in the way for any change to happen at the moment. People simply live their cars too damn much.

This brings me back to the point of quoting the anonymous doomer as the start of this post. Cars that drive themselves solving our problems? You bet!

Imagine a future where not only are all the cars efficient and quiet electric vehicles, but they also drive themselves. This would have several very important social ramifications. The desire to drive a large and powerful car would diminish.

Consider the social implications when all cars:

Are very quiet (and have no mucho exhaust note to tell people how big you genitals are)

Drive themselves intelligently and do not occasionally try to race other cars at the lights

Are hyper safe drivers that never crash

Become a passenger experience instead of a driving pleasure

The role of the car in our lives will change. Cars will cease to be a social status symbol. People won’t want big and fast cars because they will be useless – you won’t be able to make an auto-driving car race off at dangerous and fuel wasting speeds. You won’t be able to rev the engine in mucho efforts to tell everyone that you are a MAN. You won’t be under the mistaken impression that a massive SUV is safer and necessary for driving the kids to soccer practice, because you know that the AI car network simply can not crash a car.

So what happens to society when the all important social role of the car disappears? When people don’t car about their cars – something that is almost unthinkable in today’s lingering 20th century ideals – how will people’s live change? I suspect that in such a dramatic cultural shift, and it is dramatic, people will become a lot more open about alternative forms of transport. When a car is not a driving experience but a passenger experience, perhaps a transition to a more sensible transport ideal will become feasible?

So in response too our short-sighted doomer friend who fails to consider the implications of advancing technology, yes, cars that drive themselves just may solve all of our problems. You see, once we get to the point where cars are driving themselves, and by which point we will already be using oil alternative fuels, a wide-scale transition to superior alternatives to cars will be possible, because the AI car will have killed off the last remnants of the despicable car culture we so lovingly developed during the oil age.

Another Peak oil analogy – a kid leaving home

2006-08-20T14:57:00.000+10:00

The other day I was thinking about how much better the world is going to be once we kick the oil habit, and another analogy on peak oil optimism occurred to me.

Peak oil is like when a kid, or rather young adult, is forced to move out of his parent’s home for the first time.

Here’s this hypothetical young man who has so far lived his entire life under the caring roof of his family. Through his childhood and adolescent years they have supported and nurtured him. They helped him as he made his way through school and more recently through university. There have been problems along the way, but for the most part life for him has been pretty damn easy. Though he may think he had it tough at times and doesn’t yet realise that overall he has had life pretty easy up to this point.

But now he’s about to graduated from college and suddenly things are uncertain. He’s got to go out on his own, find a job, find a place to live, feed himself, and pay for everything himself. Suddenly the sheltered life he’s been living with his parents seems so much safer, comfortable and easier then the real world he is entering.

But then he makes the transition. It was a little painful at first. He went through many gruelling interviews in order to find work. He had a hard time finding the right place to live, and his new home isn’t as nice as his parent’s home. He had some troubles feeding himself and learning how to cook. He found himself getting take-out food far too often.

However after a while he became acclimatised to his new life. Now he’s enjoying working and all the benefits that come from having a proper income. He’s stopped eating unhealthy take-out and worked out how to maintain a healthy diet. He’s started saving for a deposit on his own home and understands that the dive he’s currently living in is only a stop gap measure. He thinks that in the future he may even end up in a home much nicer then his parents.

Yep, now that he’s made the transition, he realises that life is vastly better then it ever was when he was living at home. He thinks back to that time when he was forced to move out and wonders what the hell was he so concerned about?

A future without oil - it's going to be great

And so too will future civilization look back to the end of the oil age and wonder what the hell we were so worried about (well, the doomers will anyway). Sure, the transition is going to be difficult, sometimes even painful. But once we’ve made the transition, once we have a sustainable world that runs of clean and renewable (or unlimited?) energy and resources, we will realise that life is vastly greater then it has ever been before, and that the peaking of global oil production (just like this kid being forced to move out of home) turned out to be the best thing that could possibly happen to us.

Progress is sustainable

2006-08-15T10:43:00.000+10:00

Perusing the brilliant KurzweilAI.net recently, I came across a very interesting paper by John McCarthy of Stanford University; Progress and its Sustainability. It's interesting in that it debunks essentially every major doomsayer theory regarding sustainability - and incidentally was written over ten years ago, long before the peakniks began their enviro-doomsday mantra.

For a more detailed understanding of how progress is sustainable, be sure to look into the original paper and it's many detailed links.

"With the development of nuclear energy, it became possible to show that there are no apparent obstacles even to a billion years of sustainability"

Following is a section of the question and answer segment posted in the condensed version of the paper from KurzweilAI.

Q. What is meant by material progress?

A. Human progress in the last few centuries has included the following.

1. Increased access to material goods.
2. Increased life span.
3. Reduced childhood death.
4. Increased opportunities for education.
5. Societies that people choose to migrate to.
6. More individual choice of occupation, lifestyle and avocations.
7. More opportunity to enjoy both culture and nature.
8. Cleaner environment.
9. Increased consideration for the values in nature, e.g. for the preservation of biological diversity.
10. Increased concern for less advanced people and their cultures.
11. More and more new goods and services available to more and more people. Available novelty is a good. Compulsory novelty is often a nuisance or worse.

All this progress was a consequence of the advance of technology and also of advances in government and other social organizations in capitalist society. These other social organizations include universities, societies for the promotion of the arts, trade unions, publications, political parties, and advocacy organizations. Mainly it was technology, which became increasingly based on scientific discoveries.

None of these advances ensure that everyone will be happy. The American Declaration of Independence wisely offers only the pursuit of happiness. However, I believe that progress has resulted in less acute unhappiness. Someone who thinks otherwise should explain how parents were just as happy when half of their children died in childhood.

All these things are dependent on the material wealth of society. People can dispute about how to divide the wealth, but there has to be wealth to divide. Here are some of the questions that have led some people believe this progress can't continue and some answers to the worries.

Q. Can the world grow enough food for 15 billion people?

A. Yes, it can and with present agricultural technology. With better technology, probably a lot more. Biotechnology based on molecular genetics is just beginning to be applied to agriculture.

Q. Aren't our forests being exhausted?

A. No. In the industrial countries, the land in forest is stable and the quantity of wood is increasing. In the tropical underdeveloped countries, there is still substantial conversion of forest to agriculture.

Q. Is humanity suffering from an enormous loss of biodiversity.

A. The loss is quite small of the important or individually interesting species like mammals and birds. However, beetle species in the Amazon may be disappearing.

Q. Isn't the world running out of energy.

A. No. Nuclear and solar> energy are each adequate for the next several billion years. That's right; billion not just million or thousand.

Q. Isn't it important to conserve energy?

A. Energy needs to be regarded as just another commodity, to be used in whatever quantity is cost-effective. It is available in whatever amounts may be needed. Treating its conservation as a special goal has been wasteful of human effort. We are the poorer for it.

Q. When will we run out of oil?

A. Twenty years ago, I had been convinced that by the end of this century we would be out of oil directly pumpable from the ground. Obviously, we won't, and I am cautious about how much oil there is left. Maybe 20 years, maybe 50 years, maybe 100 years, but I can't see it lasting longer than 100 years.

However, oil can be extracted from oil shale, from tar sands (as it is in Alberta, Canada) and synthesized from coal. These processes(except for tar sands) are too expensive to compete with just letting it just flow out of the ground in Saudi Arabia, but the technology was developed when it was thought oil would run out soon. The costs would be affordable. Taking these sources into account we probably have several hundred years supply of oil, provided "greenhouse" warming permits its use.

Q. What will happen when all these sources run out or if global warming requires severe restrictions?

A. Oil and natural gas are readily replaced by nuclear energy for heating and electricity generation. However, oil is not so readily replaced for transportation. If we can develop good enough batteries, electric cars are a solution. If not, liquid hydrogen will work for cars and trucks.

Q. What about the non-fuel uses of oil and natural gas? Don't our plastics depend on their availability?

A. Oil and gas are used as feedstocks for making plastics of all kinds, but the amounts are much smaller than their use for fuel. Any source of carbon will do in place of oil and gas - coal or biomass, for example. Oil and gas are used today, because they are cheap, easy to handle and carry the energy required for the chemical reactions along with the materials.

Q. Will we run out of minerals?

A. No. There is plenty of every element in major use. It is a question of the economic concepts of reserves and resources. Iron ore and aluminum ore are presently obtained from very rich ores available in a few places in the world. These ores can be shipped long distances by water at small cost. They are oxides rather than the silicates which present refining procedures don't handle. The earth's crust is 5 percent iron and 7 percent aluminum, but most of it as silicates. Refining silicates will require more energy. However, the extractive industries only account for four percent of the American GDP, so we can afford more expensive extraction processes when they become necessary.

Indeed once we can extract minerals from random rock, the only way of running out of an element is to eject it from the planet or to let it subduct under a continent. This is because using quantities of elements doesn't destroy them. Therefore, the scrap piles will eventually be ores. This won't happen for a long time, because more concentrated ores will remain available for a long time.

In fact metal ores have become more inexpensive recently as is illustrated by the famous bet between the Stanford environmentalist Paul Ehrlich and the economist Julian Simon. In 1980 Simon sold Ehrlich (on credit) ten year futures on five metals of Ehrlich's choosing. The total price was $1,000. In 1990 Ehrlich had to pay Simon $600, because the metals had gone down in price.

Q. Doesn't the second law of thermodynamics tell us that the lower the concentration of the ore, the more energy it takes to extract it?

A. It does indeed, but the energy required goes up very slowly as the concentration goes down. To separate one mole of a substance from n moles of a substrate requires an energy RT ln n according to the second law. According to this formula, it would pay to extract one atom of uranium from the entire earth. Of course, mineral extraction is more expensive than that, but the second law of thermodynamics isn't the reason.

Q. What if the population increases?

A. There is certainly a limit to the population the earth can support, and migration into space can only occur very slowly at the present level of technology. The limiting factor may be food, but a feeling that enough is enough may be more important. We will see what happens when 10,000 people try to post to a usenet newsgroup. That won't require any increase in population - only an increase in the availability of computers. Nevertheless, it will give everyone a taste of a more crowded world. Some people ascribe the increased crowdedness of American national parks to the increase in population. However the number of visitors to Yosemite National increased 2.6 times as fast as the population of the U.S. or of California. The crowdedness is caused by increased equality of opportunity to visit the parks.

Q. How fast is population increasing?

A. In the U.S., Europe, and Japan, the birth rate is below the level required to sustain the population. The population is increasing because of immigration and from the baby boom that followed WWII. It is the grandchildren of the boomers that are keeping the schools going.

In much of the rest of the world the population is still increasing, but the rate of increase is slowing, especially in the big countries of China, India and Indonesia.

There is still a high rate of growth in Africa south of the Sahara, but it also shows signs of slowing.

Q. Is the population problem urgent?

A. Only in a few countries, and it is their problem, because they have sovereignty. People in the advanced countries can only provide technology, but adequate birth control technology has already been provided. For the world as a whole, the population problem may be important, but it is not urgent.

Q. Isn't the world running out of usable fresh water supplies.

A. No, but some countries may have to spend a lot of money on water projects, just as our ancestors did.

Q. What about the ozone layer, the ozone hole and UV-B?

A. On the theory that chlorofluorocarbons put chlorine in the upper atmosphere which destroys ozone, their manufacture has been banned. A 90 percent reduction would have been just as effective and less economically disruptive, but industry seems to be adjusting to the total ban.

Q. Won't global warming do us in unless we drastically reduce our use of energy?

A. No. Global warming can be avoided or reversed should it turn out to be a serious problem. However, there is a thorough paper "Why Global Warming Would be Good for You" by Tom Moore of the Hoover Institution.

Q. What about trash and garbage? Aren't we likely to drown in them?

A. The U.S. produces about 375 million tons of trash and garbage per year. There is no real shortage of land where it can be put. It should be piled quite high. What changed is that before the recent enthusiasm for wetlands, filling in swamps with garbage was the approved thing to do, and the land was available without cost. Now it must be paid for, but the costs are quite bearable.

Q. Given all this uncertainty about the prospects for continuing material progress, isn't it better to be safe than sorry?

A. Yes, but material progress is much more likely to be safe than is stagnation. The proposals for limiting progress are likely to cost lives from poverty and make humanity less capable of dealing with dealing with the inevitable emergencies.

The proposals claiming that safety lies in restraining progress are more likely to lead to sorrow than continuing progress in general.

Q. Have environmental and health and safety regulations been expensive to our society?

A. Yes, they have cost about $625 billion per year according to one estimate. [Other estimates are different.] My opinion is that many of the regulations have been worthwhile, but a great many (probably most) have contributed very little when compared to the costs they have imposed on individuals and businesses.

However, our society can survive even a large amount of irrational regulation. I remain an extreme optimist--one who believes the would will probably survive even if it doesn't take his advice.

Q. Aren't the people of the advanced countries using more than their proper share of natural resources?

A. People can really be said to use more than their share of something if their use deprives someone else of it. If there is plenty for everyone for the indefinite future, the concept of fair share is meaningless.

The only major commodity whose use in the advanced countries may deprive people of the poor countries in the near future is petroleum. How near is the exhaustion of petroleum is not clear.

When the petroleum supply shows clear signs of running out, perhaps the advanced countries should give the poor countries some extra help in making the transition to nuclear and possibly solar energy. By the time petroleum runs out some, maybe even most, of the presently poor countries will no longer be too poor to solve their own energy problems. Any country, which like the U.S. today, spends only 8 percent of its GDP on energy can afford to solve its own energy problems.

Q. What does it matter whether we believe progress is sustainable or not?

A. Important policies depend on it.

1. If progress were not sustainable, then it would be important to reduce consumption of whatever resources were limiting progress. It would be the particular duty of the countries using the most of these resources.
2. Since progress is sustainable, and there is no limiting resource in the short term (next few hundred years and probably much longer), the most important way to help the poor countries is to help them develop more or less along the path pioneered by the richer countries--skipping some steps when possible.
3. The richer countries should continue their progress, both for the sake of their own citizens and because the richer the country is, the more it is likely to do to help others.

All the contentions of this article require detailed support, and this support is given in the author's web page which contains references to articles concerned with particular possible problems including energy, agriculture, pollution, biodiversity, population growth, forests, water supply, and also various menaces that might arise.

Doomers and the technological singularity

2006-08-09T17:39:00.000+10:00

Apologies to my regular visitors (for my recent lack of posts, and for this little rant) but I’ve been a bit distracted away from blogging lately. For some insane reason, I’ve been having a few little arguments with peak oil doomers here and there (mostly on PeakOil.com). I really should be blogging about important stuff like technology with what little spare time I have rather then butting my head against the immobile wall of peaknic pessimism, but what can I say, I just enjoy the lame responses those guys endlessly churn out.

The latest argument was about the possibility of the technological singularity solving PO, and it was amusing to see the number of doomers that firstly have no understanding of technological progress, and secondly attribute my “cornicopian” attitude to not understanding the severe environmental issues humanity faces. Yet when I offer my understanding of environmental issues (no shit Sherlock, the world is getting warmer and the oceans are in a sorry state – it’s no secret), they insist I fail to understand our predicament. Of course, most of these Luddites don’t understand the basic concepts of high-end technology, nor do they want to, yet they accuse others of ignoring facts. When I refer to advancing technology, these people think I’m talking about iPods.

The most amazing thing of the argument though is the underlying philosophies. I believe that our best chance, hell, our only chance of repairing environmental damage is to develop and refine the appropriate technologies. Doomers believe the best chance for the environment is for 4 or 5 billion people to die, and then leave the environment to magically repair itself. Fucking morons.

Doomer ready to save the environment, complete with eco-friendly transport.

Some recent samples from a singularity thread (I know, I’ve really got to stop visiting that site):

All the singularity talk really is doomerism in disguise, its' religion with a science icing, something will come.
…
You seem to have attached yourself to the singularity like a Christ figure.
…
This seems like the religious impulse acting under the guise of science.
…
None of this singularity BS is relevant to peakoil. It's not like an AI would be able to pull a new thermodynamic paradigm out of its silicon ass to save the planet at this point.
…
AI 'experts' (there's no such thing you should know) have predicting the rise of 'intelligent' machines for decades now, and we're still no where even close.
…
But even if we achieve the "singularity" and AI, I don't see how that fixes a broken Earth. Brings back extinct species. Reverses runaway global warming. Cleanses the world ocean. Creates energy out of nothing or otherwise defies the laws of physics.
…
If an ET alien came to earth with the periodic table and was told "design an energy carrier for planet Earth" it would come up with gasoline.

So we get the old "science is your religion, and singularity your 2nd coming of Christ". -No dipshit, science is a way to understand and world around us without blind faith and belief systems, and singularity is something that may possibly result from continued exponential progress.

We get the constant Luddite technophobia and belief that science and technology has failed us. And apparently there is no such thing as AI experts. Humph, I expect my professor from my AI unit when I studied software development would have something to say about that. People that think AI hasn't made any progress would be suprised to know just how much "soft AI" as permetated our society. If you were to shut down every form of AI, modern civilization would suddenly grind to a halt. And I suppose the success teams have enjoyed in autonomous vehicles driving long off-road obstacle coursed counts for nothing? And this contest isn't even the AI big wigs, it's only open to the backyard project type teams.

Cars that drive themselves. The technology was once the stuff of impossible fantasy where autonomous cars and David Hasselhoff teamed up to fight crime. Now it’s real… but nobody seems to care.

And of course we get the heart of the doomer belief system itself; “hail the almighty hydrocarbon, the supreme fuel source of all time! E.T., A.I., or God himself could not even create a better fuel source then gasoline.” No wonder these morons think we are so doomed.

And these quote were just from the last couple of pages of the discussion. This garbage went on for a dozen pages before that.

Well that’s enough ranting. I’m staying away from the doomer sites now. Those guys can horde ammo and cans of baked beans for the next few decades, fantasizing about their Mad Max scenarios. I am well aware now that there is no point in an optimist engaging in conversation with them. So I’ll let them be, however, I would like to see their reactions in twenty five years when civilization is still humming along and A.I. is beginning to make to world a better place for everyone. But I suspect that these Luddites will be too firmly entrenched in their shelters to realize that the world has moved on without them.

Once again, apologies for the rant. This is the last time!

Test Tube Meat

2006-08-02T17:17:00.000+10:00

In keeping with the theme of the previous post, that is, how technology will help feed our planet's growing population in the future, I thought I would mention this article I recently came across at Wired News about Test Tube Meat.

Henk Haagsman, a professor of meat sciences at Utrecht University, and his Dutch colleagues are working on growing artificial pork meat out of pig stem cells. They hope to grow a form of minced meat suitable for burgers, sausages and pizza toppings within the next few years.

Currently involved in identifying the type of stem cells that will multiply the most to create larger quantities of meat within a bioreactor, the team hopes to have concrete results by 2009. The 2 million euro ($2.5 million) Dutch-government-funded project began in April 2005. The work is one arm of a worldwide research effort focused on growing meat from cell cultures on an industrial scale.

"All of the technology exists today to make ground meat products in vitro," says Paul Kosnik.

"We believe the goal of a processed meat product is attainable in the next five years if funding is available and the R&D is pursued aggressively." A single cell could theoretically produce enough meat to feed the world's population for a year.

If successful, artificially grown meat could be tailored to be far healthier than any type of farm-grown meat. It's possible to stuff if full of heart-friendly omega-3 fatty acids, adjust the protein or texture to suit individual taste preferences and screen it for food-borne diseases.

Mmmmm, steak...

I’ve always thought the ultimate in food production would be growing meat artificially. It makes so much sense to produce something that is healthier, safer and vastly better for the environment, not to mention a means to help solve world hunger, as opposed to the barbaric practices that modern civilization currently goes through in getting meet to the supermarkets of the world.

Current practices produce poor quality meets, have greater risk of sickness and disease, the animals are pumped full of chemicals, they live their lives in disgusting conditions, and perhaps worst of all, consume vast amounts of energy.

And yet despite the potential of artificial meats, a quick read of the comments section of the Wired News article, and we can see that the world is still full of irrational idiots that are strongly against the idea. I wonder if they even begin to understand the problems facing modern civilization and the need for advanced solutions such as this?

George Bush is another Luddite who fails to see the importance of scientific and technological developments, as he recently vetoed the stem cell research bill, claiming that such research is immoral, and in doing so prohibiting research into potentially hugely important developments such as artificial meat or medical advances. I wonder, if Bush thinks researching stem cells to try and save lives (and possibly feed the starving) is immoral, then does he consider the death and destruction that he is directly responsible for in the Middle East to be moral?

Fortunately it seems that most of the American public is opposed to the bill veto, so it seems that much of the possibilities of stem cell research is becoming widely understood. And hopefully in the years ahead when artificial meat becomes commercialized, people will be able to make the mental adjustments to it’s benefits, just as they have with stem cell research.

And considering the likely economic ramifications of being able to artificially grow a superior meat, hopefully once the technology becomes commercialized world leaders will be able to see the logic in supporting such a technology. Given the financial benefits of such products, there may not have much of a choice.

“Astroculture” - Space gardens

2006-07-27T22:13:00.000+10:00

As civilization advances and populations grow, there is of course an ever increasing need to advance the frontiers of agricultural science in order to feed the worlds growing populations, and hopefully one day bring about an end to world hunger. Agricultural science continues to advance on many conventional fronts, but is also advancing in humanities final frontier – space. And while our immediate needs for advancing agricultural science is down to earth (feeding growing populations), our long term living requirements demand that we learn to develop plant-based life support systems in space, for food, oxygen and psychological benefits.

One day many people will call space their home and they can’t be expected to attain their food that was grown on Earth. The sooner we develop the means to sustainably grow food in space, the better of we will be – both for future residents of space, and current populations of hungry people.

Experimentation with growing plants in microgravity has always been an important objective of many space programs, with early experiments by the Russians proving the ease of off-world plant growth. Since then NASA has conducted experiments aboard the space shuttles and commercial experimentation began with growing plants on the International Space Station.

China has enjoyed success with astroculture, though not through experimenting specifically with growing plants in microgravity, but rather through experimenting with the mutation of plant seeds. The idea is to send a variety of plant seedlings into orbit in retrievable satellites, where the seeds are exposed to cosmic radiation resulting in mutation. China began these experiments in 1987 with more then 800 species of plant seeds [source], resulting in a number of high-yield crops being developed, including II Youhang 1, a super rice that produced a world record yield of 928.3kg per mu (1mu=0.0667ha). The rice is high quality as well as high yield, with “fine grain rate, whole grain rate, amylose, and protein, reach the top standards defined by the national criteria.”

Space-bred vegetables from the experiments tend to have a vitamin content that is 281.5 percent higher than ordinary vegetables, along with raised levels of the microelements ferrum, zinc and carotene.
So far, about 566,600 hectares of Chinese land have been planted with space-bred rice and wheat between 2001 and 2004, according to a government official. It has yielded an additional 340,000 tons of grain for the country. [source]

China’s latest space project, the Shijian-8 satellite will carry more then 2000 varieties of plant seeds including fungi and sequenced molecular biomaterials.

Mutating seeds in space could help to undo the damage done to the DNA of modern produce through poor farming practices, and could result in higher quality and higher yield crops for the future.

Plant growth experiment on the ISS

NASA continues to research astroculture with its recent shuttle flight, studying plant roots and experimenting with varying arrangements of light sources. “The experiment is the third part of a comprehensive study of how crop yields could be increased for missions that could last many months or even years. Plants that will be used for food may well be used to filter spaceship air and produce oxygen.”

The European Space Agency is also performing research in this field with the European Modular Cultivation System designed for various biological experiments under microgravity. The EMCS will automatically perform experiments of seeds to later be returned to Earth for analysis, where plant germination, growth, curvature and DNA analysis will be studied. Insights gained from these experiments aim to help create sustainable plant-based life support systems for long space missions.

I suspect that astroculture has a bright future. It is already big business in China successfully helping to feed a massive and rapidly industrialising nation, and with the development of privatised space laboratories like we are seeing with Bigelow Areospace and others developing similar projects, there will be ample room in the near future for big developments in astroculture. It’s not hard to envision large inflatable orbiting laboratories being rented en mass by commercial agricultural groups seeking to take advantage of these recent developments.

Could space agriculture have a bright future?

Hat tip to Sebadoh’s blog at Really Rocket Science

Printing aircraft

2006-07-24T23:21:00.000+10:00

Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works has manufactured the prototype of its new high altitude unmanned system using parts manufactured through a “3D printing” process known as 3D rapid prototyping. This process has been used in industry for some time now to manufacture basic prototypes, but now the strength of the parts printed in this way is strong enough to be used as working components.

New Scientist has an article about this revolutionary approach to building aircraft, noting that the process allows reduced time to design and build aircraft, and reduced costs.

Printing 3D objects could potentially be of huge importance in the future, as cost reductions, reduction in development times of increasingly complex technology and increases in efficiency and reduction in resource consumption all become essential to continued progress.

Printing objects seems like a natural progression in manufacturing technology. Perhaps one day we will print everything we require with the ultimate in manufacturing technology; molecular manufacturing. Who wouldn’t like to have their own desktop nanotech printer? It’s a step away from Star Trek replicators.

We may be a little while off from having molecular manufacturing, but manufacturing functional parts through 3D printers is certainly a step in the right direction.

It will be interesting to see the effect that this technology will have on the auto industry once it filters down to that level. Wide scale increases in efficiency could be just what the doctor ordered (though personally I would like to see the manufactures of oversized automobiles go bankrupt...).

Al Fin: Ocean Thermal Energy--Energy from the Sea

2006-07-24T16:10:00.000+10:00

And while on the topic of alternative energy (well, that's a topic I think I'll always be on...) and attaining energy from the ocean, Al Fin has blogged an interesting piece about the energy stored in the ocean as thermal layers, which is stored energy available for the taking (with appropriate development of course). Yet another form of energy to help fill the gap as fossil fuels decline.

Al Fin: Ocean Thermal Energy--Energy from the Sea

Wave Power

2006-07-23T11:05:00.000+10:00

With the declining of fossil fuel resources and increasing concern of environmental degradation, there is ever growing interest and research into clean and renewable forms of energy. The vast majority of interest is on solar and wind power (and of course biofuels, but I'm talking about electricity generation), however there are other less popular forms of renewable energy that tend to be somewhat overlooked. One such form is solar tower technology, but another serious contender is wave power.

Based on the recent results of a new design by an Australian company Energetech, wave power appears to be one of the most promising sustainable energy sources in development. The results of the Port Kembla project indicate that this design could even be competitive with fossil fuel sources.

Some excerpts from their website:

Past laboratory studies and the analysis of an earlier trial deployment at Port Kembla had indicated the Energetech technology was capable of producing an annual energy output of at least 500 MWh at Port Kembla. However, this latest trial indicates the technology is capable of producing more power and fresh water than has previously been claimed. Based on the recent test results, a full scale project should power up to 1500 homes, or produce three million litres of water per day per production unit.
This is very encouraging, as the outcome of the trial ensures the economics of the design will be competitive not only with other renewable energy forms, but also with full cost fossil fuel sources.
[…]
Moderately good wave climates should produce power using first generation systems at a cost of around 10 cents US per kWh, and ideal sites at a cost around 5 cents. Over time, on moderately good sites, with capital cost savings from second generation designs, we can see the technology regularly delivering electricity at around 4 cents US kWh
[…]
Wave energy is:
• truly renewable - inexhaustible and occurring from natural phenomenon
• the most consistent of the intermittent renewable energy sources
• non-emitting - no emissions of harmful pollutants result from its use
• consumes no fuel in the operation of the system
[…]
Ocean waves contain enormous amounts of energy, but the energy in each crest is generally spread out along it. If all the energy could be transported to one point it could be harnessed far more readily.
It is possible to focus all the energy of a plane surface gravity wave crest, the type you see breaking on the beach, on to a single point using a parabolic wave focusser. The section of the wave is reflected by a parabolic wall and converges on the focus of the parabola. As the wave converges, the crest height grows to a maximum in the focus area.
[…]
Approximating what the device will produce in the way of power depends on the amount of energy extracted based on sea conditions on a particular day.
An illustration, however, may be useful. Consider a parabolic focuser with dimensions of 40 metres width, 20 metres length, and a focal length of 5 metres. Assume a coastal wave crest amplitude of 1 metre. This would render in the vicinity of ten million joules of energy for extraction from each wave. This equates to between 1 and 2 megawatts of power.

With the coming energy crisis that the world is bound to face as oil production inevitably peaks, we must actively pursue all avenues of possible solutions. And in countries where there are large costal populations (isn’t that everyone?), wave power looks like it could be a viable component in our future energy needs.

And then there is the issue of fresh water. In places such as Australia where most of the country is in severe drought, and where almost the entire population is located in coastal regions, wave power, with it’s ability to produce both fresh water and clean energy, seems like an essential technology to develop.

Solar power and wind power are great technologies, but perhaps it’s time we started paying attention to all of the available solutions? Wave power, especially with this new design, has the potential to be a primary resource for Australia and much of the world.

Bigelow Aerospace launches orbiting habitat

2006-07-21T18:48:00.000+10:00

The private-sector space industry and space tourism took another step forward this week with the successful launch and deployment of the Genesis 1 one-third scale prototype space station. Bigelow Aerospace seeks to develop and operate inflatable space habitats for space tourism and private laboratories. From the Bigelow Aerospace website:

In 2000, I announced our original goal of 2015 (and $500,000,000 later) as being the year we would have our first commercial space complex (CSC) in orbit. We might be ahead of schedule. The problem is transportation. We expect to fly two spacecraft this year in 2006 that we are referring to as Genesis I and Genesis II. By 2010, Bigelow Aerospace hopes to have flown 6-10 pathfinder/demonstrator spacecraft. By 2012, Bigelow Aerospace may be ready to fly its first full-scale habitable structure.

The launch of the Genesis 1 orbital module is a step (or giant leap) towards the privatisation of space, something which I believe to be essential if humanity is going to effectively utilize space.

In the search for a suitable private space craft for the commute into orbit, Robert Bigelow has set a $50 million prize to the team that builds the first orbital vehicle capable of carrying up to seven astronauts to one of his inflatable modules by the end of the decade.

Meanwhile, Virgin Galatic is planning to begin test flights in 2007 for its space tourism program, where they plan to send passengers paying the $200,000 ticket price on sub-orbital flights. Apparently they already have a long waiting list of paying cliental. Virgin has chosen Scaled Composites, the winners of the 2004 Ansari X-Prize, to build their fleet of passanger space craft.

Also, the company that sent the first tourist into space aboard Russian rockets, Space Adventures Ltd., is about to start offering its clients a new option while staying at the ISS: a spacewalk for and extra $15 Million.

I think it’s great to finally see the space tourism industry on its way to success. With an ever increasing line of rich customers wanting to experience the final frontier, I believe that space development will continue to expand, and eventually a private space industry will exist that is sustainable and ultimately beneficial for all humankind.

Space.com has an exclusive article about Genesis 1, and there is an interesting article on the Genesis 1 mission on Cosmic Log.

EnviroMission Solar Tower

2006-07-20T12:23:00.000+10:00

EnviroMission is an Australian based group building the worlds first large scale (200MW) solar tower, capable of generating enough clean electricity to power around 200,000 typical Australian households, with no greenhouse gas emissions. The equivalent energy produced conventionally would pump over 900,000 tonnes of greenhouse gasses into the environment.

Originally the plan was to build a much larger structure 1 kilometre tall, though mid 2005 EnviroMission announced that they plan to build a smaller scale version. Of course this announcement was met by pessimists as evidence of failure of the project, however the project is still on track and appears to have strong potential, even if the planned large scale tower is delayed in favour of establishing wide scale commercialisation.

Building smaller towers may look like a simple downsizing of the technology, but the reality is that smaller towers offer far greater potential for the technologies future. Thanks to several developments in the technology (namely increased efficiency of the collector zones and greater storage capacity allowing constant energy generation), the smaller scale towers are now economically viable. Where once it was thought a megalith tower was required to be economically viable, it now appears that smaller towers are viable, greatly increasing the technologies scalability.

The company is still focused on building the large facilities, but is developing smaller 50MW facilities for demonstration purposes consistent with the LETDF Grant application, which is focused on allowing wide scale commercialization of low emission technologies through technology demonstrations.

Waterville Investment Research has a thorough review on the technology and the company, and things are looking promising for the future of solar towers.

The Discovery channel has an interesting documentary about solar tower technology.

Renewable Energy World also has an interesting article on solar towers published last year.

2006-07-19T21:31:00.000+10:00

An analogy on Peak Oil optimism

The peak oil community love their analogies. Although analogies are generally overly simple and often highly inaccurate ways of looking at things, given that the peak oil community seems to respond so well to obscure references to things such as setting suns and shrinking pies, I thought I’d write a little analogy of my own that might help describe the peak oil situation from my point of view; that is, an optimistic point of view.
************

Modern civilisation is like a chronically over-weight fat man who has just found out that if he keeps going with his way of life, he will die well before his time, within 10 to 20 years. His doctor tells him that his lack of exercise, poor diet and over eating is going to kill him. The fat man is obviously concerned and asks his doctor what he can do about it. Unfortunately, it seems his doctor is a phoney, because the doctor informs the fat man that there is nothing he can do to avoid an early death. The doctor insists the man is doomed.

The fat man then suffers through a period of depression, believing that his life is certainly about to end. However some friends of his try to encourage the fat man. They tell him that there are options, and that he could survive. They tell him about a range of high-tech solutions that could extend his life span, such as liposuction and weight loss pills.

And so the fat man goes back to his doctor and enthusiastically asks about the techno-fixes to his problem. Unfortunately, his hopes are soon dashed by the doctor who tells him that liposuction is not a safe option, and that weight loss pills will only ever remove a tiny fraction of the mans excess weight. And all the while, the doctor points out, the man’s weight is continuing to increase as he continues to eat more and more junk food.

“Face it fat man, your doomed.” says the doctor. “Oh, and before you leave, I suggest you purchase a copy of my latest book, which outlines your condition in more detail. And I’ve got some weight loss pills you should buy, which might delay the inevitable a bit longer.”

At this point the fat man begins to suspect his doctor of having a hidden agenda, and he begins to question his doctor’s competency. And so the fat man decides to go and seek a second opinion.

The second doctor comes to the same conclusion; the fat man will die within 10 to 20 years if he keeps with his current way of life. But the good news, the new doctor informs him, is that obesity is a completely curable condition. The doctor writes up a plan for how the fat man can turn his life around, involving a change to a healthy diet, and regular exercise, and through the help of the fat man’s family and friends, they force him to make the necessary changes in his life.

But the fat man doesn’t want to change. He’s fine with the way he looks, and he hasn’t thought too much about the future – 10 to 20 years sound like a long time to him. But most of all, the fat man really doesn’t want to stop eating all the unhealthy foods he loves so much, and he especially doesn’t want to start exercising. Ugh, the effort!

But he no longer has a choice. His family and friends don’t want him to die, regardless of the fat man’s wishes to keep on living his unhealthy way of life. And so his family develop an alternative diet for him to eat, and his friends develop a training regime that will get him on the path to a healthy and long life.

At first the fat man finds the transition unbearable. He’s lived his entire life on unhealthy food, his body is accustomed to it, and suddenly eating a healthy diet is something he not only finds repulsive, but his body doesn’t initially respond well to the strange new foods. At least that is what the man tells himself over and over, effectively making himself sick.

“I need soft drink with this!” he cries, as his family gives him more water to wash down the nutritious meal. But with all his kicking and screaming, his family who love him do not give up on him, and they maintain the healthy diet.

While the fat man thinks the new diet being forced on him is painful, he doesn’t yet know the meaning of pain as his family hire a personal trainer and force him to exercise for the first time in his life.

Between the healthy diet and the regular exercise, the fat man is in a world of pain. He bitches and whines constantly, he is frequently sick, he is unhappy and sometimes angry, and he wants nothing more then to go back to his old way of life. He even attempts to maintain his old habits, but fortunately his friends and family care too much about him and force him to keep up with his new lifestyle for his own good.

And so, several years later the man returns to his original doctor, the hack that told him to give up on his life because he was doomed. But now he is no longer the unhealthy fat man with a drastically reduced life expectancy, but a fit, strong and healthy man full of life and energy. He’s no longer the depressed SOB who once spent all his time sitting around in front of the television eating junk food, but a happy and productive individual with a highly active and healthy lifestyle.

The man’s old doctor is amazed at the improvement the man has made to his life. He estimates that the man should now live to a ripe old age. The now fit man smugly asks the doctor; “So, what was all the garbage you told me that I was doomed and had no chance to live a full and healthy life?”
“Oh, that.” says the doctor.
“Well, uh, you know, I was actually just saying that to give you a wake up call. Of course it was possible to change your life around, but you couldn’t do it without the proverbial splash of cold water in the face. Oh, and now that your fit and healthy, would you be interested in purchasing a copy of my latest book about living a fit and healthy lifestyle?”

************
Civilisation facing peak oil is like an over weight man facing death, and getting civilisation off the fossil fuel and automotive drugs are like the fat man adopting a healthy diet and regular exercise. It may be a painful transition at times, but ultimately it will be a great thing.

Oh, and along the way we will have to deal with people with hidden agendas, trying to sell their ideas so they can make an easy buck. But what else is new?

On advancing progress

2006-07-15T11:46:00.000+10:00

Many in the peak oil community feel disheartened with technology and consider progress to be slowing. No doubt there are various reasons for this perception, the most rational of which may be a general loss of confidence with science.

Progress may indeed appear to be slowing when one considers the amount of new innovations and advances made during the first half of the 20th century, only to see the second half of the 20th century ‘merely’ improving upon earlier advances instead of continuing to come up with all new innovations and breakthroughs. Greenneck summarises this position nicely in recent comments:

I recall when Armstrong and Aldrin set foot on the Moon and back then, the future looked bright indeed.
[…]
Well, 35 years later we haven't got back to the Moon.
[…]
What went wrong?

This is why some people believe PO will lead to some kind of doom: they have lost confidence that science will solve it.

I suspect that if one were to travel back in time and grab someone from 1900 to take them on a quick trip of the 20th century, they would likely adopt a similar position on civilisation’s progress as many of the PO pessimists do. The jump from 1900 to 1950 would be a remarkable leap for them. They might feel amazed at how much we have progressed, seeing inventions that were in their infancy in 1900 become highly advanced and wide spread. They would see the remarkable leaps forward made in almost every aspect of scientific endeavour, and they would see some of the greatest achievements in human history. And while they may at first feel disorientated with the level of progress made, they would soon fit in with society – after all, social structure and culture in 1950 really wasn’t that different from 1900.

But then the jump from 1950 to 2000 would be a different story. Our friend from 1900 might think that civilisation had slacked off. The technology, while improved upon, is still basically the same. There have not been the giant leaps forward in theoretical science that the first half of the century enjoyed. A few industries have made impressive advances, most notably electronics and computing, but over all it would appear to our time travelling friend that progress has slowed considerably.

After a while though our friend would begin to perceive the true advances civilisation has made, however he would not easily understand them. Unlike the jump to 1950, the jump to 2000 would see a change in society he would be virtually incapable of comprehending. People of different races working together and treating each others as equals, women in leading roles in large corporations, he would see scantly clad men and women with strange high-tech sports gear zipping through the streets, people communicating with other people on opposite sides of the world using difficult to see technologies. He would see people assimilating astonishing amounts of information quickly and easily, people conducting business from all parts of the globe and at any time of the day or night. He would see communities of like-minded individuals finding each other from remote and widespread locations and clustering into virtual communities. He would see organisations and corporations employing individuals from all corners of the Earth and working together without ever leaving their homes. He would see people playing when he thinks they should be working, and yet they are never truly away from work as they often work when he thinks they should be resting.

The changes to society and culture are long and varied, but in short, our time traveller friend from 1900 would be overwhelmed by the pace and the capabilities of society circa 2000. In the year 2000 he may not perceive the same obvious degree of technological advancement made from 1900 to 1950, but he would be incapable of comprehending the progress made in the way people live their lives from 1950 to 2000. He would fail to understand the considerable advantages of the new globalized and digitised world community, and perhaps would think that the world has gone crazy.

Not unlike our PO doomer who craves the more quiet, simpler times…

The point of this little time travel exercise is to elaborate on human progress. To understand how civilisation is progressing, we must look at all of the aspects of civilisation, not merely a single part of the equation. For example, some people merely look to the continued use of a single resource as proof that civilisation is not progressing, as a doomer recently put it so elegantly in the comments:

If technology is advancing so fast why are the computers you jackasses typing on most likely powered by COAL!

It should be obvious that we can not merely measure the progress civilisation has made in the resources or materials it uses, nor the inventions patented per capita, as some people foolishly do, nor can we even measure progress purely as a technological aspect.

To consider human progress, I could easily point to the plethora of technological advances made recently. I could comment on the fact that civilisation appears to be on the verge of a new technological age based on all new materials – just as iron and bronze revolutionised the world with new unforseen technologies thanks to the widespread adoption of new superior materials (bringing about the iron age and bronze age), so too will our new found capabilities of structuring carbon at the molecular level (commonly known as nano-technology) herald in a new technological age of unforseen advances with the widespread use of superior materials. We may only just be entering what may come to be called ‘the carbon age’, based on molecularly perfect carbon materials that offer massive increases in strength, reduction in weight, transference of heat and ultimately massive increases in efficiency and reductions in waste, and many other possibilities not yet perceived.

However to elaborate on the considerable progress civilisation has made, we must not solely focus on the technological. Social and cultural advances are also of vital importance, and are intimately bound with our technological advances. And in many ways, the advances that we have made socially and culturally are far more important then the technological advances we make.

Consider Wendell Phillips famous words:

“What gunpowder did for war, the printing press has done for the mind.”

It’s unquestionable that this simple technological advance, first developed over 500 years ago, had a tremendous impact on society and culture. Now consider the modern evolution of the printing press and what it has done for the mind. The internet is arguably one of the most important social revolutions in history, and is what has allowed such wide-spread awareness of peak oil issues to be assimilated by society in the first place. If it were not for this technological and social advance many people would likely still be unaware of the peak oil issues. It may be powered by an old power source, but it is still a deeply impacting advent radically altering civilisation as we know it.

While technological change over the past 50 years may be difficult for some people to perceive, especially given the considerable about of improvement over innovation, the radical social and cultural change we have experienced should be obvious. Society has radically transformed and continues to do so, and this effect must not be so easily dismissed. Civilisation today is far more adaptable and capable then ever before, and assuming that we are incapable of dealing with complex issues such as peak oil simply because we still use antiquated power sources is imprudent. We may have considerable challenges ahead with transitioning to new ways of life, but transitioning to new ways of life is one thing that we have become ever more skilled at doing.

Don’t dismiss our adaptability; it’s what allowed a once weak, defenceless and insignificant little species to conquer the world, and we’ve been accelerating our adaptability capabilities ever since.

Peak oil: we will adapt.

2006-02-22T17:58:00.000+10:00

Space Elevator
*** Note: This essay I wrote for JD's blog POD, and while I don't really like posting an article here that I wrote for someone else, I feel strongly enough about the content that I would like to spread the word as much as possible. Besides, I havn't posted anything here in ages! ***

SPACE ELEVATOR
Following on from Roland’s nanotech post and the posts about industrialising space, it is time again to take a look into the not too distant future and surmise what may be install for civilisation post peak oil – and contrary to current doomer beliefs, it ain’t the stone age by 2025!

By now most people are aware of the modern space elevator concept - a lightweight but ultra strong cable (or more likely a ribbon) reaching to and beyond geosynchronous orbit, allowing climber cars to cheaply carry large payloads into space. The space elevator may sound ludicrous to some people, but the science supporting it is solid and well studied. And as Roland pointed out in his nanotech post, the technology to build the necessary material for the ribbon – structured carbon in the form of the carbon nanotube (CNT) – is rapidly evolving.

Carbon Nano Tube tether
We know that CNT’s have the tensile strength and are lightweight enough to do the job of building a space elevator, and the main issue now is manufacturing enough material at the required strength. For a long time the biggest hurdle was perceived to be the ability to produce any strength CNT at useful levels, and predictions on when this mass production breakthrough would occur were generally estimated to be well beyond the end of this decade. But then in mid 2005 a dramatic breakthrough in CNT manufacturing capability occurred:

A team of researcher from the University of Texas, Dallas, and Australia's CSIRO has come up with a way to make strong, stable macroscale sheets and ribbons of multiwall nanotubes at a rate of seven meters per minute..

This breakthrough was quickly applied to many CNT R&D efforts, and already several companies have further advanced the technology, leading the way for wide scale commercial applications and further progress. Bayer is one such company. From yesterdays press release:

scientists from Bayer Technology Services have succeeded for the first time in producing high-quality carbon nanotubes on an industrial scale at considerably lower costs than before. They are considerably stronger than steel, enable electricity to travel through plastics and improve the mechanical properties of ceramic materials.

At current production capabilities, it would take less then two years to manufacture enough CNT material to construct the ribbon. The main hurdle remaining is for the product of this industrial scale manufacturing process to reach the appropriate tensile strength, an attribute that is frequently improving. It appears to simply be a matter of waiting for the CNT industry to mature.

Given the leaps and bounds that CNT technology has been making, it is expected that by the end of this decade they will either meet the technical requirements for building the space elevator or be proven infeasible for the job for the foreseeable future. The organisation Elevator: 2010 have an outlook revolving around this notion:

“We firmly believe that the set of technologies that underlie the infinite promise of the Space Elevator can be demonstrated, or proven infeasible, within a 5 year time-frame.
And hence our name. Elevator:2010. we promise to get an answer for you by then.”

The infinite promise of the Space Elevator
The bottom line is that a space elevator would make launch costs negligible – which is the biggest barrier against large-scale utilization of space. It’s currently several thousand dollars per kilogram to launch into low orbit, and around twenty thousand dollars per kilogram into geosynchronous orbit. The space elevator would lower costs to around a couple of hundred dollars per kilogram, possibly much cheaper. While this level of launch cost reduction is by no means necessary to industrialise space, it would certainly make for rapid and wide-scale utilization of space, catapulting economies the world over into record levels of prosperity and growth.

Though however important the dramatic cost reductions would be to space industrialisation, the advantages of the space elevator go far beyond making space more economical. Other important capabilities that the space elevator would provide include the following:
- Unprecedented launch turn-around time, with regular operations allowing launches every few days, as opposed to the months long average turn around times for rocket launches.
- Capability of lifting payloads far larger and heavier then previously possible.
- Gentle acceleration into orbit allowing for sophisticated and sensitive equipment, resulting in massive improvements in ComSat technology and a far greater understanding of the universe thanks to precise space based scientific equipment
- Ease of achieving low orbit, geosynchronous orbit, or escape orbit. Low orbit and Earth’s gravity could pull a re-entry vehicle to any point on the planet, geosynchronous orbit and any kind of platform, habitat or lab could be constructed without decaying orbits (unlike the ISS), or simply climb beyond the geosynchronous position and let go of the ribbon at the appropriate time and centrifugal force will catapult a space craft into any desired trajectory in the solar system.
- Space based power supply. A space elevator would easily allow for very large scale solar arrays to be established in orbit, collecting massive levels of uninterrupted and unfiltered solar radiation, and sending the power back to Earth either with microwave beams or down the highly conductive CNT ribbon itself. Theoretically a single space elevator could provide more electricity then any know source of power generation.

The development of a space elevator also has considerable benefits long before the system becomes operational. By focusing R&D on mass production of high quality CNT’s, those involved with space elevator projects will find themselves at the forefront of a leading edge market with a rapidly growing client base.

Efforts towards the space elevator
LiftPort is a private enterprise striving to build a space elevator, and they understand the benefits of developing and marketing CNT’s (and other elevator related tech) long before the space elevator is constructed. They have a sustainable business plan involving subdivisions of the company, LiftPort Nanotech and LiftPort Robotics, which will generate income from some of the component parts needed to build the space elevator such as CNT’s and robotic balloon systems. So by striving to be profitable long before the space elevator is operational, they strive to stay in the game, as opposed to the unrealistic philosophy of an “all or nothing” long term approach to building the space elevator, which many opponents to the space elevator unwisely claim as the only way. Joe Julian, administrator of the LiftPort web site summed it up nicely in a discussion about space elevator economics:

“Everything we do at LiftPort is geared toward finding shorter term "intermediate" businesses that can be profitable. High altitude robotics have a significant potential for observation, communication and science applications. Carbon Nanotubes are more valuable than gold. Beamed energy, communications, education, advertising... all these industries are profitable and they all relate directly to building the Space Elevator.”

My concept of the LiftPort Space Elevator

NASA is also taking the space elevator concept quite seriously. In 1999 the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) held a workshop to investigate the possibility of developing a space elevator. A manuscript, entitled simply “The Space Elevator”, resulted from a six-month investigation, marking the beginning of NASA’s continuing research into the concept, and possibly marking the very beginning of a new age for NASA and space travel. From the manuscripts intoduction:

The study had the same simple title as this manuscript, The Space Elevator. The study itself was far from simple however. The object was to investigate all aspects of the construction and operation of a space elevator, a concept that up until this time had been confined to the realm of science fiction.

For those of you who are pragmatic and down-to-earth, examine the details of this work and I hope it will convince you that there is an interesting development on our horizon.

In 2001 the NIAC commenced its more extensive and expensive Phase II technical and feasibility study of the space elevator concept, the report of which can be found here (PDF): The Space Elevator NIAC Phase II Final Report.

“The studies were quantitative and detailed, highlighting problems and establishing solutions throughout. It was found that the space elevator could be constructed using existing technology with the exception of the high-strength material required. Our study has also found that the high-strength material required is currently under development and expected to be available in 2 years.”

It appears that the NIAC study has also found similar benefits to the space elevator that I listed above:

“The return on the $570,000 NIAC investment could eventually become trillions of dollars annually and provide an energy-starved world with clean unlimited power, dramatically improved communications, new resources, new worlds to live on and the ability to understand our planet and the solar system around us at a level impossible with conventional rockets.”

As well as investing in research, NASA has added a serries of space elevator related challenges to their centennial challenge serries, in the same spirit as the Ansari X-prize challenges. We can see how serious NASA is about the space elevator when we take a look at what other developments they are encouraging with their centennial challenges; new space suit parts, techniques for extracting oxygen from lunar regolith, beaming power, telerobotic construction, unmanned aircraft – all techniques and technologies NASA aims to develop in line with it’s future ambitions. NASA appears to be placing equal importance to space elevator R&D as to it’s current lunar initiative and future vision for space.

Costs
Cost estimates for building a space elevator are often estimated to be around the $10B figure, though some studies have estimated the figure as high as $40B. The development time is estimated to be around 10 to 15 years. These costs are comparable to the development costs and times for the space shuttle system, and considerably lower then the Apollo program. The return on these investments is easily in the trillions of dollars, though ultimately incalculable.

Disbelief
If riding an elevator into space (or for that matter industrialising space or building nano-factories) sounds like an impossible dream, and looking at the feasibility studies of these theoretical technologies is something you consider a waste of time, then at least consider the following quote: "Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." --Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895. In 1895 it was a small minority of individuals pushing to develop heavier-than-air aircraft, while society at large dismissed these individuals as crackpots. Yet against the overwhelming opposition of those insisting that it was impossible, less than a decade later the Wright’s flyer took to the air, marking the beginning of a new era. This may not make things seem more realistic to the sceptics, but it should make them realise that every radical new technology ever developed seemed impossible before it became possible. Opening the mind to greater possibilities is the first step towards achieving what seems impossible.

Arthur C. Clarke said it well when during a speech he once gave, someone in the audience asked when the space elevator would become a reality. Clarke answered, 'Probably about 50 years after everybody quits laughing.” Commenting on this, Pearson, who contributed to NASA’s 1999 workshop said: “He's got a point. Once you stop dismissing something as unattainable, then you start working on its development.”

Given the serious attention the space elevator concept has received in recent years, as well as the current trends in CNT progress, and the number of business ventures pursuing space elevator concepts, it would appear that almost everybody has ‘quit laughing’. Perhaps one of the main challenges now remaining, is not the maturing of CNT technology, or even the engineering challenges yet to be resolved, but the general attitudes towards the space elevator by the public.

Kenneth Deffeyes recently stated, “By 2025, we’re going to be back in the Stone Age”. This prediction couldn’t be further from our probable future. The ironic thing about this prediction is that by around 2025 the first space elevator should be fully operational, ushering in a new era for humanity that will be as different from our current stage of civilisation, as the industrial age was different from the stone age.

Just as cheap fuel was the catalyst for the considerable growth and progress of the industrial age, cheap access to space will be the catalyst for the near infinite growth and progress of the future. And the space elevator could be the tool for that cheap access to space.

2006-01-25T21:47:00.000+10:00

Moon mining
This is a simple concept drawing from NASA depicting relatively low-tech methods for mining lunar regolith. I’ve found that when I mention moon mining, people tend to dismiss it as science fiction, but it seems that this attitude is entirely because people tend to have false expectations, possibly because of what popular culture has presented us with.

So when you hear about how NASA or someone else is planning to establish lunar bases and mining operations on the moon by around 2020, don’t imagine some fantastic scene straight out of Stanley Kubrick’s mind. Instead, take a look at what they are actually planning: simple bucket drag line systems that scoop up the lunar surface material, and then using solar ovens they will bake out the oxygen to be liquefied and stored for later use. In other words, they are going to use established technology and learn to “live off the land”.

Unlike Apollo, future moon missions will not be a race to simply land and return a few samples, but a slow progression to establish permanent infrastructure and allow for ever more ambitious missions in space down the track.

A case study of the allegation of Shell Nigeria's complicity in human rights violations.

2005-12-14T19:51:00.000+10:00

Introduction

This paper will discuss the allegation that oil companies have often been accused of complicity in human rights violations. The paper will include a case study of the multinational Royal Dutch/Shell Petroleum company’s activities in Ogoni in the Niger Delta and their involvement in the torture and murder of Ken Saro-Wiwa and other activists with the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), who opposed oil drilling on their lands, and accused Shell in Nigeria of complicity in what it alleged was the genocide of the Ogoni people (Manby, 1999). The paper will briefly examine the history of the multinational oil company’s involvement in the Niger Delta and the devastation it caused to the local Ogoni peoples, outlining the destruction caused to the Niger Delta natural environment as a tragic abuse of human rights. The paper will also cover the formation of MOSOP and their legitimate protests against Shell Nigeria, and the allegations that Shell Nigeria was involved with the Nigerian military in efforts to stop protests in situations were civilians where killed. The paper will conclude with a look at the changing worldview of Nigeria since the Ogoni crisis, and question the ethical implications of Western consumption of Nigerian oil in the face of human rights violations inflicted in the oil’s production.

Background

Royal Dutch Shell made the first discoveries of commercial quantities of oil in Nigeria in 1956 in Oloibiri in the Niger Delta region and over the following years they set up oil terminals and connecting pipelines so that large-scale production could begin in earnest by 1965 (Frynas, Beck, and Mellahi, 2000). Today, the petroleum sector comprises more than 40 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), continuing to provide more than 95 percent of exports (IMF Staff Country Report, 1998).

Estimates of Nigeria’s proven oil reserves are currently at 35.2 billion barrels (EIA, 2005), but unlike the majority of large oil fields around the world situated in the arid expanses of the Middle East or Texas, or under the waters of the North Sea or the Gulf of Mexico, the oil patches in the Niger Delta were situated under fragile waterways that sustained the livelihoods of thousands of people, primarily through pristine farmlands and fisheries (Shah, 2004). Whether it would have been possible to develop these fields without massive disruption is unclear, however such issues were not formally considered. It was the Nigerian military authorities that signed the deals with the oil multinationals to develop more then two hundred oilfields in the delta’s villages (EIA, 2005).

Environmental damage

Communities of the Niger Delta first began to seriously feel the effects of the oil companies with the dredging of waterways and the construction of dams, roads and pipelines through the fragile Delta flood plains. These projects, built to save the oil companies time and money, often destroyed buildings, plantations and ancestral graves and holy ground during construction. (Okonta and Douglas, 2001).

In an interview with a senior male elder of an Oloma village, Fentiman (1996) highlights the ways in which the oil companies have disrupted the lives of the Delta’s villagers, vividly described by the village elder:

“It wasn't until Shell started dredging the creek that everything started to go badly. For example, erosion of land. Before, there was a beautiful sandy beach; but look, it no longer exists. In the back of my house there was a big playground called ogbo-ngelege, but that land has eroded, and now our houses are eroding. Our traditional livelihood is fishing, but there are no more fish. We now buy tinned fish or stock fish. The chemicals from oil spillage have ruined the fish as well as the esem (periwinkles) and mgbe (mangrove oysters). We receive nothing from Shell. For example, no electricity, no piped water, no health facilities, nothing to make us happy. They were supposed to build a fish pond, but look around you, there is nothing. They destroyed our land and dredged our creek.”

According to a study by Human Rights Watch (1999), the environmental problems identified in the Niger Delta include flooding and coastal erosion, sedimentation and siltation, degradation and depletion of water and coastal resources, land degradation, oil pollution, air pollution, land subsidence, biodiversity depletion, noise and light pollution, health problems, and low agricultural production, as well as socio-economic problems, lack of community participation, and weak or non-existent laws and regulations.

Environmental damage as a violation of human rights

It should be noted that massive environmental damage impacts different communities around the world in different ways. While the destruction of an old growth rainforest in a developed nation such as Australia for example, will raise protests from environmentalists as a travesty, such environmental damage does not strongly impact on the lives of the people living in that country. These citizens may miss their rainforest, but its destruction will not result in poorer living conditions or economic disaster for the countries citizens. This kind of environmental damage is not necessarily a violation of human rights.

However the same cannot be said for village communities living in developing nations, such as the Ogoni people. As these communities have their local environment destroyed, they also have their livelihoods destroyed. There is a direct relationship between the standard of living for these kinds of communities and the condition of the environment. As environmental damage increases, standard of living decreases.

The United Nations also see the important connection between human rights and the environment. The 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment declared that "man's environment, the natural and the man-made, are essential to his well-being and to the enjoyment of basic human rights--even the right to life itself." (OHCHR, 1972). And the African Charter 1981, article 24 proclaimed that the right to a satisfactory environment for development is a human right. The court also recognised that environmental degradation can give rise to a violation of human rights. (African Commission on Human and People’s Rights, 1981).

Movements against the oil multinationals

The Niger Delta’s Ken Saro-Wiwa was a successful author and businessman, who became a central activist for the rights of the Ogoni. Saro-Wiwa wrote that since the first well was drilled in 1958, the oil companies Shell and Chevron extracted an estimated $30 billion worth of oil from the Niger Delta, where 500,000 Ogoni people live on 404 square miles of land (Mohindar, 2005).

"Yet, the Ogoni have received no royalty for the oil, nor do they have any electricity, pipe water, telephones, education or health facilities. Instead, 30,000 Ogoni have been displaced, 1,000 Ogoni massacred and eight villages razed." (Saro-Wiwa, 1990).

To combat the damage of the oil companies on the environment and livelihoods of the Ogoni people, in 1990 activists set up the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), with Ken Saro-Wiwa as one of the movements key leaders and founding figures. MOSOP’s demands were directed at the Nirgirian government for their collaboration with the oil multinationals at the expense of the Ogoni people, and at the Shell Corporation, seeking compensation for the devastation done to their lands and people. These demands were set out in 1990 in the “Ogoni Bill of Rights”, which expressed Ogoni determination to secure their political, economic and environmental rights. MOSOP’s first act was to present the Ogoni Bill of Rights to the Nigerian government in 1990 (Humans Rights Watch, 1999).

Initially the Nigerian government largely ignored MOSOP’s demands, so Saro-Wiwa began to use his international connections as a well known author to bring the bill to the attention of the UN, the African Human Rights Commission, and several international environmental and human rights NGOs (Osaghae, 1995). Throughout the following two years MOSOP continued to seek international support to pressure the Nigerian government and Shell to recognize Ogoni rights.

MOSOP’s efforts were given very little attention, even from the environmental groups in London that Saro-Wiwa approached for support (Shah, 2004). As Saro-Wiwa’s son Ken Wiwa remembers, the groups Saro-Wiwa approached for support ushered him out the door, “with a polite but condescending look that suggested he come back when a few more people had been killed” (Wiwa, 2000).

During 1991 and 1992 Saro-Wiwa and MOSOP continued to seek support and raise awareness of the plight of the Ogoni people, though their efforts were largely unsuccessful, having received no reply from the Nigerian administration. So in 1992 MOSOP decided to deliver their demands directly to the oil multinationals Shell, NNPC and Chevron. They demanded the companies pay U.S. $10 billion in royalties and compensation for environmental damage, put an end to environmental destruction, and negotiate for further oil production on acceptable terms with an effective environmental protection program (Cayford, 1996).

The initial MOSOP demands were ignored, and so two months later on the 4th of January 1993, Saro-Wiwa led an estimated 300,000 Ogoni, a significant percentage of the Ogoni population, on a peaceful protest march against oil exploitation. This initial rally was met with no immediate conflict with police, however subsequent mass demonstrations continuing over the following months and encountered increasing arrests and police harassment. At the end of April a protest against a Shell pipeline by 10,000 Ogoni was met by the Nigerian military, brought by Shell contractors, and the troops opened fire on the unarmed crowd killing one young man and wounding eleven people. (Cayford, 1996).

The violence escalated and in July 1993 the Nigerian military unleashed devastating violence on the people of the Delta. 132 unarmed Ogoni men, women, and children were massacred, and then again in August 247 more were killed, and in September over 1000 people were murdered (Shah, 2004. 97).

At first it appeared that this violence was the result of ethnic conflict in the region. However experts brought in to bring peace found no evidence of this claim. Human Rights Watch/Africa (1999) has since acquired evidence that the soldiers were led to believe that they were repelling an armed invasion from Cameroon. One soldier interviewed stated: "When we arrived they told us to shoot everyone who crossed our path. I followed my orders until I realized that the approaching civilians were Nigerians."

In 1994 Saro-Wiwa and several other key MOSOP members were arrested in connection with the murder of four traditional leaders, despite a lack of evidence. On 10 November 1995 the military government hanged Saro-Wiwa and eight other MOSOP activists after a trial that violated international standards of due process and produced no credible evidence that he or the others were involved in the killings. Manby (1999) argues that it was clear that Saro-Wiwa and his co-defendants were being silenced as a result of their success in mobilizing Ogoni anger at oil production and the threat that this mobilization posed to the military and civilian elite who benefit from the oil wealth.

Shell, because of its economic power in the country, could have stopped the executions, say MOSOP and international activists. A Human Rights Watch study (1999) implicated Shell in planned “wasting operations” by the Security Task Force, with evidence stating that the oil companies should pay the costs of these operations. The head of the Task Force several times publicly claimed to be acting so that Shell’s oil production could resume. Alligations against Shell also include several claims that Shell police deliberately created conflict, intimidated and harassed MOSOP protestors, and participated in brutality against detainees. Activists also allege that Shell continue paying field allowances to soldiers deployed to it’s facilities.

The international view of Shell Nigeria
Shell's role in human rights abuse in Ogoni has been the cause of increasing international concern since Saro-Wiwa's murder. In 1997, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights voted to appoint a special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Nigeria. As stated by Sierra Club (2001), the United Nations Special Rapporteur's report claims:
·Shell is responsible for environmental devastation of the Niger Delta;
·'Issues relating to environmental degradation in the River Delta region alleged to be caused by the operations of SPDC have received insufficient attention' [Shell Petroleum Development Corporation is Shell's Nigerian subsidiary];
·Shell is colluding with the military in suppressing non-violent protests;
·'The Nigerian authorities have put at SPDC's disposal a mobile police force to suppress protest';
·Shell is directly guilty of human rights abuses;
·'[Shell has] a well armed security force which is intermittently employed against [protesters]';
·And the Special Rapporteur supports MOSOP's call for an independent agency to 'determine all aspects of environmental damage due to oil exploration and other operations'.
After several years of activist attempts to make Shell answer to charges of human rights violations, in 2002 the U.S. federal court decided to allow a lawsuit to proceed, accusing Shell of complicity in human rights abuses in Nigeria. The allegation is of Shell Nigeria’s involvement in the torture and murder of Ken Saro-Wiwa and other activists with MOSOP. Plaintiffs against Shell argued the company gave money and weapons to the Nigerian government to crush the protest movement. They further accused the military regime of bribing witnesses to give false testimony against Saro-Wiwa and other activists (Knight, 2002).

This lawsuit brings Shell’s actions in Nigeria to international attention, and plaintiffs against Shell stated they where optimistic that the company would eventually be made to answer for their actions in U.S. courts.

Conclusion
This case study of Shell Nigeria’s activities demonstrates the company’s blatant disregard for the well being of the Ogoni people and the company’s involvement in human rights violations. The destruction of the Niger Delta environment without compensation by the practices of Shell and the other oil multinationals in itself is a massive violation of human rights. However there are also the alligations of Shell’s involvement of more obvious and immediate human rights violations in the accusations of Shell supporting militant groups in the violations and abuses of thousands of Nigerian citizens.

In the face of such human rights violations as those that Shell is involved with, an important issue to consider is the price being paid for oil. Oil is one of the most important commodities to developed nations, and when we think of its cost we generally think in terms of U.S. dollars per barrel. However if large quantities of the oil we consume come from locations as damaged by the oil companies as Nigerian communities are, then we must also consider the price of oil to be related to the suffering of the people in these communities. When considering the ethics of an oil company’s involvement in human rights abuses, it may also be important to consider the ethics in wide scale consumption of the oil company’s product. By purchasing oil which is produced cheaply at the expense of countless lives and the living conditions of these nation’s citizens, then perhaps the developed nations consuming this oil are also at least partly responsible for the violations of human rights that the oil multinationals are accused of.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

References:

African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. 1981. African Charter on Human and People’s Rights. http://www.achpr.org/english/_info/charter_en.html (accessed September 23, 2005).

Cayford, S. 1996. The Ogoni uprising: oil, human rights, and a democratic alternative in Nigeria. Africa Today, June 1996. 43 (2): 183. (accessed October 12, 2005, from EBSCOhost: Academic Search Elite).

Edokpayi, E., A. 2005. Shell Oil Company and social justice in the Niger Delta: The case of Shell in Ogoni, Nigeria. Morgan State University, August 2005 (accessed October 6, 2005, from ProQuest: Multiple databases).

Energy Information Administration. Country Analysis Briefs: Nigeria, http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/nigeria.html accessed 6th October 2005.

Fentiman, A. 1996. The anthropology of oil: The impact of the oil industry on a fishing community in the Niger Delta. Social Justice, Winter 1996. 23 (4): 87 (accessed October 4, 2005, from EBSCOhost: Multiple databases).

Frynas, J., G., Beck, M., P. and Mellahi, K. 2000. Maintaining corporate dominance after decolonisation: The ‘first mover advantage’ of shell-BP in Nigeria. Review of African Political Economy, September 2000. 27 (85), 407. (Accessed October 10, 2005, from ProQuest: ABI/INFORM Global database).

Human Rights Watch. 1999. The Price of Oil: Corporate Responsibility and Human Rights Violations in Nigeria’s Oil Producing Communities. http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/nigeria/ (accessed 28th November, 2005).

Imondu, A., M. 2000. The cry for justice in Nigeria: A look at MOSOP and the effectiveness of its nonviolent tactics. Duquesne University, October 2000 (accessed October 6, 2005, from ProQuest: Multiple database).

Knight, D. 1998. New Accusations of Arrest and Torture. Inter Press Service, January 15 (accessed October 10, 2005, from ProQuest: Multiple database).

Lobe, J. 2002. Rights-Nigeria: Commission Orders Gov’t to Pay Ogoni Damages. Global Information Network, July 3 (accessed October 10, 2005, from ProQuest: Multiple database).

Manby, B. 1999. The Role and Responsibility of Oil Multinationals in Nigeria. Journal of International Affairs, 53 (1): 281. (Accessed October 10, 2005, from EBSCOhost: Academic Search Elite).

Mohindar, M. 2005. Nigeria: Son of Executed Activist Memorializes Father’s Legacy. Global Information Network, (accessed October 6, 2005, from ProQuest: Multiple database).

Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. 2001. Human Rights and the Environment. http://www.unhchr.ch/environment/ (accessed October 13, 2005).

Okonta, I., and Douglas, O. 2001. Where Vultures Feast: Shell, Human Rights and Oil in the Niger Delta. San Francisco: Sierra Club, pp81-83.

Osaghae, E.E. 1995. "The Ogoni uprising: Oil, politics, minority agitation, and the future of the Nigerian state." African Affairs, 94:325-44.

Oster, S. 2005. Shell to Start Talks With Nigeria, Ogoni Activists. Wall Street Journal, May 31, 6 (accessed October 7, 2005, from ProQuest: Multiple database).

Saro-Wiwa, K. 1995. Ken Saro-Wiwa’s Final Address to the Military-Appointed Tribunal. Earth Island Journal, 11 (1): 25. (accessed October 10, 2005, from ProQuest: Multiple database).

Shah, S. 2004. The Story of Oil: Crude. Maryborough: McPherson’s Printing Group.

Sierra Club. 2001. International Campaigns: Nigeria.
http://www.sierraclub.org/human-rights/nigeria/mosop/torture.asp (accessed October 12, 2005).

Universal Declaration for Human Rights. 1948. The Universal Declaration for Human Rights website. http://www.udhr.org/UDHR/default.htm (accessed September 26, 2005).

Wiwa, K. 2001. In the Shadow of a Saint. South Royalton: Steerforth Press.

The light at the end of the Peak Oil tunnel

2005-12-14T07:36:00.000+10:00

The doomer concept of a permanent powerdown (and mass die-off) is a rather hard sell to the peak oil uninitiated. Regardless of what the different types of peak-oilers think the effects of peak oil will be, we can mostly agree on the need for raising awareness of oil depletion and conservation. Telling people we need to permanently powerdown and eventually die-out is no sensible way to encourage positive steps towards a better future. This approach tends to alienate people, often having the opposite effect then that desired by us all, resulting in people stubbornly ignoring the need for change.

This is why highlighting the light at the end of the tunnel is necessary when raising awareness of peak oil, and why it’s important to keep an open mind about what the future may hold. If people believe that they are working towards a brighter future, they are far more likely to make the positive changes in their lives in order for that future to become a reality. Alternatively doomers would seem to prefer that the masses just give up and die, an attitude that will likely result in complacency, as is evident by many doomer attitudes on sites like peakoil.com.

So what exactly is this light at the end of the peak oil tunnel?

The industrialisation of space. The promise of a new, virtually inexhaustible supply of resources free for the taking, offering endless energy, mineral and economic opportunities and an endless expanse in which to expand and to grow far into the future, while simultaneously reducing the damage done to the planet and restoring it’s former beauty.

But why bother with space, how is it even possible, and couldn’t the money be better spent?

The why, is simple. The reason to exploit space is that either we find new locations of resources (off-world), or we deplete all of the Earth’s finite resources and eventually face extinction. It really is that simple. The Earth only has finite resources. Even if we overcome the energy limitations of finite fossil fuels, there are plenty of other finite resources that humanity consumes. Eventually these finite resources will run out, and either we find more resources, or we shrivel up and die. But guess what? Surrounding the Earth and the inner solar system are vast quantities of everything we will ever need. It’s all made from the same stardust that the Earth and everything on it is made from. It’s only logical to use it rather then perish.

The how is more complex and will take several follow up articles to explain various aspects. But the important thing to note is that exploiting space isn’t an unrealistic proposition of building some magical Star Trek like technology and zipping off to distant planets. It’s merely a simple matter of continuing a process that began over 70 years ago with early chemical rocket technology. It’s about deciding that we are going to make it a priority, dedicating the necessary resources, and continuing the process one step at a time. More on how to industrialise space for our long-term benefit later…

The costs of developing space are undoubtedly as astronomical as the dream itself. However considering the long-term payoffs, and especially compared to other endeavours of the modern world, developing space is actually a bargain. As many people know, NASA is far from a cost effective space agency, but even NASA’s operations are cheap compared to other things the developed world wastes money on.

Lets compare some costs:

Costs of space (NASA and European projects, in year 2000 U.S. dollars):
A single shuttle launch is currently estimated at around $300 million, and a European Ariane 5G rocket launch at around $165 million. source
The International Space Station is estimated at around $100 billion, source and the Russian Mir space station cost $4.3 billion. source
The latest NASA Mars rovers cost around $600 million, and the European Beagle 2 Mars probe cost around $50 million. source
The Apollo moon landings cost $135 billion in 2005 dollars.

As we can see, space is considerably expensive. Arguably NASA could do things far more cheaply and is a poor fiscal performer compared to similar projects by other space agencies, but even considering NASA’s tendency for over budgeted projects, the costs of space development are still justifiable for an endeavour as noble as ensuring our collective future.

Now lets consider the costs of a few other aspects of the modern world:
According to a study by the NDIA, in 1992 drug abuse cost the U.S. an estimated $246 billion dollars, and the costs are increasing each year. source
Thanks to fast food culture, overweight and obesity medical expenses in the U.S. accounted for $92.6 billion dollars in 2003, and like drug abuse, is a problem increasing each year. source
And of course lets not forget war, the panicle of wasteful endeavours. According to this source, the Iraq war has currently cost U.S. tax payers over $200 billion. This site also has some interesting cost estimates for previous U.S. conflicts (adjusted to year 2000 dollars):

American Civil War -$62 Billion
Spanish American War -$5 Billion
World War One -$290 Billion
World War Two -$2,300 Billion
Korean Conflict -$111 Billion
Vietnam -$165 Billion

Perhaps we don’t have our priorities right? Surely working towards setting up countless future generations with access to virtually infinite resources should be important to people?

We mourn the deaths of the 18 humans that have died in space in the history of space flight, yet we willingly send millions more to their deaths in pointless things such as road accidents, drug and obesity epidemics, and wars. We gladly spend considerable sums of money on things that offer little long-term benefit to humanity, and many things that don’t offer any benefit at all, and yet many people consider space development to be a waste of money. This is very misguided thinking. The fact is, space development and progress represents the best possible investment humanity can be involved in. The potential benefits are massive, and far outweigh the costs. And above all else, space development is humanities only shot at true long-term sustainability. Space industrialisation is the light at the end of the peak oil tunnel, but only if we adopt the right attitude.

Welcome

2005-12-13T23:05:00.000+10:00

Well, I've finally got a blog. No idea what I'm going to write about, but as the name may imply, I plan to write about anything and everything. Omnitir, the most generalised content in the blogosphere.

And in case your wondering what an omnitir is, here is mine: