An Inconvenient Truth - Too optimistic

I saw Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" tonight.

I want to make three comment about it.

Firstly, it was very informative. Lots of new information tidbit I've not heard before, like the first Hurricane/Cyclone in the South Atlantic.

Secondly, I think it was to optimistic. Particularly about the amount of carbon emission's that can be cut (on both the supply & demand sides) while NOT having a large reduction in the standard of living/quality of life/complexity (in the developed countries) AND enabling the rest of the world to catch up.

Lastly, I think that 'we' only looked at the tail end of the problem. The (main) symptom, not the cause. We looked at three main graphs in "Truth". These being Atmospheric CO2, Global Temperature and Global Population, but these are all lagging graphs. There is a four graph, a leading graph, that most people don't think about at the same time. It comes in two closely related forms, Global Energy Use and its biggest sub component, Global Oil (and Gas) Use (Peak Oil).

Five hundred years ago, reason thinking developed, replacing symbolic thinking. This resulted in new ideas, constant change and new technologies. 250 year ago, we started accessing fossil fuels (Coal). Over the last 100 year or so, we have been accessing Oil (and Gas), we have been in top drive! This effectively removed energy as being a limiting factor in the resource mix that we have had at our disposal. All the other graphs are the result (directly or indirectly) of this fundamental change.

Ultimately we need to end up back where we were 250 years ago, operating within the Annual Solar Input Basis. The question is how much scale & complexity will we be able to maintain? Me thinks a lot less than the popular media & progressive governments think/promote. How long will the fall take?

Go see it!


Gnoll110

al+gore an+inconvenient+truth annual+solar+input+basis peak+oil

Update:
and speak of the devil, Cameron has been on the same subject
backlink (blog): Exxon funds "misleading" climate change lobby groups
backlink (blog): TPN promoting "An Inconvenient Truth"
backlink (blog): Tread Lightly... and carry a big microphone
backlink (podcast): the "Treading Lightly" podcast 3

The Branson Trigger!

This is a stub, for the moment!

Stay tuned.

Gnoll110

Peak Oil & Permaculture

Currently Authors Richard Heinberg & David Holmgren are on an Australian Tour. Last Thursday I left work early and drove up to the Kuringai Town Hall, 1186 Pacific Highway, Pymble (Sydney).
I got their a bit late.

I saw the end of Richard's talk. Very interesting, he was talking about the Oil Depletion Protocol.

David Holmgren's talk start with the history and stages of permaculture over the late 30 years. He then covered the history of energy/resource use, population and pollution and how their trends & magnitude parallel each other. He then outline 4 possible future scenarios: Techno-Explosion, Green-Tech Stability, Earth Stewardship/Creative Descent & Atlantis (Collapse). David stated why he think Creative Descent is the most likely outcome.

David listed some aspects and (permaculture) practices that Creative Descent would incorporate. Then the seven domains of permaculture action where covered.

We then, being in Sydney, look at Peak Oil and Creative Descent applied in suburbia. The example used was a 4 house street, starting in the 1950s. David followed its changes & total population (thus population density) over the late 50 years. He then outline measures that would lead to lower energy/recourse use and greater population density (the holy grail of town planners for the last 20+ years).

There was also a Q&A session. Didn't get a chance to ask my question. I asked David, privately, afterward. I'll write up the a post, and get David's ok to post it.

Then a long drive home, but I did bus it to work for most of the week.

first half slides (6.7MB PDF)
CSIRO article with figures of the model 4 house street

technorati
peak+oil david+holmgren richard+heinberg permaculture

the supply chain, China & water

Ove at the ABC, the is a Water Forum, dealing with current water issues.

I just posted to it, talking about why we must fo for best practice.

There is a post limit of 3K, this post went to 3.1, so I've posted the 'long' version here.

Speaking of supply chains...

The rumours of the last fortnight have been confirmed, looks like Coles is in play! And the first suitor to get a guernsey is the father of the modern supply chain Wal-mart.

What is the power of the supply chain? To illustrate let me use Wal-mart. How did Wal-mart get from 6 stores to the largest retailer in the world. Supply chain reform!

Back when Wal-mart was little, the way a shop (or individual stores in a chain) got it goods was from a wholesaler, who got it from the manufacturer. The wholesaler's role was distribution.

At the time Wal-mart for a fraction of a percent of the size of the big retailers. A sardine with sharks. Sam Walton ask himself, how do I get big and avoid being eaten?

Sam's answer. Build his own distribution centre and buy straight from the manufacturers. What happened to Sam's cost? The cost of the distribution centre etc increased costs by 2 to 3 percent. The reduction in costs from bulk buying from the manufacturer, 5 percent!

What did Sam do with the extra 2% to 3% of cost saving. Reduced prices to buy market share & reinvest for expansion, especially supply chain reform!

This I why I think the fact that Wal-mart is the hunter is very poignant.

What do I think of the supply chain. Well is a love-hate relation ship.

As a customer, I love the supply chain, for the constraint down would pressure it has on prices.

As a producer of service & the son/brother of primary producer, I hate the supply chain, for the constraint down would pressure it has on prices of both good & services. Even as a producer of services, it has a downward effect of my prices. It reduces the input costs of my direct competitors and it reduces the costs of other products/services (especially those where goods are a higher percentage of total cost) that could be substituted for mine.

What's at the other end of the global supply chain these days. China...and the other developing countries like India, Brazil etc (who must follow China or be left behind).

What does China want, in the end. China started just as the physical maker of the products. China wants for end up doing the lot, from concept, to design to production. China is aiming for the top of the food chain.

With it's population, China should be able (with set backs) to get there in any product or service (remember the Internet, if the output of a service can be digitized, the service can be done at a distance) that has a high labour content!

How do wheat growers control the supply chain, off farm? By owning one of the major player and the bigger that player the better. Most farmer see this. Two groups think they would be better of without AWB. The biggest growers (who think they are big enough to bargain and win) and niche producers. It will be interesting to see what happens. There are pros & cons to breaking the single desk.

If we are going to keep any wealth production (besides the hole in the ground stuff, this include oil & gas) here, we need to aim for the top too. This especially includeds water, one of our more limiting resources.

'David C' posted this under the title 'Peak Oil and Lack of Market Response' on the Four Corners Open Letters forum.

The curious thing about the situation in oil is not that its price is rising seriously, but the lack of market response. It would appear that there are a number of technologies that exist to take over from oil, and have the added advantage of not creating the sort of environmental damage that oil does. Is it because this price increase has been both sudden and seen as an abberation, rather than a permanent state? If so, your report may have done the world a favour.

I've posted a reply...as Ned

Peak oil has been coming since 1981, when discovery (gross increase in reserve size) was outstripped by usage (decrease in reserve size), giving a net decrease in reserve size.

In the last few year, usage has outstripped the ability to extract from the total reserves due to China & India mainly.

While the 'ability to extract' may increase, short term. The net change in total reserves is a long term trend.

The markets response will be a long term trend too!

The market is starting to respond. Look at the price of sugar (a commodities that is more an energy commodity than the food commodity it use to be) and look at the dollars being paid to farmers for site turbine masts on their land.

When the main source of energy was from mining, farming was a food and fibre game. In future, farming will be a food, fibre & energy game.

I should add that this assumes that Coal, a fossil fuel where the peak is way farther into the future and where the decline would be slower, will not indirectly replace oil, for carbon emission reason.

In effect we would move away to the cheap fuel of the last 250 years(coal), and particularlly the last 100 years(oil). This changes the whole value equation between labour(time) and products (matter & the energy used to transform it).

Interesting times indeed!

The Blogoshere & the Mainstream Media - Peak Oil

Last night Four Corners ran a show about Peak Oil/Hubbert's Peak. The show also has an extended online edition and a forum afterward.

I first heard of Hubbert's Peak/Peak Oil in October/November 2005, via Blogs initially & other online resources.

Since that time, the only stories I've seen on Australian Mainstream Media have been 'human interest' stories about high fuel prices or 'business' stories about increased demand from China & India causing short/medium term (< 5 year) high prices.

Four Corners is the first Mainstream Media coverage I've seen.

So, I expect some coverage on shows like ACA & the breaky shows over the next month, follows by a story or two on 'Sunday' or maybe '60 Minutes' over the next few months.

I'm sick of Soccer!

Well it’s Monday night here. A public holiday, Queen's Birthday and all that. Congrats to everyone out there, who got gongs!

Went to the gym this morning. Then, later in the day I went to the CONSTABLE : impressions of land, sea and sky Exhibition. The last day, today, cutting it too fine! They had sold out of the exhibition's companion book :(

Well the TV seems to be wall-to-wall World Cup Soccer, the last few weeks. I'm so sick of it. Australia plays its first game tonight, Eastern Standard Time.

I think I should email Keith Dunstan about starting a Soccer Division of the Anti-Football League.

Anti-Football+League World+Cup+Soccer Keith+Dunstan

Stirling Engines - Links page

Just found a cool looking links site, with a page of Stirling Engine links

I'm currently looking for a site that has pics of a Japanese or Chinese designed Low Temperature Differential (LTD) Stirling Engine, generating about 700W. They are about the size of an old 44 gallon drum.

Back to the hunt.

Stirling+Engine Stirling+Engines Low+Temperature+Differential LTD

New Tech Blog

I'm going to start posting my IT Tech posts on a new blog The Gnoll in the Machine.

I've start, with a post about the ANZ banks stuff-up, double processing 400,000 transaction with a combined value of 45 million dollars.

Natural Sequence Farming in Organic Gardener, Autumn 2006

There is an article in this quarters issue called ‘Catching the Flow’. It runs from page 34 to 39.

It was written by Stephanie Alt and Hogan Gleeson.

The article has some interesting quotes too. Stuff I’ve heard people say and talk about, but never so succinctly!

The introduction talks about the authors’ journey to Gerry Harvey’s property, ‘Baramul’. It also goes into brief outline of how we arrived at the current situation.

There are two quotes that clash with popular understanding in the bulk of the community.

Aboriginal people once used fire to control game and increase the productive capacity of the land, creating in effect, a farmed landscape. Many of us imagine there was once simply a great expanse of forest. Some of the forests and woodland that were cleared by later generation of farmers appeared after the land came under British control, disrupting thousands of years of Aboriginal stewardship. Many perennial grasslands, previously maintained by the fire stick, became thick, woody scrubland, which shaded out the grasses, leaving the ground bare beneath.

There is lore in my family about these long term changes in both central NSW and southern Queensland. People should be aware that the Pilliga is not a natural forest.

It’s important to remember that ‘opening up’ the land was carried out with good intensions, using the accepted knowledge of the day. The gradual nature of these changes in the landscape meant each generation experienced it’s own ‘normal’, masking steady but fundamental degradation of the ecosystem.

Indeed, often land clearing was a condition of leases, you couldn’t upgrade a lease without meeting these conditions. Unlike commercial leases, the unstated aim of crown leases was to move land into private ownership, once the land had been developed as the government saw fit. These conditions were laid out in the lease and/or lease conversion regs.

With improved travel and increasing rates of change, it’s become far easier for people generally and farmer in particular to see these changes. Old farmers have some interesting stories about ‘the way we were’.

The next paragraphs talked about initial presentations at 'Bamamul'. The head of the research team, Dr Richard Bush and then by Peter Andrews himself talked. It's noted that what is being studied is NSF, in its application to river rehabilitation. This being only part of NSF as a "whole farm approach".

The tour of the property is outlined. A few of the earthworks a described, the changes in flows and finally the water table & soil moisture are noted.

The tour also visited 'Tarwyn Park', where Peter's son now farms. The differences with most of the neighbouring properties are clear. A neighbour, Grant Fleming, who father owned 'Tarwyn Park' in the 1950, talks about what the area was like then and how NSF has changed it and late his own family farm. It's also noted that ground water salt level have dropped from 1200 to 450 parts per million.

Ecological concerns about fish movements are outlined and its notes that legislation controlling in-stream structures means that NSF structures are illegal.

Peter's use of non-indigenous plants has also been questioned. They are used as they are volunteer species that fill the niches in the early sequences.

Looking at the opposite bank, he points out places where native vegetation is coming back naturally once willows have stabilised the banks.

Natives are regarded as a better option.

While the major ‘wet fully’ recharge the floodplain aquifers, less water flows down stream. When recharge is achieved, the system is in a new equal equilibrium. Flows should return to a level with lower peak flows, but with an increased duration.

here is a link

I’d link to the article too, but it’s published by are a subsidiary of "Dinosaur Press Inc".

Natural+Sequence+Farming Catching+the+Flow Organic+Gardener Peter+Andrews Richard+Bush Stephanie+Alt Hogan+Gleeson Gerry+Harvey Baramul Tarwyn+Park Willows

Canberra - Fire resistant plants

I’ve got friends who have just brought a small acreage block, just north of Canberra.

We were having smoko, when I was told about their purchase. They get the title in a few weeks. One of the first things we talked about was windbreaks. I immediately suggested they needed at least two species. A fast grower for get short term cover (I thought wattles) and a second that would be big, long lived ‘core’ species. That was my 60 second answer.

Thinking about it afterward, I realize that another consideration fire sectors & fire resistance plantings.

Anyone got any suggestion?

I’m so looking forward to seeing their new block.

fire+resistant+plants sustainability windbreak fire+sector

'The Times' has a Blog!

I just found The Times blog and there is a blog for one of my favorite authors, William Rees-Mogg.

Im happy :)

Canberra Java Users Group meeting

Went to the monthly CJUG meeting last nigth.

The topic was 'code smells'. A great talk.

Lots of talk about Refectoring.

Design Patterns has its GoF (Ganf of Four).

We think that Refectoring may have its Gang of Three.

They are:
Ward Cummingham See here
Martin Fowler here
Kent Beck and here

Stirling Engines and Heat Pumps

Just read this post. In the comments there is a link to Heat Pumps & some talk about their use.

My comment was...

Why would you get a headache?

You have a heat to motion to electric power system, where part of the electric output is feed back into the system to improve efficiency and/or decrease the cost of the total system.

How is this so. Well if you use the heat pump to 'focus' the heat into a 'point' of higher temperature, you can do two things. Increase its efficiency (by changing the hot-end temperature & thus the hot-end cool-end ratios, as measures in degree K). You can also use the smaller & cheaper (per unit of energy output) stirling engine.

Anyway, that how I read it. Comment welcomed!

John Maynard Keynes

On ANZAC day, I had a broswe at Academic Remainders

They had a biography of John Maynard Keynes.

Paperback: 1056 pages
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (August 30, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN: 0143036157
I think this is the one. The cover art at amazon is different.

I was aware of Keynes generally and had skimmed his work 'The Economic Consequences of the Peace' on the net a few year back. A very interesting overview on the centery before the Great War and the likely (prophectic) effects of the Treaty of Versailles (1919).

It's a very interesting book, but not light reading.

Meet Sid & Nancy, the Stirling Engines.

I have also just found these pics

The interesting ones are:

Inside the AASTINO, jetfuel from the stirling engine has leaked and caused the blue anti-static map to bubble - and it stinks.

Sid the Stirling engine arrives on a sled behind the skidoo

Nancy the Stirling engines heads back to the factory

Jon fits the engine cover onto Nancy

Jon fills the Stirling engine with coolant

So, what can we tell from these pics & their caption.

They run on 'Jetfuel', so I'll assume they mean 'avgas', unless someone cares to correct me.

Therefore the Stirling engines are High Temperature Differential (HTD) engines. Their relatively small size seams confirms this.

The 'coolant' is Glycol, I assume this mean that the operating fluid is Glycol.

Update:

More googling shows what I expected, they are Whispergen engines, made by Whisper Tech in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Stirling Engines - Polar usage

Just found this post, dated 11th January, 2002.

Someone has a Stirling engine in Antartica

Our traveling companions include the Brothers Pernic (Ed and Bob - Bob is the site manager at South Pole for the astronomy project; Ed is the last in a long line of people who've tried to get the TEG working, and is busting to see the Stirling engine) and Wilfred Walsh - a PhD graduate from UNSW Astrophysics.

It would be interesting to findout is stats.

I hate morning news TV. Its just an ad!

Saw something funny on Today, yesterday morning. They had in interview with an author of a book about communicating the children.

The Author commented that kids are bored with life, loser parents etc and that they amerce themselves in computer games, mind dead TV etc as a results.

You should have seen the male host trying to cover Today’s arse! It was so funny. The Author did throw him a lifeline by saying Today had some educational value. ;)

Newspaper Archives, what the!

Read the 'Canberra Times' last Saturday (25/03/06). There was an article about a speech that Julia Gillard made recently at the NSW Fabian Society. The speech was about what Labor should do to beat John Howard.

Went online today, 31/03, to try to get the text of the article. I did searches of the paper's archives on ‘Gillard’, ‘Labor’ and ‘Howard’ and could not find the article. According to the searches, neither the word ‘Gillard’ nor ‘Labor’ even appeared in last Saturday’s paper.

Someone has either legal, policy or technical issues to figure out about the quality & usage of their archives!

To point ‘em in the right direction, here is what Doc Searls write in his Mercury Falling post!

Get net-native, not net-hostile!

Stirling Engines - A Lay Engine Builders Weblog

Just found the weblog of a Victorian engine builder, Terry Thompson.

This post turned up on Tectnorati.

There is also a second, older post, with a diagram.

Terry also has some entries about solar home idea.