Jim Fournier February 27, 2006 An Optimistic Scenario About Global Warming, Peak Oil and Other...

Jim FournierFebruary 27, 2006

An Optimistic Scenario About Global Warming, Peak Oil

and Other Global Crises

February 27, 2006 The Planetary Situation 2

Good News!

…Later


What Are We to Make of the Global Situation?

http://www.maa.org/devlin/GordianKnot.jpg


The Human Time Scale


Four Planetary Crises, orEvolutionary Drivers:

1. Global Warming

2. Peak Oil

3. Peak Population

4. Resource Depletion (Mass Extinction)


Global Warming: Climate Change

http://www.brighton73.freeserve.co.uk/gw/paleo/millenniumCO2.htm

Atmospheric CO2 & Temperature, 1000 Years


CO2, Methane, & Temperature Over the Last 160,000 Years

http://www.iitap.iastate.edu/gccourse/chem/gases/images/meth_temp.gif


Peak Oil

http://www.peakoil.org


The Green Party View


Peak OilWill Increase Energy Prices

• Drive Efficiency • Reduce Demand• Enable Renewables• Increase Demand for

Coal & Oil Sand


Global Energy Use Per Person Has Actually Stopped Growing

http://www.esru.strath.ac.uk/EandE/Web_sites/03-04/biomass/ background%20info.html


But the Population has Not, so CO2 is Still Growing Under Kyoto

http://www.climatechange.gc.ca/english/publications/ap2000/Action_Plan_2000.htm


Long-Term Population Growth

Global Population: Milestones, Hopes, and Concerns Vaclav Smil, PhD http://www.ippnw.org/MGS/V5N2Smil.html


Population S-Curve

http://www.gcrio.org/CONSEQUENCES/summer95/fig1.html


Peak Population?

http://hydro.iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp/GW/data/global/ciesin-sres/


Some Plausible Good News On Population

U.N. Population Figures May be Correct, Because Over 50% of the Global Population Now Lives in Cities and a Large Family is a Liability in a City, Even Among the Poor


Overall Consumption Is Still Growing

http://www.oilcrash.com/articles/kerr_02.htm

Natural Resource Use


Measured by Weight,95% of All Output from Industrial Activity is Waste

Grasberg Gold Mine, West Papua


Ecological Footprints Attempt to Combine Many Factors and Fail to Focus on Key Biological Resources:

• Forests• Fisheries• Farmland• Fresh Water


Destruction of Forests


Collapse of Fisheries

http://www.fao.org/NEWS/FACTFILE/FF9803-E.HTM


Exhaustion of Farmland

http://arch.rivm.nl/ieweb/ieweb/databases/images/NH3-fertilizer_sm.jpg

40% of allAgricultural Soils are Seriously Depleted


Limited Fresh Water Supply

http://www.waterandnature.org/eatlas/html/gm15.html


All Put Biodiversity At Risk

http://www.biodiversityhotspots.org/xp/Hotspots


If We Do Not Change Course, We Will Lose Half the Species on Earth in the Next 100 Years

Tree of Life Web Project http://tolweb.org/tree


For all of human evolution Nature was something with teeth and claws that could jump out of the dark and eat you. Now, in a single generation that situation has been inverted.Nature is suddenly something fragile that we must protect lest we perish.


What Are We to Make of the Global Situation?



One Biological Metaphor Is Cancer


Will Humanity Turn Out to Be Like a Colony of Mold in a Petri Dish?


Or Like An Embryo


Using The White of the Egg to Grow


A New Form of Complexity?

© James L. Fournier


Teilhard de Chardin’s Noosphere…



Nature has repeatedly done just that before.

Life has always invented its way out of the box.


Here’s the Box


Periodic Spiral of the Elements



Eight Fold Spiral Elements



Inner Spiral of the Elements



Reframing the Evolution of Technology In the Context of Biological Evolution

Roger Dean


Life First Derived Energy from Chemicals in the Primordial Soup


Until Photosynthesis

http://fig.cox.miami.edu/~tkoop/spring00/blnphotosyn.html


Only After the Oxygen Released Rusted All of the Iron in the Earth’s Crust


The Oxygen Level Finally Spiked

Causing Spontaneous Combustion


Respiration Took Advantage of New High-Energy Oxygen

http://bioweb.wku.edu/courses/BIOL115/Wyatt/Metabolism/Glycolysis2.htm


Resulting in the Carbon Cycle

http://www.energex.com.au/switched_on/energy_environment/energy_s_html_carboncycle.html


The Carbon Cycle Has Remained in Balance Until Deforestation and Fossil Fuels Increased CO2 Levels

http://www.bom.gov.au/info/climate/change/gallery/images/9.jpg


Peak Oil Is Analogous to Previous Energy Crises on Earth When Our Ancestors, the Microbes, Used Up All of the Most Easily Available Energy


As Humanity Has Discovered How to Take Advantage of the Immense Fossil Energy Reserves of the Planet, We Have, Like Other Life Forms Before Us, Unbalanced the Atmosphere


Since the year 2000 even our president has started saying that we are going toward a hydrogen economy. Everyone seems to agree that we need renewable energy.


The Ratio of Hydrogen to Carbon Has Been Steadily Evolving

• Wood• Peat• Coal• Oil• Natural Gas• Hydrogen

Each has more Hydrogen and less Carbon

Until one arrives at pure Hydrogen

Hydrogen is the smallest element


Energy In Matter Inevitably Converges on Hydrogen



Transformation of Energy Media from Wood to Hydrogen

http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/eng/ch8en/conc8en/energytransition.html


We Can See Other Parallels With Nature As Well?


Photovoltaics Capture Photons in SiliconJust as Photosynthesis Does with Carbon


Silicon is Like the Next Octave of Carbon



Solar Is the Long-term Solution


Wind Is Cost Effective Now


Neither can reverse the climate change already set In motion.

http://cires.colorado.edu/science/groups/steffen/greenland/melt2002/melt1992-2002.jpg


Current Biomass Technology

• Depletes The Soil

• Is Only Carbon Neutral


We Need a Bridge, Something to Close the Gap Between:

• 6 Quads Renewables Provide Now• .06 Quads Each For Solar & Wind• 100 Quads/Year U.S. Consumes

A Quad Is: 1 Quadrillion BTU1,000,000,000,000 BTU = 580,000 barrels of oil


If the bridge were not just Carbon Neutral, like current renewables, but Carbon Negative, i.e. could remove net CO2 from the atmosphere, it would be a miracle.


Terra Preta Agricultural Soil Carbon Breakthrough

• Made in the Amazon 500 Years Ago

• Removes Net CO2 From the Atmosphere

• Restores & Improves Soil Fertility

• Replenished By Soil Organisms


Biomass Energy Breakthrough The Best Charcoal For The Soil

Also Makes Hydrogen Energy


Carbon Sequestration Breakthrough

http://www.eprida.com


Fully Integrated Small Scale Biomass Technology Will:

• Remove CO2 From the Atmosphere

• Return CO2 to the Soil As Fertilizer

• Restore Soil While Adding Nitrogen

• Create Green Diesel Infrastructure

• Create Hydrogen Infrastructure


Mimics the Carbon Cycle

http://www.energex.com.au/switched_on/energy_environment/energy_s_html_carboncycle.html


An Octave of the Carbon Cycle



“Back of the Envelop” Global Calculations

• These are NOT fully proven results• The following are a first pass approximation

of what MIGHT potentially be possible based on what we have seen from initial science, preliminary field trials and first working prototypes of the this technology


Potential Global Context• We Release 26,700,000,000 Tons of CO2

• One Unit Can Remove 4,000 Tons of CO2

• Soil Organisms Increase This Around 200%

• 3.5M Units To Remove 26.7B Tons of CO2

• Would Also Produce 25B Barrels of Diesel

• Global Oil Production = 26B Barrels (2004)


How Much Land Would That Take?

• 1 Unit Needs 10 Tons of Biomass per Day

• 1 Unit Needs 3,000 Tons Biomass per Year

• 1 to 10 Tons of Biomass per Acre per Year

• For Each Unit: 300 to 3,000 Acres

• For 3.5 Million Units: 1 to 10 Billion Acres

• Total Global Agricultural Land: 12B Acres

• Does Not Include Forestry Land


There Is No Guarantee; Stabilizing Climate Change Will Be a Race

• Increase Energy Efficiency• Increase Material Efficiency• Ethanol, Methanol & Other Biofuels• Capture Methane From Compost• Reduce Beef Production (Methane)• Capture & Sequester CO2 From Coal• Solar, Wind, Tidal, Geothermal Heat Pumps


It Is Plausible That We Could• Reverse Global Warming

• Transition From Fossil Fuels to Renewables

• Transition From Biodiesel to Hydrogen

• Restore Soil Fertility

• Eliminate Nitrogen Runoff

• Eliminate Acid Rain

• Decentralize Wealth Creation


We Could Transform the Global Situation


Into Something That Feels More Like a Winning Hand of Solitaire


Plausible Solutions For:

Global Warming Peak Oil Peak Population? Mass Extinction


An S-Curve Goes from Concave Up to Concave Down at the Point of Inflection

Point of Inflection

If Global Trends Decelerate,What Looked Like Log Curves May Turn Out to be S-Curves


An S-Curve Implies a Future Plateau Characterized by Climax Technology



We are undergoing a point of inversion in matter and culture. From this point on our technological evolution in matter may be guided by the recognition of the potential for a climax technology, a state of Meta-Nature. A state as harmonious as nature in the coherence of its design, which, like nature, is the realization of a potential already inherent in the puzzle that is matter.

Meta-Nature


GEOMAN



At the Point of Inflection Near the Millennium the System Is:• Changing So Fast That Nothing is Retained

• So Inefficient Nothing Should Be Retained

• First Glimpsing the Potential Future State

• Passing Through the Neck of the Hourglass

• Itself the Global Birth Canal

• Chaotic, Highly Unstable


The Shift must reframe the perception of society, to at once validate everything that has happened to bring us to this point, while at the same time making it self-evident to everyone that we must each now radically change course in the light of this new found perspective.


The Shift Point in Time



As We Pass Through the Neck of the Hourglass There Will BeTwo Key Measures of Success:

• Preservation of Biodiversity

• Achieving Climax Technology

Jim Fournier February 27, 2006 An Optimistic Scenario About Global Warming, Peak Oil and Other...

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