Physical Sustainability

Sustainable Civilization: From the Grass Roots Up

Chapter II - Physical Sustainability Factors and Limitations The present infrastructure and ideologies of civilization developed in an era of cheap abundant energy, expanding population and what seemed to be unlimited resources. All of this is ending. Given present knowledge and science, humans are faced with physical limits. We need to recognize what these limits are, and re-think our civilization from the grass roots up, not bumble blindly on.

HISTORY

In this past 100 years, the incredible development of our global society and population expansion was made possible primarily by oil, which provided a store of cheap, concentrated, portable energy, as well as plastics, medicines, clothing, pesticides, paint, and thousands of other products.

God blessed the United States with an original supply of about 260 billion barrels; only Saudi Arabia had more. From 1859 to 1939 the U.S. produced two thirds of the world's oil. Part of the motivation for Japan and Germany in WWII was their lack of resources to cope with the combination of expanding population and increased per person demand, with a particular shortage of energy in the form of oil. It could easily be argued that American oil, and the industrial output it nourished, was a major factor in World War II, as was our hydroelectric power which allowed for production of great quantities of aluminum for aircraft. For oil, taking California as an example, this one state had more than all Axis territory combined. As recently as 1950 the U.S. was producing half the world's oil.

Today, we now don't produce half our own oil, and absent a scientific energy breakthru, we should probably preserve it for national defense use as the oil era ends.

Starting immediately, should make every effort to use our power, technology, knowledge and resources to transform our oil dependent society into one that is sustainable, above the level of mere subsistence. That said, much of the remains of our inheritance must be used to play world policeman and prevent war on a global scale. We will, probably, continue misguided programs that sustain a growing underclass of individuals who return nothing to society.

With the food production and shipping made possible by oil, as well as energy to transform the landscape, and overcome the environment, humans have overpopulated like a plague over the planet. For the present, humans can live in places, and in concentrations that are impossible to sustain without oil.

Our strategic reserves, established as a "buffer" against OPEC economic actions, and for security use, represent less than 30 days supply at our normal use. And, these reserves can not be pumped faster than a flow which would be around 17% of our normal daily use. So, the governmental reserves, if NOT used for the military, could keep 17 percent of the economy going for a few months. Our total domestic supply could only operate the nation's present infrastructure for a relatively brief period. Until we have an alternative, we're stuck providing security to keep the foreign oil flowing.

In 1859 when oil was struck in Pennsylvania, Americans traveled on horseback; in 1969 they drove Mustangs and flew to the Moon. In 2069, those who survive will probably walk. Will your heirs, if they live, live in a comfortable self-reliant modern city, or hide in caves?

FOSSIL FUEL FOLLIES RETURNING TO "KING COAL"

A century or so ago, humanity switched, in large part, FROM coal TO oil as the primary fuel. The U.S. has perhaps the largest remaining coal supply, estimated to be around 270 Billion Tons, currently being used at the rate of around 1.7 billion tons per year. (158 years at 2006 rate)

Every barrel of oil has around 6,048,000 BTU, and every ton of coal around 20,000,000 BTU (equal to 3.3 barrels of oil).

If coal were as readily accessable, easy to process and use, the U.S. coal supply is equal in BTU's to around 890 billion barrels of oil. I've seen on the web conversion efficiency rates of 40%, so the conversion uses about 7.6 billion tons of coal to make 10 billion barrels of oil, for a combined coal and liquid fuel lifespan of 29 years, with a total of 290 billion barrels of oil.

But of course, BTU's are not the only issue. There is the dangerous work of mining, the environmental damage left behind at the mine, the pollution from coal use, and it is of course NOT able to directly power most of the present machines.

In June 2006 the reports are that a coal to liquid fuel facility would cost $7.5 billion for a plant that could produce 150,000 barrels per day (around 54 million per year). It would take 182 of these facilities to replace the U.S. annual use of 10 billion barrels, costing about $1.4 trillion to build.

Amortize the plants over the production in their useful life and without interest or profit for anyone the plants cost $12.96 per barrel.

In 2005 the price of coal used at synfuel plants was $42.78 per ton, so the coal cost for each barrel is $32.41. Taking efficiencies into account and amortization of the construction costs, with no inflation, and no demand increase, the production cost of coal-oil is around $44.37 per barrel. For perspective, the per barrel well-head cost of oil in Saudi Arabia in the 1950's was 7 cents. In the early 1990's it was little over 50 cents. The estimated cost in 2005 is $2.80, while a barrel is selling for over $60.00. (21 times cost) At that ratio, coal to oil would retail at $931.77 per barrel, with a gallon of gasoline at around $22.18 per gallon. (Your calculations may vary.) The coal-oil investment would represent a 29 year timeframe to come up with something else. (Less when you consider rising demand and increasing difficulty mining.) Will we re-throne King Coal? It is at the top of the President's 2006 Advanced Energy Initiative.

GREENHOUSE GAS & GLOBAL WARMING

Without some level of greenhouse gases (i.e. CO2, water vapor, & methane) most of the Earth would freeze. For perspective however, the present (400 ppm) level of CO2 is reported to be higher than at any time in the past 650,000 years. The level of these gases are effected by factors such as the number of animals (including humans), plant cover, in particular forests which can store a great deal of carbon, and the release of "new" carbon from the human activity of use of fossil fuels.

We seem to be clearly approaching a level of greenhouse gases where there is potential for dramatic global warming, telling us of the need to cease fossil fuel burning. At the same time we are warned of impending peak oil, where oil cannot be pumped fast enough to meet demand. The clear consequence of peak oil, to be followed by decline, probably quickly in pumping rate, is the dramatic increase in the price of all oil derived products and services, and the end of many of such.

The Kyoto treaty is often presented as an essential example of international cooperation to reduce carbon emissions. However the treaty is clearly flawed, in that it fails to require that quite a number of countries actually comply, even if they join in the treaty.

China, with an estimated population of 1.3 billion (and still growing) has become essentially THE worldwide source of a large variety and volume of consumer products, and which in its burning rate is (2006) the #2 volume polluter in the world, rapidly catching-up with the U.S., is for treaty purposes EXCLUDED from compliance.

As of 2006, China is constructing the equivalent of one large coal-fueled power station EACH WEEK. Over their roughly 60 life span, these facilities could collectively put into the atmosphere the amount of CO2 that has heretofore been released by ALL OF THE COAL BURNED SINCE THE DAWN OF THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION.

Sulphur dioxide emissions in China rose 15% in 2005. There are areas of China that are black from coal soot and slag heaps.

The rising demand in China for all resources puts it a #2 for fossil fuels, and #1 for virtually everything else. Cement, uranium, aluminum, corn, soybeans, zinc, and in particular copper.

Despite extensive expansion, there remain even significant cities where electricity is not yet available in private homes, and only intermittently for businesses. China has underway nuclear plants expected to average one new plant each year for the next 20 years. To transmit and use this electrical capacity, China will need a lot of copper. So much that estimates are that if every ounce of remaining copper in the world were mined and sold in China, the demand could not be met.

The Canadian tar sands project in Calgary, and the pipeline to carry the oil to market is China funded: from Canadian tundra to Beijing taxi, 17 days.

Pollution, is pollution. CO2, is CO2, the atmosphere does not care where the CO2 was generated, it still effects the temperature the same.

SHALE OIL "Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming harbor a store equivalent to 2 trillion barrels of oil--more than all the crude that has been produced worldwide since the petroleum age began. A Rand study estimated recently that 800 billion barrels might be recoverable, which would be more than triple the proven reserves of Saudi Arabia and could fuel current U.S. demand for oil for another 80 years. But there’s more to the story. As with oil sands, enormous amounts of energy would be needed for both the heating and freezing processes. Rand estimates that a single 100,000-barrel-a-day operation would require a dedicated 1.2-gigawatt electricity generating station--a size that would be comparable to one of the nation's largest power plants, like the New Hampshire nuclear giant, Seabrook, which serves 900,000 customers." To generate that power using the oil recovered form the project would probably require burning at each site 14,256 barrels per day. This leaves a net for each site of 85,744 barrels per day. To fuel the U.S. would require 319 of these. To fuel the world would require 958. Commentary: This supply is distributed undergound over a 16,000 square mile area. Liquid oil can flow to the pumping site. The proposal for shale oil is to drill and heat the rock while in the ground, then pump the oil as it separates from the rock. This only works of course in a limited around around the drill site, which must be moved (Redrilled). If shale oil had to meet 2005 U.S. annual use, with no increase in demand, the above best recovery estimate would fuel this country for 68 years. It could substitute for world (2005) use for 22 years. TAR SANDS

Canada has in its tar-sands an estimated 175 billion barrels of oil, spread out in locations the size of the State of Florida.

These oilsands look and feel like molasses, and are found in bands 6 to 10 meters thick. Two tons of oilsands yield about 1.25 barrels of tar and a barrel of crude oil. However, if all planned development is put into operation, the expected peak flow rate is around 1.095 billion barrels per year. This rate would meet a grand total of 3.65% of world demand, for a period of 158 years. It would keep some governments in military vehicles, and the ultra rich in some toys, but if somehow processed fast enough to be humanities sole-source it would fuel "civilization" for about 5 years.

Despite difficulties in processing, under construction in 2005 was a 1,160 km pipelinle to carry the oil to the Canadian Pacific coast.

BIO-FUELS

While manmade bio fuels meet or exceed fossil fuels in quality, they are impossible to produce in the quantity necessary to sustain the present infrastructure.

In full page color ads (2006) Chevron tells us, "With current technology, one acre of soybeans yields 60 gallons of clean-burning biodiesel fuel". Yes, but with 2006 global use of fuel at 1.260 Trillion gallons, it would take 21 billion acres of soybeans to replace our fuel use. The world has 4.898 billion acres available. If all of the cropland was planted in soybeans, we might replace 23% of our annual fuel use, but no one would eat.

An early 2006 article in Mother Earth News on biodiesel presents an apparently optimistic view of biodiesel production. The article indicates that the United States has 6 million acres of cropland that are fallow, asserting that if all of this acreage was planted in rapeseed, it could conceivably annually provide 6 billion gallons of diesel fuel. Setting aside considerations of putting our last fallow cropland into use, let's put this amount of fuel into perspective. In barrels, this is 142 million barrels. Approximately 2 BILLION barrels per year are used in the U.S. in the food production industry.

Therefore, the loss of every "spare" acre of farmland could replace perhaps 7% of the fuel used in farming and food processing.

There are, absent fossil fuels, means to sustainably obtain clean water, nutritional food, appropriate clothing and shelter, but not in sufficient quantities to sustain the present population, let alone provide any excess.

ABIOTIC THEORY

There are theories that oil is constantly being produced deep in the earth by reactions in the temperatures and pressures there, as opposed to being buried biological matter that grew in ancient sunlight. It may be true, but even if it is, the rate of production can't keep up with our annual use. If oil was being produced deep in the earth at the rate of 30 billion barrels per year, long ago the entire planet would have been oil.

THE NUCLEAR OPTION A nuclear fission reaction releases around 10 million times more energy than chemical processes. Current (2005) world uranium use is around 65,000 tonnes per year. with production of around 40,000 tonnes per year, the difference made up from drawn-down of stocks and the use of material from the Nuclear Weapons. For the past decade (2006) prices have been low due to use of "old" material, which is expected to be exhausted by the middle of the next decade. The price of uranium was $23 per kg in early 2003, and $110 per kg in 2006. Uranium is not particularly rare. There is an estimated 40 trillion tonnes of Uranium in the Earth's crust. To date we have mined less than one ten-millionth of this. The relevant information though is what can be recovered using known technology. Estimates as of 2005: Readily recoverable at around $130/kg is 4.7 million tones. If each 1 GW light water Nuclear Power Plant consumes 30 tonnes of fuel per year this "easy" to get uranium represents 157,000 reactor/years. Say we already have 441 (1006) in operation, so it's enough to keep them operating for 355 years. If these reactors represent a continued output of 1 billion watt/hour through the year, then for example at 100% efficient conversion of oil to electricity that it would take around 5,280 of these reactors to replace our 2005 oil use. Then the "easy" uranium extends our present global energy use levels by 30 years. There is potential for additional recoverable uranium of 35 million tones, for a total land based estimated available and useful supply of 39.7 million tons. If known supplies are all mined it could provide power for 1,300,000 GW/reactor years (each equal to burning 9000 tonnes of coal per day). In 2005 oil equivalent it represents energy for nearly 250 years. Good news. A nuclear plant may produce 93 times more energy than it consumes. Or put another way, the non-nuclear energy investment required to generate electricity for 40 years is repaid in 5 months. The oceans may represent a repository of a further 100 million tons, for another 600 or so years, IGNORING of course the energy & method to ensure every single ounce of the ocean passes thru the collection device, and the energy of isolating a microscopic quantity per ounce.

In total, if uranium fission is used to meet energy demands equal to those at the turn of the millennium, it MIGHT provide power for 620 years. This timeframe of course must assume no increase in population, and no per person demand increase by anyone in the world.

For an eventual future global population, if stabilized at 6.6 billion, and eventually all living at something like the U.S. level, the total uranium would last:

Years of Power Reliable Recovery                                1.4 Questionable Recovery                       11.9 Ocean Recovery                                  29.9 Total                                                    43.2 Some CO2 emissions arise from the construction of the plant, the mining of the Uranium, the enrichment of the Uranium, its conversion into Nuclear Fuel, its final disposal and the final plant decommissioning. The total estimated CO2 emitted per KW-Hr is less than one hundredth the CO2 of Fossil-Fuel based generation. The Chinese Nuclear Power Industry has contracts to build new plants of their design at capital cost reported to be $1500 per KW and $1300 per KW at sites in South-East and North-East China. The greatest growth (2006) in nuclear power is in China. There is of course the concern over spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF), which is highly radioactive. The TransUranic component of SNF must be isolated from the environment for 100,000 years or more. The fission products typically reach background levels after 500 years. There is research into "burning" the TransUranic's in either advanced reactors or accelerator driven subcritical assemblies, but this technology has not yet been developed to work on a large scale. The bad news. There is of course the small problem storing 39.7 MILLION TONS of highly radioactive waste for 100,000 years. The time "storage cost" of this waste we impose on our children is immense, for 200 or so years of power, a horribly short-term view. THE ENERGY LIMIT

Our readily available source of sustainable energy is solar. There is logically a maximum amount of solar energy that would be available to an Earthbound human society. Imagine we covered the entire surface of the Earth with solar panels (think Trantor in Asimov's stories, or Courasant (spelling) in Star Wars).

Every square yard of the surface of the Earth exposed perpendicular to full sun receives around 1kw of energy. A square mile contains roughly 3 million square yards. Using 10% efficient panels is represents AT BEST 300 megawatt of generation.

The Earth presents an 8,000 mile diameter disk to the sun. But remember, the world is not flat, is tilted relative to its orbit, and rotates. The further you are from the equator, the less sunlight per square meter of surface, therefore covering polar regions with solar panels would be impractical. To provide continued collection in the non-polar regions, the entire earth would need to be belted with panels. At any given moment though, probably a circle of 5,000 mile diameter or less would face the sun adequately for solar collection. Area = Pi x radius squared. With present solar panels (say 10% efficient), how much power could we intercept?

It's an area of 19,634,954 square miles exposed to the sun. It is 60,821,233,704,000 square yards, each intercepting, when not shaded by clouds, an average of something under 1 kilowatt. (For design/building purposes, remember the curve of the Earth. To expose a 5,000 wide area probably requires 7,500 mile wide be covered on the surface of the Earth.)

Assume half are shaded by clouds at any given time, so it's intercepting something under 30,410,616,852,000 kw. Readily available p/v panels are around 10% efficient, so we could expect to have 30,410,616,852 kw.

Let's compare the energy to our oil use.

Recent annual oil use was 30 billion barrels, or 126 billion gallons.

A gallon of fuel has 144,000 BTU, equal to around 36.7 kwh.

If we use the array and the electrolysis process to obtain hydrogen from water, the best efficiency rate discussed is 50%, or that we must put in twice as much power as we gain back when we use the fuel.

Every hour the array operates is could produce hydrogen fuel equal in BTU's to around 414,313,581 gallons.

Operating 24 hours a day, say for 360 days a year on the average, it could produce 3,579,669,339,840 gallons.

The good news is that such a global solar array could provide electrical energy and convert it to hydrogen fuel roughly equal to 28 times our recent annual oil use.

Remember though, the bad news is that the surface of the planet is covered with solar panels, with essentially no open exposure to the sky, on land or on the sea. And of course, there's all the silicon for the panels, wire, metal, etc., exponentially beyond any supply of such materials we dream may be available to us.

To replace "just" our recent 30 billion barrels per year is an array constantly in the sun of 701,248 square miles. To have a five thousand mile wide swatch of constant sun at the equator equal this area, we would need a solid band of photovoltaic cells around the earth at least 140 miles wide, across oceans, mountains, etc.

The "real world" power per facility footprint is of course NOT as good as the above. In 2005 Stirling Energy Systems started planning on a solar thermal generating facility for the desert in southern California.

The facility, to generate 500 megawatt, will have a footprint of 6.25 square miles. (Roughly 19 million square yards.) This planned facility tops-out at 80 megawatt per square mile, vs the 300 of theoretical top using 10% panels. In a quick estimate, to expand this real-world facility to be large enough to replace our annual oil use would require a continuous band built around the equator of the Earth around 540 miles wide.

Geothermal appears to present an opportunity for a lot of energy, almost anyplace on Earth. It does. There is of course a limit, if you "cool" a large area under your generator; you may lose your heat. In the extreme you may change the physical characteristics under you site such that you generate earthquakes. Carried to extremes worldwide the cooling rock, cracking and contracting, could provide openings for water and air to seep downward.

The nuclear option. Present fission reactor fuel and technology provides a window of opportunity to provide concentrated, high electrical generation, for a limited period of time. At a cost. Reactors tend to have a lifespan of 50 years, after which the reactor must be taken apart and stored long term, as must the depleted fuel. As of 2006, no country on the Earth has put into place a permanent storage program. The U.S. has been debating about it's "Yucca Mountain" site for twenty years. If nuclear power expanded to one million megawatts, the waste produced would fill this discussed, but as of yet non-existent facility, every three years or so.

Scientific American suggests thinking along the lines of what they call the "2,000 watt society", where they posit having available 2 kilowatt of power per person. They conclude that 2kw per person is technically feasible for an ongoing industrial society.

Consider the U.S. 2006 energy picture:

2006        Data		    Overall	Transportation	Industrial	Residential  Commercial	Electric Power BBL/Equal	25 BBL Total		28.00%	22.00%	11.00%	39.00% 10	Oil	40.00%	11.200%	8.800%	4.400%	15.600% 5.75	Natural Gas	23.00%	6.440%	5.060%	2.530%	8.970% 5.75	Coal	23.00%	6.440%	5.060%	2.530%	8.970% 1.5	Renewables	6.00%	1.680%	1.320%	0.660%	2.340% 2	Nuclear	8.00%	2.240%	1.760%	0.880%	3.120% 100.00% 28.00% 22.00% 11.00% 39.00%

THE ECOLOGICAL LIMIT

Pre agricultural man lived "off the land," consuming only the bounty of nature, which could sustain a global population of about 2 20 million human beings. (3/10 % of the present population)

There are estimates that humans may already be diverting 40% to 50% of the productive life of the planet to essentially exclusive human use, this in a time when energy and technology permit food growth on marginal land, and processing for storage and long distance shipping. Absent improvements in for example food productivity per acre, we are therefore within one population doubling of ecological disaster.

But we are not poised for such productivity improvements. We are more likely facing the loss of significant areas of existing farmland, estimates range from 20% to 50%, which has been "overworked" and no longer viable. We are also facing reduction in the level of crops from remaining farmland, perhaps to production that is only 25% of the present, absent chemical fertilizers.

To calculate the maximum possible supply of food for an Earthbound solar civilization, let's use the same 5,000 mile disk as with solar power above (food is, after all, a chemical store of solar energy.)

If the same swath as with solar power was instead turned into an 7,500 mile wide biointensive garden, completely surrounding the Earth, 50% clouds, it would intercept in BTUs:

207,522,049,398,048,000

Converted to calories, it's: 169,231,652,138,178,722,753.

Shaded 50% by clouds, 2000 calorie per person per day, 365 days per year, given overall photosynthesis efficiency of 1/10% as observed in food crops today, it could provide food for 115,912,090,505 (115 billion) people. No other animals. No open place to walk. No fuel. No solar electricity. No ocean waves... Just feeding people.

Absent such sci-fi technology, the reality is we are already diverting around 50% of the productive life-force of the Earth for human purposes, and that with the additional input of fertilizers, pesticides, and green revolution crops.

Agricultural man could produce about 10 calories of energy with the expenditure of about one calorie of energy. This meant that a single man could produce enough food for his immediate family, and still have a surplus to sell, or be "taxed" to support nonagricultural urban civilization and a total global population of 200 300 million.

Remember though, early agriculture was set up on farmland selected from the best produced by God's natural processes. Compare the "Fertile Crescent" of 5,000 to 10,000 years ago to the conditions in the area today. Farming techniques may have contributed significantly to the effective death of the environment in that area.

Industrial man probably uses over ten calories of energy to produce a single calorie of food, which is completely unsustainable. Most of what you see in the industrial world is a transitory illusion made possible by a one time windfall supply of energy from fossil fuels that were accumulated over millions of years. When the fossil fuel reserves deplete in 50 years OR LESS, the modern food system will simply disappear along with them.

Unfortunately, in the U. S. and many other nations farming is dependent on several key unsustainable factors:

Oil, for machines and fertilizers

Hybrid plants, specially bred, consuming artificial fertilizers

Ground water, massive pumping, exceeding "recharge" rates that will take tens of thousands of years, or more to refill once we cease pumping.

Without oil 2% of Americans working in our present industrial farming CAN NOT feed the remaining 98%, let alone any type of surplus to help the rest of the world. And there are many nations who are, or will, be far worse off then the U. S. Absent input of oil based fertilizers, it could take up to three times as much land to produce the same amount of food. If the irrigation cannot be indefinitely sustained, then don't count on the food produced from use of the water.

The population surge of the industrial age has passed 6 BILLION, and has not yet leveled off, but it will, very soon, whether by voluntary action, war, or starvation.

The only practical source of sustainable food is that grown close to the consumers, recycling natural wastes into fertilizers. The most practical source of fertilizer for the crops is recycling in as small and closed a loop, as meets with health and safety, the humanure and urine. Returning to manual labor is not practical for huge farms that are isolated from the human population they feed, and the labor necessary to tend the farm.

During the last 40 years, perhaps 30 percent of total world arable land was abandoned because it was no longer productive. Potentially, half of the current arable land now in cultivation will be unsuitable for food production by the middle of the twenty first century, further lowering sustainable population.

When crops produced are consumed elsewhere, (i.e. farm goods are shipped to the city, or overseas) non chemical agricultural practices can not completely make up for the massive withdrawal of nutrients from the soil. While artificial fertilizers can, as in hydroponics, literally allow plants to grow on lifeless rock, the plant cannot contain what is not in its fertilizer. And the fertilizers used do not contain the full spectrum of minerals that the plants, and humans, need.

The U.S., with the heavy application of fertilizers, has around 2% of the population working in farming, and uses just over 1 acre per person to maintain our present diet. (It was just in 1998 that the U.S. food demand first exceeded its production capacity, with a net importation of food) China manages to keep its starvation level population alive with just .2 acre (8736) per person. But these production levels are based on fossil fuel dependent fertilizers.

EXPECT 5/6 FOOD PRODUCTION LOSS

What happens when, as oil supplies dwindle, and prices rise, that farmers cannot afford them? It is projected that absent the chemicals if the same farm fields are continued to be worked (say by extensive manual labor) that production would probably be 1/3 of the present yield. Without the ability to pump deep groundwater sources (which will themselves be depleted shortly anyway) up to 1/2 of the present farmland may simply be unworkable. There is the possibility that the food factor may limit us to only 1/6 of the present population, or a total global population of 1 billion. This does not however mean every nation will necessarily experience a loss of a little over 80% of it’s population. There are locations which are at this time at what appears to be at a sustainable population for food.

All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed; Second, it is violently opposed; and Third, it is accepted as self-evident.

- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

There are locations which are at far more than six times the sustainable population. While an initial reaction to population density is to “correct” it by redistributing from the crowded to the less crowded, this punishes those who have been limiting their own numbers, and rewards those who have been careless.

Absent a store of fossil fuels, if we want to continue to operate any type of combustion engine (including for these purposes fuel cells) we may need to divert food production land to fuel production

This would further reduce the practical standing population.

REACHING A SUSTAINABLE POPULATION

Exploring a population of 1 billion for a few moments (the size which can at least be fed)…

Assume an average lifespan of 80 years. If the ages of the 1 billion residents are spread across 80 years, there would be 12,500,000 of each age. We should expect about that many births each year, and that many deaths, keeping the population overall in balance. We have however 6+ billion.

Numerous estimates put the oil crash on or about 2020. Meaning, on or before 2020 we “need” to get the population down to no more than a billion or so. First, births must be no greater than the future sustainable level (12.5 million), preferably less until stability is clearly established. 5+ billion will, quite probably, die of untimely and unpleasant means by 2020.

If the crash started significantly now (2005), and progressed evenly and slowly over 15 years, we would be looking at 346.5 MILLION deaths per year (334 million population reduction + 12.5 million of birth balance), well beyond the present 75 million or so averaged deaths each year. It is not a pleasant topic, and one ignored by many. The deaths will not be randomly distributed, from any one cause, or all at once. Expect them to come in waves.

THE GENETIC WILDCARD

In our efforts to create more productive plants, and profits in the agricultural industry, we have bred and widely use hybrid plants. While in themselves producing more food material than their natural "cousins", the hybrids have little genetic diversity, and are subject to widespread crop failure when disease strikes.

In addition, the children of the plants, their seeds, may be sterile "mules", incapable of reproducing themselves, or at best multiple throwbacks vastly different from the sought crop. This makes it impossible to store up seed from your own crops, and forces farmers to return to the seed "manufacturers" every year for more seed. Not only does this entail unnecessary costs, but also failure of the hybrid production could lead to a sustained scarcity of crop seeds, and huge food production shortages.

I've read that NO hybrid corn will pick up cobalt, a necessary micronutrient for vitamin B12 formation. Don't you wonder what we're doing to ourselves?

Beyond hybrids problems, agribusiness has also begun to specifically add a "TERMINATOR" gene (their own wording) to crops, to guarantee no seeds produced can grow. They cannot however guarantee what will happen when pollen from these "TERMINATOR" crops is spread to natural plants.

A greater yet opportunity/threat is inter species genetic transfer. Until genetic splicing entered the scene, "new" plants or animals were limited to products of those entities which could breed with each other. The new technology allows splicing animal and insect genes into plants; i.e. fish genes for production of oil have been spliced into tomatoes to help protect them from cold. These products are not mere unique breedings, but virtually a new life form.

Of the 10's of thousands of species man lives with, only cattle, sheep, pigs and goats are globally employed as livestock, and only the chicken is a true global contributor among the birds. And of the 20,000 food plants, hardly more than 100 have been properly domesticated, with a mere dozen or so bearing the bulk of the burden of feeding humanity. Perhaps we should work with this resource on a natural level and keep the genetic transfers to the lab.

EUGENICS

Most of the civilized world has for decades been conducting a widespread program which has dramatically increased the numbers of those least capable of contributing to society, (whether from actual or pretended disabilities), and DEGRADES the overall quality of humans as breeding stock for future generations.

THE WATER LIMIT

The only naturally sustainable source of fresh water is that which is naturally replenished by precipitation. A large part of America's cropland is watered by pumping from deep underground ancient stores, which are being pumped dry. When the underground water runs out, the crops stop. For example, there is little doubt that when the Ogallala Aquifer is depleted, the 12 million acres it irrigates, (perhaps 1/3 of the U. S. cropland) will be out of service. The Ogallala overdraft as far back as 1975 was 14 million acre/feet per year, the flow of the Colorado River, and about 1/2 of the total U.S. groundwater overdraft. The situation is similar in other nations. This not only affects the food supply, as discussed above, but the greater priority of clean drinking water.

Desalinization of ocean water is possible, but known technology does not make it a viable source for enough freshwater to feed, and quench the thirst of the present population.

The author has read data which indicates the global water evaporation rate is around 92,000 cubic miles, with the rainfall returning to the land amounting to around 25,000 cubic miles of water. If we could collect every drop of rain that falls on land, it would amount to around just over 27,000 trillion gallons. If we collected just 1/10 and used it without re-evaporation losses for just biointensive gardens, it would provide for a population of around 42 billion.

THE TOXIC LIMIT

Mankind's hazardous wastes cannot be handled by the natural ecosystem, where energy is obtained from the sun each day, and continuously converted by living creatures into waste that is completely consumed by other living creatures. Mankind however produces waste that cannot be consumed by living creatures.

For industrial society to be sustainable, ALL waste of industrial activity must be recycled. This increases the amount of energy that must be used for any given process, further reducing the sustainable population. Despite progress in the past few decades, accurate information is not yet available to determine the energy needs for such recycling. It is in the best interest of all to simply avoid, or minimize those processes that produce hazardous wastes.

THE DISEASE FACTOR

Diseases have found our towns and cities where human populations are dense to make great incubators. Our remedies for epidemics of diseases such as tuberculosis, measles, smallpox, flu, cholera, and polio, are being undermined by new strains of diseases that are resistant.

Mismanaged concentrations and mixes of human and animal wastes, and mutigenic substances are ideal for the propagation and mutation of pathogens.

If the overall health of humanity is eroded by decreased living conditions, disease will run rampant. Swift, worldwide transportation of people and goods is quite an achievement. But diseases also benefit from our transportation systems. Viruses that were once isolated in a small pocket of the world can now travel anywhere, and spread before they can be noticed. Even our miracle drugs, which once seemed on the verge of wiping out diseases, are now themselves responsible for new mutations.

We've introduced "air tightness" in buildings (in the name of energy efficiency) and air conditioning (and, incidentally, the reduced rate of airflow in the cabins of modern jet airliners, also in the name of energy efficiency). Keeping people breathing the same re circulated air makes the transmission of airborne pathogens all the easier. It also leads to new environments to concentrate and multiply deadly bacterium that otherwise were kept in check by natural means, i.e. the occupant of air conditioning systems: Legionella pneumophila, the causative agent of often fatal Legionnaire's disease, is in it's natural state a minor soil component kept in check by the micro ecosystem of healthy soil.

THE CONFLICT FACTOR

Warfare is the historical response to the pressure of local needs, or greed, or the perceived unfairness of better off neighbors, or those who refuse to strip their own resources and join the death of a failed society. Leaders will need to shift the responsibility and blame for failure elsewhere. America, with the highest standard of living on Earth, the greatest purchaser of oil, and producer of food, is the most visible, most likely target of this redirected anger. The accumulation of atomic, biological, and chemical weapons has spread dramatically, and they are now in the hands of many small nations, who have long histories of conflicts with neighboring nations, and short tempers.

Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The U.N. and those behind the scenes control the world, with agendas probably contrary to your personal freedom and achievement.

If we can’t sustain the present population, what are you suggestions for avoiding such conflicts and their spread? How do we avoid further destruction of the natural ecosystem, the human life support ecosystem, and the artifacts and knowledge of civilization and manage the least painful and damaging way out from our self imposed crisis? (Reminder: Excess food, viable currency, and industrial products are not available in the emergency.)

Please forgive the flippant analogy, but we are in a horror show game of “Musical Chairs”. Whenever the music (essential aspect) stops, anyone who does not have a safe chair, dies.

People will fight to get into chairs, and pull others off, killing each other and others around them. Chairs will be destroyed in the process, making each round worse.

FINITE MINERALS AND METALS

We cannot be dependent on a one-way thru put of any finite resource. Expect present garbage dumps to be future small-scale "mining" sites to seek pre-processed materials such as metals, glass, and plastics.

QUALITY OF LIFE

Is humanity as a whole, and the citizens as individuals, better off in a world with some maximum population existing at a starvation level, unable to maintain a sane organized civilization with teaching, medicine, etc., or with much lower numbers, well fed and healthy, with reserves of food, the ability to produce biofuels, etc.? With the globe covered by human sprawl & refuge, or with distinct human enclaves isolated from a protected greater volume of natural environment? With a long-lived educated and experienced population, or short-lived neophytes who must reinvent the wheel each generation? The future will be what we make it by the accumulation of our individual decisions and actions.

EARLIER CRASHES

Starving frightened people do not care about sustainability. If sustainability is to be achieved, people who are not starving must supply the necessary leadership and resources. There must therefore be someone who retains a viable society, when all else fall into chaos.

"In the end," says the Grand Inquisitor in Dostoevsky's parable, "in the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, make us your slaves, but feed us."

Human societies as far apart in space and time as Rome, Mayans, and Easter Islanders came to ruin by expanding beyond the capacity of their environments to sustain them. They depleted their local habitats, and had to disburse. Humanity as a whole survived, however, because there were always places elsewhere on Earth capable of supporting people.

Today, of course, humankind has become a global culture, one increasingly driven by a philosophy of competitive expansionism, one that is subduing and consuming the Earth. The numbers are simple, the present population cannot be sustained. When the present infrastructure fails, the population will crash, potentially destroying all that we have accomplished so far. The problem is that dulring the crash, and once demolished, there is place to hide while the worst passes, and the tries to heal itself.

Do not harbor a belief that the end of cheap fuel will end war. Long before modern weapons or equipment wars went on for decades, with each side stripping the countryside bare for miles. No fortress, means of concealment, ability to offer bribes, is as effective a defense as the ability and the will if required to crush an attacker.

COMING SOON

In many ways, the next hundred years may be the inverse of the last hundred. As fossil fuels dwindle, supply lines collapse, and societies disintegrate, muscle will gradually replace machinery. "Home grown" will replace "imported". Cities as we know them may be impossible to sustain.

Activists from both the Left and Right   armed with selected facts and ideologies    but devoid of logic -- will form political agendas, select the best liars for leaders, and take to the streets demanding that government take us back to "the good old days". The worse our problems become, the more they will act instead of think. The less they think, the worse our problems will become. Social order will disintegrate, and Roadside Warriors will go mad, killing, raping, torturing, and burning...

There are various locations, ranging from islands, remote valleys, selected cities, and nations, that may still have enough arable land per person, economic and natural capital per citizen to actually make a rapid and functional transition to a sustainable yet technological society, even in a post-peak scenarios with declining supplies, IF we focus our efforts, and our resources, on that goal. We must immediately cease wasting our resources, time, and money, and cease subsidizing unproductive consumption. The future development of agriculture must be directed toward closed loop ecological yet economically viable solutions. It may be highly mechanized, or it may be hands-on. But we must recognize it requires a greatly reduced population. It is important to keep the productivity of farmers' labor high enough to avoid a heavy burden on the economy in the form of government subsidies and unstable agriculture. For a society to continue to develop each farmer must be capable of feeding a significant serviced population.

The practicality of achieving self sufficiency in food production requires a stable population. The American public must understand the issues of immigration and population growth and their implications for future food security in their country now while there is still time to make adjustments. Self sufficiency in food production and other basic resources should be viewed as a strategy to guarantee a continued high standard of living and national security to U.S. citizens in the face of turbulence that can be expected around the world in the next decades. There is no time for delay, choosing not to change the current pattern of high immigration and population growth is a suicidal trap.

The bulk of the population of the world does not live at the American standard of living, nor can they.

There is not enough water.

There is not enough food.

There is not enough energy.

The world is finite. The resources within the boundaries of every homestead, neighborhood, city, and nation are finite. We must all, as individuals and nations, live within our resources.

Within our finite resources there is some level of population and per person resource use that is sustainable. More specifically, there is some minimum level for a population which if in isolation could continue to produce healthy new generations. There is some density level where conditions are optimized for ongoing interactions among the neighborhood residents, and the beginnings of specialization to provide the root for greater specialization, production and research beyond mere hand to mouth existence.