That article nicely highlights the problem with predictions.

I was talking about prediction is general, not that specific case.
I used to watch Tomorrow's World, I now know that they generally got things wrong, but at the time it made perfect sense.

It's worth reading on past the main text to the blogs following the Oil Drum piece...

PaulS on July 1, 2012 - 3:37pm

I'm puzzled by Figure 1 because it is one of the most flagrant examples that I've seen in a while of what Edward Tufte long ago dubbed chartjunk. The numbers on the middle and last of the expanding series of giant oil drops are 93 and 110.6, projecting a 19% increase. Maybe that could happen, maybe not, but that's so much the least of it that it scarcely matters. What we really see in that one little chart are no less than five (count 'em) chartjunk scams:

· Scam #1: the height ratio in pixels represents roughly a 30% increase, not 19%.

· Scam #2: this appearance of increase is reinforced slightly by placing the bottom of each drop above the baseline instead of on it. On a bar chart, the bars normally start on the baseline.

· Scam #3: the drops get wider as well as taller, introducing an additional apparent 30% increase since the eye tends to see the area.

· Scam #4: the drops are shaded and cartooned to look three-dimensional and visually suggest yet another 30% increase.

· Scam #5: the visual increase is additionally reinforced into a fourth dimension by making the leftmost drop notably lighter.

Counting only scams 1, 3, and 4, which are easiest to assign numeric values to, the graphic suggests a 120% (1.3**3 - 1)*100 increase from 2011 to 2020. Thus the graphical Lie Factor seen by anyone who skims the chart quickly, for the size of the increase, is at the very minimum 120/19 or 6.3. This is really quite remarkable.

Now, it is simply not credible that an institution such as Harvard, or people of the eminence such institutions typically engage in their flagship "centers", could be blissfully ignorant of these considerations, inasamuch as Tufte raised them almost 30 years ago and by now they are well and widely known. It seems to follow that Harvard or their Belfer Center have decided that not only is there a fight, but that they have a dog in it: else there would be no conceivable reason to issue such a risibly blatant propaganda graphic. But - and leaving aside the usual internet conspiracy theories that tell us a great deal about the ideology of the would-be "explainer" and nothing whatever about the phenomenon being "explained" - just what species of dog could it possibly be?


Bugger! And there I was thinking that purchase of the 428 '63 Mustang would make me a happy bunny.

Nothing much wrong, technically, with human consumption of more and more energy. Hardly anyone has claimed that pouring out waste energy into the biosphere in itself results in general raised temperatures - it dissipates pretty well into space.

It's the various side effects of different technologies that cause the trouble. With fossil source, it's greenhouse gasses; with nuclear it's foolish reliance on incalculably risky storage of lethal wastes 'forever'. With wind and tide - I dunno - maybe that these ultimately rob energy out of the planet's angular momentum. With solar (at present) it's reliance on quantities of rare earths etc that are in very finite supply. With most technologies, it's also the fossil-fuel burden involved in extraction, manufacture and deployment, and EROEI - energy return on energy invested.

So fossil is horrendous, but the rest aren't much better.

Peak oil was, as Monbiot says, mainly an idea, a threat, that might hopefully bring the human race to its senses - but it didn't, so let it go.

It's not the mini-issue of carbon/greenhouse gasses that's going to bite us - it's the more general issue of planetary overload, of which carbon is just a small corner. There's nothing wrong with humans going around disturbing ecosystems, spreading pollution - the planet can cope, it always has - that's it's job - a very active and busy homeostatic system - that is, one that takes action to deal with disturbances, make compensations, return the system to its set-point. Just like our bodily immune system.

But, like our immune system, the planet has limits to its homeoststic powers. The problem is that we've far exceeded those limits, in increasing areas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_boundaries . Each year since 1988 (I think) we have overshot earth's capacity to handle our doings, by an increasing and accumulating margin http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/gfn/page/earth_overshoot_day/ .

For too long we've concentrated on the almost-red-herrings of peak oil, carbon, which have been readily disputable, and govts have taken token actions towards. In so doing, we have allowed govts off the hook, not brought to their attention, and allowed them to ignore, the much larger general case of planetary overwhelm. No-one I think is geared up to dispute that one - so why aren't we pushing that instead of wittering impotently about carbon, as if that's all there is?

Posted By: marktime: “And Monbiot is going off half-cocked again, as he did with UAE e-mail theft. Losing his credibility fast.”

Indeed. I've no idea what to think of the recent thing about there's more oil than we thought but it seems to me that the biggest flaw in Monbiot's recent “We were wrong about peak oil: there’s enough in the ground to deep-fry the planet” ¹ is that it's not news - we always knew there was plenty of coal to do it. The only potential surprise is that oil and gas alone might be enough which would make a mess of the James Hansen's proposed strategy of getting rid of coal quickly.

¹ http://www.monbiot.com/2012/07/02/false-summit/

The map indicates Scottish indepenence could further impact on sourcing power for England unless Steamy and neigbours can fill the need from around the Cornish Coast !

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/oct/17/cornwall-scotland-uk-wave-power

Posted By: Brianwilsonunless Steamy and neigbours can fill the need from around the Cornish Coast !

The Cornish nation may find its voice yet, as well.

Posted By: SteamyTeaBut Listen to You and Yours today as Ed Davy is on it.

Hope you all heard it, well my contribution anyway.

you realise that drax already imports most of its coal, so would just be replacing imported coal with imported biomass?

also that Drax has secured the sources for its biomass requirements, and is actually investing several million in port facilities on the American east coast specifically to enable them to handle their biomass export requirements?

I can't see that ST article, other than to note that it refers to a report by one Timothy D. Searchinger, who google informs me is an Associate Research Scholar and Lecturer in Public and International Affairs at Princeton.

Am I the only one who'd question a public and international affairs lecturers actual qualification to pass judgement on such matters?

I hope that these announcements actually result in wood being cofired with coal at these plants, as this is the higher temperatures involved result in the most efficient and most complete combustion, and the lowest levels of particulate emissions for any form of biomass power production.

I'm aware that Ferrybridge in particular have also been looking at co-firing as an alternative means of reducing the SO2 emissions to below the level needed to remain open past 2016 without fitting SO2 scrubbers.

There are technical challenges in all of this, but nothing that can't be solved.

Interesting concept for energy creation.
http://www.theengineer.co.uk/1014428.article?cmpid=TE01