Pay Day Loans

We, as a civilization, are paying our grocery bills with payday loans. We are buying our furniture with nothing down for the first six months, even though we don't have the money to make even that first down payment.  We are paying our rent with our credit cards, and living well beyond our salary's ability to pay. We can't afford all the child we have, and our wife is pregnant again. We are the yuppy white trash of civilizations. And we are in serious trouble.

Oil is a non renewable resource. Because we use a lot of oil, we are able to grow exponentially in our production and construction. As we grow, we need every greater amounts of oil.

Population is a function of food availability and space availability. Given enough of both, population will grow until it reaches the new limits of both.

If we use 10 liters of oil to double our food production, we will then double our population to match the new limit imposed by the increased food production. We must then use more oil to feed the new normal and even more if we wish to grow again next year.

Since we define success as growth, we will seek growth. And whether that growth is population or economic, we will still require more oil to fund the growth.

Constant growth based on a finite source is automatically unsustainable. The fact that our society can no longer survive without that finite energy source does not change that reality and is not a valid counter argument, but is in fact a dire warning that success may not be a valid option any longer.

If we have a pile of 100 1 dollar bill, and if on the first day we take 4 dollars, and every day we take 25% more from the pile. On the first day the pile has $96 left. On the second day we take $5 and the pile has $91. On the Third day we take $6 and the pile has $85. If we continue to round down, then on the fourth day we remove $7 and have $78. On the fifth day we then remove $8 and we have $70 in the pile. On the sixth day we remove $10 and have $60 left in the pile. On the seventh day we remove $12, and we have $48 left in the pile. On the eighth day we remove $15 and have $33 left in the pile. On the ninth day we then remove $18 and have only $15 left in the pile. We are now supposed to remove $22, but there is only $15 left in the pile. And on the tenth day we owe the pile $7 dollars.

If we have on a finite amount of stuff then constant increases, no matter how reasonable, will always be unsustainable.

We can also note that the Peak of the money pile, that is the point where we had used up half the money, was on day seven. Despite half the money being left, we only had two days left where we able to withdraw the full amount needed. While we were only half way through the money, we were 70% of the way through our time with access to that money.

If we increase how much we use every year, then the peak of supply will naturally occur- not at the halfway point with regards to the time where we may use the supply- but significantly closer to the end of the period when we may make use of the supply.

"There would be no surplus if EROEI approaches 1:1. What Hall showed is that the real cutoff is well above that, estimated to be 3:1 to sustain the essential overhead energy costs of a modern society. Part of the mental equation is that the EROEI of our generally preferred energy source, petroleum, has fallen in the past century from 100:1 to the range of 10:1 with clear evidence that the natural depletion curves all are downward decay curves. An EROEI of more than ~3, then, is what appears necessary to provide the energy for socially important tasks, such as maintaining government, legal and financial institutions, a transportation infrastructure, manufacturing, building construction and maintenance and the life styles of the rich and poor that a society depends on.

The EROEI figure also affects the number of people needed for food production. In the pre-modern world, it was often the case that 80% of the population was employed in agriculture to feed a population of 100%, with a low energy budget. In modern times, the use of cheap fossil fuels with an exceedingly high EROEI enabled 100% of the population to be fed with only 4% of the population employed in agriculture. Diminishing EROEI making fuel more expensive relative to other things may require food to be produced using less energy, and so increases the number of people employed in food production again." - from wikipedia

EROI is the energy return on investment, and this is the other side of the problem. All energy, such as oil, is not created equal. The early oil, such as Texas sweet crude that bubbles up from the soil like in the Beverly Hillbillies was found first and use first, because it was easy to get at. As a result, the amount of energy put in was small compared to the energy received.

But ass time goes by, we run out of Texas crud. USA oil production peaked in the 70s. And so we go looking for more oil. And a lot of it is in politically unstable countries, where we have to spend a lot of money to get the oil from the area to where we want to use it. And a lot of it is trapped under miles of ocean and ocean floor requiring difficult and delicate operations with crude and enormous machinery to extract for even more money and effort. And a lot of it is trapped in tar and oil shale where the amount of energy required to obtain the oil is sometimes as much or more than the amount that is received.

Just like scraping the last peanut butter from the corners of the jar on the Monday morning when you're running late, finding oil after the easy stuff is gone is a pain in the neck. And, even if there is oil left, we may not have the energy available or economic incentives strong enough to extract it.

There is a legend, related in the movie "Rush Hour 2" of a great Red Dragon that lived in a cave and demanded that the locals bring gold to it. The treasure eventually blocked the exit and the dragon could not leave the cave and thus starved.

In other words, our time is almost up.