From: Don Winterstein (dfwinterstein@msn.com)
Date: Mon Nov 10 2003 - 06:21:02 EST
MessagePeter Brunt wrote:
"As to water shortages. There are tonnes in the oceans and surely as the need to produce water of irrigation quality matches the costs of desalination plants then the matter will be done. Sure the problem will be shifting the water to the right place. But that too will be a matter of economics, won't it!!?"
Economic pressures are wonderfully effective in getting people to change their behavior. And when the pressure's on, people often respond with novelty and ingenuity, so that it's impossible to predict the consequences of various future shortages.
Why, Sunday's Orange County, Calif., newspaper described a previously almost unthinkable (for OC) development--high-rise condominiums. The first ones are actually being built. The article went on to talk about the rather alien benefits that the residents would have, namely, all amenities within walking distance. Further such developments might even make mass transportation practical for southern California. But don't hold your breath. (With prices ranging from $600 000 to above $1 million per unit, the objective in this case presumably was not any form of conservation; but the concept has possibilities and, if more widely adopted, could have a major effect on the way OC people consume.)
Earth's hydrocarbon reserves are non-renewable and sooner or later, for most practical purposes, will be used up. The only thing we can possibly influence is how fast. In the absence of political constraints or unexpected technological breakthroughs, the market will determine the rate. As resources dwindle or demand increases, prices rise; and as prices rise, energy companies begin to work deposits that now are uneconomic, and they devote massive resources to finding alternatives. That's what happened in the early 1970s, when OPEC asserted itself and everyone thought prices were headed permanently above $50 per barrel. At that time oil companies researched oil from shale and tar sands, because at those prices they had a good chance of being economic. They also got into such alternate sources as solar, geothermal and nuclear energy. Almost all such research stopped when prices went back down.
Furthermore, the oil company I used to work for recently decided that it was going to put its own exploration efforts on low priority and instead buy huge proven reserves outside North America. So it officially decided more or less not to bother with the smaller and more difficult deposits that are sure to become important again when prices increase. Such decisions reveal a psychology of worldwide abundance rather than shortage.
I've often thought it would be good for the US to levy heftier taxes on petroleum products to stimulate a change in behavior and to fund the research on energy that the oil companies are no longer doing; but apparently the required tax levels are politically out of the question. Besides that, at least one study has found that gasoline usage is fairly inelastic: consumption doesn't drop much as prices rise. Whenever a local shortage develops so that prices surge, the public invariably maligns the oil companies and demands that politicians investigate.
Low prices and a psychology of abundance make conservation a really tough sell.
Don
----- Original Message -----
From: Peter Brunt
To: 'Darryl Maddox' ; asa@calvin.edu
Sent: Sunday, November 09, 2003 9:57 PM
Subject: RE: Declining water
Darryl
Declinign water and oil sure are relevant issues.
But I can't help returning to Calvin - of photosynthesis fame - who wrote for Scientific American shortly after the first oil shock.
His view was that once oil reserve exploration costs crossed over the line of growing plants for oil then it would be economically feasible to lay aside vast areas of land for that purpose. He may well have been rubbished since, but I am unaware of any negative comments regarding this idea. If I remember correctly he even identified a particular _Euphorbia_ species as a suitable plant for the role. Such plants are able to grow well in fairly arid climates so currently unsuitable land could be brought into production.
Do you, Glen or any else know if further research has been condusted on Calvin's ideas?
As to water shortages. There are tonnes in the oceans and surely as the need to produce water of irrigation quality matches the costs of desalination plantrs then the matter will be done. Sure the problem will be shifting the water to the right place. But that too will be a matter of econics, won't it!!?
Perhaps I am too optomistic!
I would like to hear your and others repsonse.
Peter Brunt
While we have discussed the relationship between declining oil supplies and its relationship to us as Christians, I don't think we have discussed the parallel problem of declining water supplies.
http://www-geology.ucdavis.edu/~GEL115/115CH18miningwater.html is chapter 15 of a set of lecture notes by Dr. Richard Cowen of the Univercity of California at Davis. The course is (and the notes) are on the relationships between natural resources and history. Very good reading for those who are not familiar with those relationships.
Perhaps some of you would like to discuss this topic. Living as I do in the middle of the Texas High Plains which is facing this very problem, but not being a farmer, or a rancher, or a business owner in the area, I don't have much to say except life is going to get tough, some will loose their jobs, some their companies, but hopefully we are past the shooting stage of the 1800's range wars.
A few weeks ago I was with two other geologists and as we drove by miles of land that was once irrigated but is now being dryland farmed or grazed, one of them made the analogy that we were driving over a depleated resevoir except that instead of being an old oil field (all three of us started in the oil business but only one still is and he is, by his on statement "semi-retired" at 53) it is an old water field. Some of you may recognize the name - the Ogallala. It isn't depleated everywhere but those folks had given up trying to irrigate from it and slowly the big ranches are being sold off. I don't know more than a half dozen people that own land around here but last year a 6000 acre ranch was sold, then one partner of a 4000 acre ranch sold his half, and now a third place is for sale. I don't know its size but I would guess around 10,000 acres more or less. I sure can't blame the farmers for selling their water rights given the fluctuation in commodity prices and the vagaries of crop yield but it is raising the temperature of some people's tempers and I think it won't be long before it starts stressing the control on their behavior that their religion exerted over the past decades when times were good and there was a general consensus about what was and was not the right thing to do with the water under your land.
Maybe reaching a consensus on the young earth/old earth argument isn't as important as praying that we figure out a way to stay civil with our neighbors. This problem is already spreading and unless the climate changes a lot for the wetter I think it will continue to spread and cause economic hardships across the country.
Darryl
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