Everyone (around me) must die?
It is often suggested to me, in one form or another: that Peak Oil will destroy us all! That it’s too late for renewables. And anyways: POPULATION!
I do not mean to say that the the above view reflects that of the Peak Oil community, but I hear it a lot so I’d like to first point out that it’s morally unsound. It seems to be based on either of the following premises:
- A. It’s only ethical to try to preserve humanity at a high enough number, below which we should not even try. Or,
- B. It’s only ethical to preserve humanity if it’s in a life-style westerners have become accustomed to.
Argument B I will not even bother with as I trust any critical thinker will dismiss it.
As for argument A, I ask how many people do we need to be able to save from Peak Oil, climate chaos, nuclear war, soil depletion, or any other number of calamities we face to make it worth it? 7 Billion? 6.5 billion? 4 Billion? 2 hundred thousand?
Clearly, if it’s ethical to try and help 7 billion people, it’s ethical to help a few less, and a few less, and I see no line which can be crossed that suddenly makes it reasonable to give up. No matter how bad you think Peak Oil is going to be, there will certainly always be some survivors that actions now can help.
Depopulation
However, I would like to stress that it’s not ethical to try to help a few hundred thousand by killing other people in the thousands, million or billions, as is often suggested and a popular idea amongst eugenicists. Whether such action could be ethical under any circumstances, which I seriously doubt, clearly in our circumstances it could only be considered if all third possibilities have been exhausted, which is far from being the case.
For our purposes here let us consider the third possibility of Solar Fire, or essentially any solar thermal technology for that matter, though there are of course plenty of other third options out there as well.
Basic energy access
The major role solar thermal technology can play is in providing basic energy access required to survive such as cooking and water boiling and space heating, as well as power basic crafts such as agricultural processing, pottery and basic metal working.
EROI
The energy required to make a solar thermal device is generally relatively very small. If money is used as an energy proxy, Solar Fire can have a payback in less than two years. Though such a pay back would represent using very cheap thermal energy to product the metals and then using the machine in an area where energy costs more, deployment in such a niche market can only bring down costs and lead to the use of solar thermal energy to work the metals required (in terms of recycling soon to be defunct infrastructure this is highly feasible locally with metals like aluminum).
Also, since Solar Fire is made of straight members it can be fairly easily built using bamboo for much of the machine which would reduce EROI significantly.
Lastly, the mirrors of a solar concentrating device have lasted over 30 years in the field, and the mirrors generally account for less than 20 % the cost of the machine. So a solar concentrator could last a very long time with maintenance.
I wrote a payback calculator that can be used to get a basic idea.
Reduce deforestation
Once a solar concentrator is in place it can provide completely independent energy access without destroying local biological resources, precious organic matter that directly or indirectly we depend on for eating.
Reducing deforestation means increasing reforestation which stabilizes ecosystems and climate, in terms of biological, water, and carbon cycles.
Reduce fossil-fuels lock in
A major knock-on benefit of an oil-grid independent source of survival-thermal energy, is that it can allow us to dismantle or rebuild these former systems. We wouldn’t be locked in. We could weather major disruptions to these systems while building a different, preferably better, system.
Increases resilience
First, we can note that Solar Fire is a fairly simple technology that could be built with a state of craftsmanship of the 16th century, [1]. And in fact it was; a popular item of the time was a burning glass, which is just a small refractive solar concentrator for starting fires. Leonardo de Vinci proposed a larger solar concentrator for soldering copper (but it was not economic at the time since it seemed a lot cheaper to just cut down more trees … and later when trees were in short supply it seemed easier to just dig up coal, then oil and gas … which leads us to our predicament).
Since solar thermal energy can be built locally from locally available, recycled, as well as biological (bamboo) materials, without integrated dependence on the fossil fuel economy as it exists today, it is extremely resilient. Indeed, solar thermal technology can either provide or make available (by decreasing the pressure on high quality fossil fuels) the energy required to build large wind-mills and photo-voltaic panels. So the high resilience of solar thermal energy also lends further resilience to electric renewable energies, which though not necessary for survival can add significant value to fundamentally thermal economic processes.
Reduces transport needs
Since solar thermal energy provides local energy, a direct consequence is that the need to transport such energy from elsewhere is significantly reduced. The indirect consequence is energy is now available locally to power local agricultural processing and local crafts further reducing the need for transportation.
Though this does not exclude trade, for not all trade is equal. Though the world is beginning to realize that trade which renders them dependent on production thousands of kilometers simply creates instability and waste, trade between fundamentally or potentially autonomous communities can increase stability and decrease waste. For instance, the trade is complex applications for solar concentrators in order to accomplish more and more things locally is a stabilizing factor.
Local living and working reduces the need to commute.
Though transportation networks need not be removed, transportation volume can be easily reduced to a manageable level in terms of energy and infrastructure maintenance through local living powered by solar thermal energy.
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