2015 watch

[biffvernon]

Nafeez Ahmed kicks the year off

The End of Endless Growth: Part 1
It’s the New Year, and the global economic crisis is still going strong. But while pundits cross words over whether 2015 holds greater likelihood of a recovery or a renewed recession, new research suggests they all may be missing the bigger picture: that the economic crisis is symptomatic of a deeper crisis of industrial civilization’s relationship with nature.

http://motherboard.vice.com/en_uk/read/ ... wth-part-1

[adam2]

Well, I will make my customary prediction that the coming year will be rather similar to the recent past, but a bit worse.
I have been right so far
A dramatic and sudden disaster is allways possible and one should prepare just in case, but IMHO a slow slide is more likely and has already started.

[biffvernon]

And here's Nafeez Ahmed's Part 2:
http://motherboard.vice.com/en_uk/read/ ... wth-part-2

[AutomaticEarth]

[/url]www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/113 ... r.html[url]

If this has been posted before I apologise.

[AutomaticEarth]

Try again - preview didn't work

www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/113 ... cular.html

[biffvernon]

Here's a particularly peak-oily section from Nafeez Ahmed Part 2:

As the fossil fuel empire crumbles, in contrast, the cost of renewable energy technologies (especially solar and wind) is dramatically falling even as efficiency gains are rapidly increasing. According to Silicon Valley entrepreneur and Stanford business studies lecturer Tony Seba, who forecasts the dominance of solar within just 15 years, the Energy Return On Energy Investment or EROIE of solar is far superior over the long-term than fossil fuels.

Seba told me that conventional EROIE calculations are potentially misleading because they ignore critical costs and externalities, especially in land and water usage, waste and pollution. Applying the concept of Energy Payback Time (EPBT) to photovoltaic (PV) solar panels—where EPBT is how long it takes to produce the same quantity of energy that was used to create and install the panels—Seba notes that recent thin film technologies will payback this energy in around just one year. After that point, effectively, energy is generated for free. If a thin film panel produces energy for 25 years, then its EROIE is 25. “This is far higher than the published results for most forms of energy today, including oil, gas, wind, and nuclear,” Seba said.

But Seba also pointed out that PV panels are likely to last many decades after 25 years. Panel performance degrades at around 0.5 percent per year, which means that even after 60 years, they would produce at 70 percent capacity. EROIE would therefore be on the order of 50 or 60. Given that by 2020, PV costs are expected to drop by another two thirds or so, this suggests that by then EROIE for solar would be even higher, potentially as much as 150. And as the efficiency and capacity of PV technology continues to improve (at a rate of 22% every 2-3 years), EROIE of solar PV technology is pitched to reach triple digits and exponentially improve, rather than degrade.

Fossil fuels simply cannot compete with this. As costs continue to drop, businesses and communities are already shifting rapidly to cheaper, decentralized solar, where post-EPBT energy is literally free. When combined with the fast emerging storage solutions diminishing prices, the old model of being dependent on expensive, centralized and dirty oil, gas and coal will be increasingly displaced by the relentless momentum of cheap, distributed clean energy.

[another_exlurker]

We'll all get a year older and (none the)wiser as to what's going on in the heads of our elected (un)representatives.

[kenneal - lagger]

Nafeez Ahmed is making the same mistake that current economists are making in assuming that the 22% increase in efficiency will be ongoing. The Law of Diminishing Returns applies to everything so that 22% will decline exponentially. The energy return of solar will still, however, be very good compared to that of fossil fuels.

[biffvernon]

Before 2008 we had a lot of discussion here about the rising debt bubble. Seems lessons weren't learnt.

New consumer debt reaches seven-year high in UK

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/j ... -year-high

[RogerCO]

Here's a sound prediction - assuming the revolution hasn't started then by the end of 2015 everything will be much the same only a bit worse overall for most people.

Of course there is an outside chance that the revolution might have started. With Green membership now at a similar level to the kippers and the lamedems and doubling every 10 months currently there is a growing body of the thinking classes becoming politicised in a way that is fundamentally opposed to industrial capitalism (even if they havent joined up all the dots in their heads yet) and there is a growing underclass (eg using foodbanks) who may just do something if their distractors get disrupted and they become aware of the proximate causes of their plight and their power to wrest control.

Pretty unlikely though, nice as it is to entertain fantasies of Caroline Lucas playing the Kerensky role as a minister in a coalition including a dozen greens that gets overthrown by an eco-anarchist led uprising in October 2015 and the cancellation of Mammonmas next December.