'Simon argues not that there is an infinite physical amount of, say, copper, but for human purposes that amount should be treated as infinite because it is not bounded or limited in any economic sense, because:
* known reserves are of uncertain amounts * new reserves may become available, either through discovery or via the development of new extraction techniques * recycling * more efficient utilization of existing reserves (e.g. "It takes much less copper now to pass a given message than a hundred years ago." [The Ultimate Resource 2, 1996, footnote, page 62]) * development of economic equivalents, e.g. optic fibre in the case of copper for telecommunications
The ever-decreasing prices (and thus decreasing scarcity) despite population growth suggest an enduring trend that will not cease in the foreseeable future.'
("But the number of oil wells that will eventually produce oil, and in what quantities, is not known or measurable at present and probably never will be, and hence is not meaningfully finite.")
This is simply untrue; Simon's way of explaining this is that other things replace oil, ultimately devolving to the Sun and solar power; the term 'meaningfully' is used as a chimera.
But that fails to acknowledge how and why; and it utterly fails to take the cost of retooling and rebuilding your infrastructure into account; it doesn't simply blink into existence as and when it is needed.
For example; the transition from fossil fuel to other sources of energy requires a considerable downpayment in terms of resources and equipment. That expenditure needs to happen before you can get anything back on it; and if, for whatever reason, there isn't enough of a critical resource, then the change will simply not happen, no matter how much we might wish it.
Someone once posited space-based solar power to me as a possible solution to the energy crisis; either space-based cells or solar mirrors. We can't do it yet; and the possibility of our ever being able to do it is a big 'if'.
Leaving aside practical problems such as material outgassing in vacuum, high-energy particles, space debris, reliable attitude control and safe transmission of power back down to the ground, you've got the simple problem of the gravity well; the amount of energy expended to get a spacecraft into orbit is not trivial; it requires construction, transportation and safe launch; and that's if everything goes according to plan. The energy outlay to get a solar mirror or usefully large cell array into space is such that a spacecraft would have to operate more efficiently than current solar cells and for a longer time than the average spacecraft lifetime just to break even in terms of getting the thing up into space in the first place.
Secondly, Simon treats resources in isolation: he talks, for example, of the recycling of copper and the improvement of techniques for using copper; but not how this factors in with the availability of other key materials such as energy, manpower and transportation. Every time you reshape copper, you do so at an energy cost; and that energy is not necessarily sustainable or recoverable.
Finally, and most damningly to my mind, Simon simply fails to recognise (or does not say) that not all uses of a resource are equally recoverable; it depends upon the entropy of the system.
Take a lump of copper, split it in two, take one half and keep it as a lump of copper. Grind the other half up, mix it with sulphuric acid to form copper sulphate - and then dump that into the ocean.
The lump is trivially simple to recycle. The extremely diluted solution is nigh-on impossible to recycle; it is in a higher entropy state than the lump; and no amount of human ingenuity can address that; it's basic thermodynamics.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2010-01-07 04:29 am (UTC)As per the Wikipedia article:
'Simon argues not that there is an infinite physical amount of, say, copper, but for human purposes that amount should be treated as infinite because it is not bounded or limited in any economic sense, because:
* known reserves are of uncertain amounts
* new reserves may become available, either through discovery or via the development of new extraction techniques
* recycling
* more efficient utilization of existing reserves (e.g. "It takes much less copper now to pass a given message than a hundred years ago." [The Ultimate Resource 2, 1996, footnote, page 62])
* development of economic equivalents, e.g. optic fibre in the case of copper for telecommunications
The ever-decreasing prices (and thus decreasing scarcity) despite population growth suggest an enduring trend that will not cease in the foreseeable future.'
----
Right. firstly, in the book, Simon refers to copper, but also extends the analogy to oil:
("But the number of oil wells that will eventually produce oil, and in what quantities, is not known or measurable at present and probably never will be, and hence is not meaningfully finite.")
This is simply untrue; Simon's way of explaining this is that other things replace oil, ultimately devolving to the Sun and solar power; the term 'meaningfully' is used as a chimera.
But that fails to acknowledge how and why; and it utterly fails to take the cost of retooling and rebuilding your infrastructure into account; it doesn't simply blink into existence as and when it is needed.
For example; the transition from fossil fuel to other sources of energy requires a considerable downpayment in terms of resources and equipment. That expenditure needs to happen before you can get anything back on it; and if, for whatever reason, there isn't enough of a critical resource, then the change will simply not happen, no matter how much we might wish it.
Someone once posited space-based solar power to me as a possible solution to the energy crisis; either space-based cells or solar mirrors. We can't do it yet; and the possibility of our ever being able to do it is a big 'if'.
Leaving aside practical problems such as material outgassing in vacuum, high-energy particles, space debris, reliable attitude control and safe transmission of power back down to the ground, you've got the simple problem of the gravity well; the amount of energy expended to get a spacecraft into orbit is not trivial; it requires construction, transportation and safe launch; and that's if everything goes according to plan. The energy outlay to get a solar mirror or usefully large cell array into space is such that a spacecraft would have to operate more efficiently than current solar cells and for a longer time than the average spacecraft lifetime just to break even in terms of getting the thing up into space in the first place.
Secondly, Simon treats resources in isolation: he talks, for example, of the recycling of copper and the improvement of techniques for using copper; but not how this factors in with the availability of other key materials such as energy, manpower and transportation. Every time you reshape copper, you do so at an energy cost; and that energy is not necessarily sustainable or recoverable.
Finally, and most damningly to my mind, Simon simply fails to recognise (or does not say) that not all uses of a resource are equally recoverable; it depends upon the entropy of the system.
Take a lump of copper, split it in two, take one half and keep it as a lump of copper. Grind the other half up, mix it with sulphuric acid to form copper sulphate - and then dump that into the ocean.
The lump is trivially simple to recycle. The extremely diluted solution is nigh-on impossible to recycle; it is in a higher entropy state than the lump; and no amount of human ingenuity can address that; it's basic thermodynamics.