Russian translation (by S.V. Zubkova) of Global Catastrophes and Trends: The Next 50 Years —  Глобальные катастрофы и тренды: Следующие 50 лет — published in Moscow by AST-Press.

In 2012 Global Catastrophes and Trends and Energy Myths and Realities will appear in Russian; there will be also a Japanese translation of Energy Myths and Realities, while Energy: A Beginner’s Guide and Oil: A Beginner’s Guide will come out in Spanish and Energy in Nature and Society will be published in Macedonian as well as in a small Albanian edition.

This is important to us, since energy cost and availability is central to how we think about growth, profits, stability and our portfolio investments. As part of this effort, I made a pilgrimage to Manitoba to spend a day with Vaclav Smil. Vaclav is one of the world’s foremost experts on energy, and has written over 30 books and 300 papers on the subject (he’s #49 on Foreign Policy’s list of the 100 most influential thinkers). Vaclav’s book “Energy Myths and Realities” should be required reading for politicians or regulators impacting energy policy. We start with an unflinching look at these realities before turning to solutions, and some potentially encouraging developments, which have less to do with how electricity is generated, and more to do with how it might be stored.

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Abordar el estudio conjunto del sistema global, con sus múltiples vínculos tanto sociales como ecológicos, exige una combinación de conocimientos formidable: física, química, genética, geología, ecología, economía y la capacidad de combinar una sólida intuición sobre el funcionamiento de sistemas complejos con una profunda perspectiva histórica.

Este mezcla de conocimientos concretos y multi-disciplinaridad está solo al alcance de unos pocos científicos, que deberían ser considerados los verdaderos intelectuales públicos de nuestra época (ocupando el lugar de los presuntos humanistas y demagogos que hoy en día son considerados como tales).

Entre los verdaderos expertos en la evolución y riesgos que afronta el sistema global, destaca Vaclav Smil, Profesor de Ciencias Ambientales en la Universidad de Manitoba, y autor de decenas de libros y artículos que utilizan su sólida formación científica y su fenomenal intuición sobre sistemas complejos para abordar entre otros los siguientes temas: transiciones energéticas, producción y comercio agrícola a nivel global, flujos de energía en la biosfera y la economía humana, historia y bases tecnológicas de la sociedad industrializada global, y grandes riesgos globales.

Toda su obra se caracteriza por una sinceridad insobornable y un conocimiento enciclopédico y estructurado de las cuestiones que aborda, y se esté o no de acuerdo con él, es una referencia imprescindible para entender la Globalización como mucho más que el resultado de ciertas políticas económicas.

Agradecemos al Profesor Smil sus amables respuestas a nuestras preguntas, preparadas por el equipo de Desde el Exilio y La Nueva Ilustración Evolucionista.La revisión del correcto inglés de las preguntas formulada se la debemos, como casi siempre, al imprescindible José Miguel Guardia.

En castellano:

1.-¿Cómo de importantes son los microbios en los flujos de materia y energía a escala de la biofera?

Los microbios llevaban aquí 4000 millones de años cuando aparecimos nosotros y seguirán aquí cuando la civilización moderna basada en el uso intensivo de la energía ya no esté. Mirando desde el espacio es claro que el planeta debería llamarse “Agua” en vez de “Tierra”, y de la misma forma no son los humanos sino las bacterias y arqueo-bacterias quienes realmente dominan el planeta.

2.-¿Cree usted que hay un riesgo real de catástrofe climática como consecuencia del calentamiento (o enfriamiento) global? ¿Qué valor atribuye usted a los modelos que predicen estos cambios?

Pocas cosas han sido tan engañosas, contra-productivas y dañinas como la creencia en la casi infalibilidad de los modelos climáticos actuales. Por supuesto son mejores que cuando se empezaron a desarrollar a finales de los sesenta, pero todavía les queda mucho camino hasta ser inputs sólidos para el diseño de políticas.

3.-¿Qué conclusiones extrae usted del accidente nuclear de Japón y la decisión alemana de cerrar las centrales nucleares?

Japón va a encontrar muy difícil deshacerse de su capacidad de generación nuclear—y por tanto no lo hará. Los alemanes son distintos, pero para ellos también será difícil (pregunte usted a los empresarios alemanes que piensan de la decisión ideológica de cerrar todas las centrales).

4.-Casi la mitad de la energía consumida por los países de la OCDE es petróleo utilizado para el transporte. ¿Espera usted el pico de la producción de petróleo y si es así, como cree que se realizará su reemplazo en el sector del transporte para mejorar la eficiencia del sector energético? Será el petróleo sustituido por coches eléctricos, por la liquefacción de carbón con el proceso de Fischer Tropsch, con el uso del hidrógeno, los biofueles o quizá el gas natural?

El pico de la producción petrolera no es algo demasiado importante. Hay múltiples fuentes de petróleo no convencional (arenas asfáticas) y aún más gas natural—y el gas puede hacer todo lo que hacen los derivados del petróleo excepto en el campo de la aviación, e incluso ahí, también mediante la liquefacción. A nivel global no solo no estamos utilizando menos gas, sino al contrario, cada vez lo utilizamos más: fíjese en la tendencia del precio,

5.-¿Cree usted que la generación de electricidad se basará en pequeños generadores dispersos sobre la geografía de un país? ¿Le parece viable? El lobby solar español ha argumentado que ese futuro energético es más “democrático”. ¿Que opina usted?

¿Qué sentido dispersar la generación de energía necesaria para las mega-ciudades donde pronto vivirá la mayoría de la población mundial? La idea de fuentes de energía más o menos democráticas es extremadamente ingenua en vista de las restricciones ingenieriles: ¿cómo se va a producir esa energía con pequeños generadores cuando más de 30 millones de tokiotas o 6 millones de madrileños enciendan el aire acondicionado en noche cálida? ¡Buena suerte para la ingeniería ideológica!

6.-Algunos bioquímicos y físicos del estado sólido están trabajando para imitar el proceso de fotosíntesis y obtener mejor energía solar. Sabemos sin embargo que la fotosíntesis tiene una baja eficiencia (4%) frente al ciclo de Brayton (50%). ¿Tiene sentido imitar un proceso natural cuya eficiencia sabemos muy mejorable?

Hace más de tres mil millones de años que existen cianobacterias fotosintéticas. Creer que podemos mejorar, diseñar y aplicar a gran escala en unas décadas un proceso que la evolución lleva perfeccionando eones es de una arrogancia ridícula.

7.-¿En que está usted trabajando?

Tengo tres libros en producción: sobre la transición en la dieta de Japón, en nuestro nivel de utilización de la biosfera (cuanta fitomasa y zoomasa cosechamos) y en el ascenso y caída de la producción manufacturera en Estados Unidos (el último es el más triste de los tres). También en mi web (http://www.vaclavsmil.com) se pueden encontrar varios papers de 2011, que abarcan desde Fukushima al ciclo global del nitrógeno y desde la cuestión energética global a las exportaciones de Estados Unidos.

En inglés:

1 .- How important are microbes in the flows of energy and matter at the scale of the biosphere?

They were here some four billion years before we showed up; they will be here long after the modern high-energy civilization is gone. A look at the planet from space makes it clear that this planet should be called AQUA and not TERRA; similarly, in terms of life forms it is not humans but archaea and bacteria that, ultimately, rule.

2.-Do you think there is a real risk of climate catastrophe from global warming (or cooling)? What is the value you attribute to the models that forecast these changes?

Few things have been so counterproductive, so misleading and so unhelpful as a belief in the near-infallibility of current models. They are, obviously, better than when they started during the late 1960s, but they have a long way to go before they can be taken as solid inputs into policy-making.

3 .- What conclusions would you extract from the nuclear accident in Japan and the German decision of closing nuclear power plants?

Japan would find it very, very hard to do away with all of its nuclear generation — and so it will not. Germans are always different but, they too, will find it hard going (ask how the German industrialists feel about that ideologically-based decision to shut down everything).

4.-Nearly half of primary energy consumed by OECD countries is petroleum for transportation. If you expect the peak of oil production, How do you expect gradual replacement of the fuel in the transport sector, in order to improve the energy and energy efficiency to take place? Will it be with electric cars, with the process of Fischer–Tropsch carbon liquidificación, with hydrogen use, with biofuels, or with the generalization of natural gas to power cars?

The peak oil production is not a very interesting matter. There is plenty of nonconventional oil (in sands, shales) and even more natural gas — and gas can do everything refined fuels can do, except to power jetliners, but that, too, after liquefaction. Notice that worldwide we have not been “running out” of natural gas, we have been running “into it”: just check the price trend.

5 .- Do you think the future of electricity generation will be based on a distributed production of small generators scattered throughout the geography of a country? Do you think this is viable, for example, in the US? The Spanish solar lobby argues that this will be the future energetic model because it is more “democratic” Do you share this opinion?

How can you scatter generation needed for megacities where most of the world’s people will live? The notion of “democratic” energy sources is an extremely naive view of engineering realities: how all that electricity will be produced by small generators when more than 30 million people in Tokyo, or more than 6 million people in Madrid crank up their air conditioning and keep it running through a hot night? Good luck with ideological engineering!

6.-Some biochemists and solid state physicists are now working on ways to mimic photosynthesis to take better advantage of the great amount of energy that comes from the sun. We know, however, that photosynthesis is a process with a very low efficiency (about 4%) compared with the Brayton cycle which is around 50%. Do you think it wise to try to base the energy production in the imitation of natural processes whose efficiency can be significantly improved using other technologies?

There were photosynthesizing cyanobacteria more than three billion years ago; to think that we will design, and deploy on a truly mass scale, in a matter of years or decades what the biospheric evolution has perfected over eons is nothing but ridiculous hubris.

7.-What are you now working on?

Three new books in different stages of completion: on Japan’s dietary transition; on how much humans have taken from the biosphere (all the harvests of phytomass and zoomass); and on the riser and retreat of American manufacturing (the last one being most depressing of the three). There are also new 2011 papers (in pdf) on my website http://www.vaclavsmil.com, ranging from Fukushima to global nitrogen cycle, and from the global energy to US exports.

From Desde el Exilio

Speaking at George Washington University today on the nation’s finances, President Obama drew a line in the sand, promising to protect Medicare and Medicaid from Republican budget cuts. But at the same time, Obama didn’t play down the severity of the country’s debt woes, pledging to cut a combined $4 trillion from the U.S. budget deficit over the next 12 years:

Even after our economy recovers, our government will still be on track to spend more money than it takes in throughout this decade and beyond.  That means we’ll have to keep borrowing more from countries like China.  That means more of your tax dollars each year will go towards paying off the interest on all the loans that we keep taking out.

Indeed, politicians in both parties are competing to see who can be tougher on spending, who can pull the nation’s belt tighter. And with good reason—as President Obama pointed out, our current of spending and taxing is simply unsustainable. (Though perhaps the tail end of the recession isn’t the best time to suddenly get fiscal religion.)

But the language being used around the budget crisis—calling the country’s path “unsustainable”—should sound rather… familiar for environmentalists. Indeed the parallels between the nation’s dire fiscal future and the scary math of climate change are impossible to miss. In both cases, we’re writing checks the future can’t cash, using or spending too much now, with the bill coming due in the near future. And both fiscal hawks like Peter Peterson Paul Ryan and climate hawks like Bill McKibben demand immediate cuts and some pain now to prevent a truly frightening crash in the future.

All of which brings me to Vaclav Smil. You probably don’t know Smil, unless you’re an even bigger green nerd than I am, but he’s one of the most influential energy and environment thinkers out there, a Cezch-born polymath based at the University of Manitoba who tutors the likes of Bill Gates on power and climate change. He’s also, as Justin Gillis of the New York Times wrote today, a notorious curmudgeon, highly skeptical of the ability of human beings to rapidly change the fossil fuel-dominated energy system and generally dismissive of critics. Maybe the attitude comes from living in Winnipeg—sorry, Manitobans.

Smil has a new essay out in the American Scientist that quickly digests the global energy system and sketches out just how difficult it will be for us to shift to a low-carbon economy anywhere near as rapidly as environmentalists demand. It’s worth reading the full essay here, but suffice it to say that Smil—though he believes that the world will eventually be powered by renewables—thinks the shift will take decades, if not longer, for simple physical reasons:

Displacing even just a third of today’s fossil fuel consumption by renewable energy conversions will be an immensely challenging task; how far it has to go is attested by the most recent shares claimed by modern biofuels and by wind and photovoltaic electricity generation. In 2010 ethanol and biodiesel supplied only about 0.5 percent of the world’s primary energy, wind generated about 2 percent of global electricity and photovoltaics (PV) produced less than 0.05 percent. Contrast this with assorted mandated or wished-for targets: 18 percent of Germany’s total energy and 35 percent of electricity from renewable flows by 2020, 10 percent of U.S. electricity from PV by 2025 and 30 percent from wind by 2030 and 15 percent, perhaps even 20 percent, of China’s energy from renewables by 2020.

OK, so we’ll keep our lovely fossil fuels and just capture and sequester the carbon beneath the ground, and ensure it never escapes to warm the atmosphere. Except Smil says that’s even more absurd, pointing out just how massive any truly global carbon sequestering infrastructure would have to be:

In order to sequester just a fifth of current CO2 emissions we would have to create an entirely new worldwide absorption-gathering-compression-transportation- storage industry whose annual throughput would have to be about 70 percent larger than the annual volume now handled by the global crude oil industry whose immense infrastructure of wells, pipelines, compressor stations and storages took generations to build.

Basically, keep reading Smil on energy and you’ll want to switch to something slightly more optimistic—like Paul Krugman on Republican budget plans—just to lighten the load. But inside the gloom, Smil makes a few points that should be required reading for all American deficit hawks, whatever the party. Simply put, Americans—and Canadians, as it turns out—waste far, far too much energy, which only makes the “energy crisis” needlessly worse:

The United States and Canada are the only two major economies whose average annual per capita energy use surpasses 300 gigajoules (an equivalent of nearly 8 tonnes, or more than 50 barrels, of crude oil). This is twice the average in the richest European Union (E.U.) economies (as well as in Japan)—but, obviously, Pittsburghers or Angelenos are not twice as rich, twice as healthy, twice as educated, twice as secure or twice as happy as inhabitants of Bordeaux or Berlin.

Smil knocks down the arguments, one by one, that there’s something unique about America that requires us to use all this energy. We have a vision of America as a vast, wide-open country, but the truth is many of us live in a fairly small part of the nation. He notes that the Boston-Washington megalopolis has more than 50 million people with an average population density of about 576 per sq. mile, with nearly a dozen big cities along a narrow 1,120-mile coastal corridor. Yet while France—which has 65 million people with a national density of only 192 people per sq mile—has put together an effective high-speed rail network, the U.S. has obviously failed even in the Northeast (and the budget compromise further cuts funding for high-speed rail). Smil wonders:

Apparently, Americans prefer painful trips to airports, TSA searches and delayed shuttle flights to going from downtown to downtown at 300 kilometers per hour.

That’s an energy diss—or would be, if most of us had any idea how fast 300 kilometers an hour is.

But Smil’s point should be taken. If we’re serious about the energy and climate crisis—and serious about just how difficult it will be to solve—we need to be as ruthless about cutting energy waste as our politicians are supposedly being about cutting spending. (And those energy cuts will have to come from us—as Smil argues, in a world where energy poverty is a serious problem, most people globally need to use more power, not less.) That will mean supporting meaningful fuel efficiency standards, along with other regulations to promote the wise use of energy—even if it conflicts with certain senators’ Ayn Randian fantasies. Energy efficiency won’t get the job done alone—but if we’re going to be serious about this problem, it’s where we need to start. And as all the pundits are reminding us, it’s all about seriousness now.