Integral Energy: Uniting Mulitple Perspectives on our Thermodynamic World

[DavidM58]

Obviously the title of this discussion is a playful plagiarism of the book on Integral Ecology by Esbjorn-Hargens and Zimmerman. I do believe that the subject of gross physical energy has been woefully under-discussed in the integral community.

A great place to begin is a recent essay by Richard Heinberg that has been received to high acclaim over on the Resilience.org website, which is operated by the Post Carbon Institute, for which Heinberg is a senior analyst. Heinberg has been writing about energy for 12 years, and is the author of books such as Cloning the Buddha: The Moral Impact of Biotechnology; The Party's Over: Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Societies; Powerdown: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World; Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines; Blackout: Coal, Climate and the Last Energy Crisis; The End of Growth: Adapting to our New Economic Reality.

In his latest essay, Our Renewable Future, Heinberg demonstrates that he is what I would call an energy realist. He does not demonize the fossil fuel industry, but he clearly lays out the formidable challenges we face as the climate crisis worsens and as easy access to these fuels continues to recede.  Nor does he communicate as would a lobbyist for the renewable energy industry, hyping the benefits and downplaying the problems in this field.

Instead, Heinberg approaches the problems from multiple perspectives and honestly conveys his own biases, and encourages us to broaden our thinking:

I consider myself a renewable energy advocate: after all, I work for an organization called Post Carbon Institute. I have no interest in discouraging the energy transition—quite the contrary. But I’ve concluded that many of us, like Koningstein and Fork, have been asking the wrong questions of renewables. We’ve been demanding that they continue to power a growth-based consumer economy that is inherently unsustainable for a variety of reasons (the most obvious one being that we live on a small planet with finite resources). The fact that renewables can’t do that shouldn't actually be surprising.

What are the right questions? The first, already noted, is: What kind of society can up-to-date renewable energy sources power? The second, which is just as important: How do we go about becoming that sort of society?

As we’ll see, once we begin to frame the picture this way, it turns out to be anything but bleak.

I believe this to be an extremely important essay, and the embedded links provide even more depth, providing a great resource for essential 21st century energy literacy.

- David

Our Renewable Future

by Richard Heinberg, originally published by Post Carbon Institute  | Jan 21, 2015

Or, What I’ve Learned in 12 Years Writing about Energy

(7000 words, about 25 minutes reading time)

Folks who pay attention to energy and climate issues are regularly treated to two competing depictions of society’s energy options.* On one hand, the fossil fuel industry claims that its products deliver unique economic benefits, and that giving up coal, oil, and natural gas in favor of renewable energy sources like solar and wind will entail sacrifice and suffering (this gives a flavor of their argument). Saving the climate may not be worth the trouble, they say, unless we can find affordable ways to capture and sequester carbon as we continue burning fossil fuels.

On the other hand, at least some renewable energy proponents tell us there is plenty of wind and sun, the fuel is free, and the only thing standing between us and a climate-protected world of plentiful, sustainable, “green” energy, jobs, and economic growth is the political clout of the coal, oil, and gas industries (here is a taste of that line of thought).

Which message is right? Will our energy future be fueled by fossils (with or without carbon capture technology), or powered by abundant, renewable wind and sunlight? Does the truth lie somewhere between these extremes—that is, does an “all of the above” energy future await us? Or is our energy destiny located in a Terra Incognita that neither fossil fuel promoters nor renewable energy advocates talk much about? As maddening as it may be, the latter conclusion may be the one best supported by the facts.

If that uncharted land had a motto, it might be, “How we use energy is as important as how we get it.”...

Read the full essay here.

[andrew]

I should probably add that disagreements ; arguments , various camps arguing one way or another over the macro of thermodynamics isn't of essential importance to humanity in 2015 . I do think erring on the side of caution on the micro ( thermodynamics on the earth in 2015 ) is of utmost importance . How shall we live thermodynamically on earth in 2015 ? Quite differently than we have for the last 100 years! 

[DavidM58]

One could argue that I'm doing that or Tim is doing that (" assert theories and ideas based on ones preconceived spiritual and religious notions"), but I think what I'm attempting (I won't speak for Tim) is to START from a position of energetic realism and find a matching point for a kind of religious naturalism, or a telos, rather than starting from a religious viewpoint and trying to make it fit.

However, I don't think you could say even that about Odum.  Odum was interested in simple energetic principles without any spiritual or religious claims whatsoever.

[andrew]

As one of your biggest fans I do appreciate the clarification David ! I really wasn't asserting that you were doing this (or Odum) but posting those comments within the context of the article I referenced .

Would it be fair to say that a fourth law has not been verified or accepted within scientific journals? And do you have opinions on why that might be ? 

[andrew]

This was funny : 

"They are called the 3 laws and the 0th law. Stupid I know but we scientists have sad lives and no girlfriends".

[andrew]

And a link to thermodynamics and economics : 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoeconomics

[andrew]

And this : 

https://books.google.ca/books?id=lwUKDaGiO5wC&pg=PA22&lpg=P...

[andrew]

One of the first points therein is that taxing pollution doesn't work ! I think we have ample evidence that many players today on the planet chuckle at such impositions ( the Koch Bro's as one exp .) 

[andrew]

Bingo ! I love this as an ave. or way out of the death grip of neoliberalism : 

The IMTP: integrated,multi-scale,transdiciplinary,and pluralistic approach to economy-environment modelling .

[DavidM58]

Andrew,

Yes, there is a 0th law, though not widely discussed.

Regarding the Lotka/Odum 4th law (the Maximum Power Principle), no, it has not been widely accepted by the academy.  However, there are quite a few adherents, and numerous peer reviewed journal articles. Charles Hall is one well-known, well respected former student of Odum who advocates for it. I think Nick Lane's recent work, widely acknowledged as cutting edge biochemical theory, supports the MPP idea (though I have not seen him reference Odum).

There have been a number of proposals for a 4th Law (including one by Stuart Kaufmann), but none have been widely accepted.

I'm not familiar with the book you linked to.  Some of the resources I know about (but haven't necessarily read) include the work of Nicholas Gorgescu-Roegen and his student Herman Daly, both heterodox economists focusing on thermodynamics.

Nicholas Gorgescu-Roegen: The Entropy Law and the Economic Process (1971)

Herman Daly and John Cobb (the panentheist Whitehedian process philosopher): For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy toward the Community, the Environment, and a Sustainable Future.

Herman Daly and Joshua Farley: Ecological Economics (2004)

Charles Hall with economist Kent Klitgaard: Energy and the Wealth of Nations: Understanding the Biophysical Economy (2011)

And of course, economist Peter Pogany's "Rethinking The World" (excerpt here on Thermodynamics in relation to cultural evolution)

Pogany offers a summary and critique of the various orthodox and heterodox economic "schools" that attempt to deal with environment/sustainability/entropy in his 2009 presentation to the Gebser Society: "Fifth Structure" - Emergence in Economics: Observations Through the Thermodynamic Lens of World History" which can be downloaded here.

[andrew]

Thank-you for the links David ! That book I posted is pretty darn good so far . Am thoroughly convinced that neoliberal economics has to go and be replaced by some type of ecology economics .It's not enough to implement only one part of green (multiculturalism that is being done too fast and without the proper sensitivity under neoliberalism) while ignoring pollution . Once again the elite have inverted priorities .

[andrew]

Also David , what do you see as the problems if we were to tie human rights with pollution? Why should it necessarily be that it is a human right to pollute ? Why is it a human right to drive and fly polluting machines for pleasure ( necessary work is another matter)? Why should ones wealth be an avenue to dismiss pollution ?

[DavidM58]

Andrew,

In high school I had a class called "Rights & Responsibilities."  Yes, we have rights, but with rights come responsibilities.

I like what Edgar Morin has to say:

"In 1798, the French Revolution established the democratic norm, supplemented in 1848 by the triune slogan: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. This trinity is complex, as its terms  are mutually complementary and antagonistic: left to itself, liberty kills equality and fraternity; compulsory equality kills liberty without achieving fraternity; and fraternity, without which no lived fellowship can possibly exist between citizens, must check liberty and bring down inequalities, even though it cannot be promulgated or established by law and decree."