Akiko Ogawa’s
EFB516 Ecosystems Notes
May 1, 2001 (Tue)
Disclaimer:
These notes are my personal notes. The course instructor or TAs have
no responsibility for the contents or any discrepancies between the materials
presented in the classroom and these notes. You cannot use or refer to these
notes to support or defend your answers on your exams. I suggest you use these
notes to complement your own notes, and not to solely rely on. I would
appreciate your feedback on any part of these notes that I may be misunderstanding.
Announcements:
Ø Final Exam schedule: May 8 (Tue) 10:15 at
321 Bray.
Ø Review session: May 7 (Mon) 18:00 at 321
Bray.
Lecture topic:
1.
Resources and the future
2.
Discussion
1. Resources and the future (section 2)
Question: we talked about the problems, but what are the solutions to those problems?
§
Read
“Uncertainty, Resource Exploitation, and …” by Ludwig, et al. Fundamental issue
according to this article is that the power of resource managers (e.g., of
fishery) is insufficient for power of the power of resource exploiters in
cahoots with political structure. Political structure wants to get reelected.
Everybody wants the fishermen to be able to fish even though the stocks are cut
down to bone. Hard for resource managers such as in the North East cod fishery,
to get people to stop fishing.
§
Two types
of solutions:
1. Learn how to do systems science. Systems ecology formally and quantitatively looks at all the factors that are impacting your resource, not simply resource itself. You can construct a model of this. And in many cases you can come up with better decisions.
2. There has to be much better connection between people in science and people in economics. In Dr. Hall’s paper “The need to reintegrate the natural science into economics,” he clearly expressed that we need to do new kind of economics. If you do perfect systems science and perfect economics you still going to have problems that political structures going to lean toward exploitation.
Synthesis
1. Natural ecosystems self-design using solar energy to generate structure and function, to generate more or less stable, often highly productive, diverse systems.
2.
These systems don’t yield much to humans.
3.
Humans use energy to redirect flows of nature to humans (human economy). This
goes back all the way back to spear points, knives, or axes, up to industrial
evolution.
4.
Today everywhere in the world, economic systems are extremely subsidized by
fossil energy.
5.
What are the implications?
All around
world, the dominant ecosystems are industrially dominated, or use a mixture of
solar and industrial such as in agriculture. The energy intensities of all of
this is very high – takes on the average 10 calories of petroleum to generate 1
calories of food, etc. V. President Cheney recently said the U. S. has to build
a new power plant of 1000 mega watts every week between now and 2020.
Some of the
implications:
Overheads
§ (Graph) GDP vs. SOx, NOx: Our wealth
generates the impacts on ecosystems. This would be more or less the same as the
amount of fossil fuel used. Switzerland and some others countries good because
they have hydropower. Poland and Bulgaria look bad because they have very bad
coal.
Slides
§ (Graph below left) U.S. fossil fuel use:
The peak was in 1970. We have natural gas. But most of the energy left for us
is coal. We don’t have many sites left for hydro. Nuclear – open question. We
are going to be burning enormous amount of coal. We are going to be importing
as much petroleum as we can. But majority of the oil left is where we
considered to be “politically unstable.”
§ (Graph below right) Hubbert’s and other
economists’ prediction: There are many predictions made about the future of
energy. We have apparently not peaked in oil production. But some think it’s
very close. Reynolds of Univ. of Alaska said drop in oil production of Soviet
Union precipitated the collapse of this nation. The problem with oil is that we
are so dependent upon it because of its transportation in another properties
(?). Gas is ideal fuel because is clean – you are oxidizing hydrogen more than
carbon.
§ (Graph) Oil yield per hectare: Searching
for oil in the U.S. We are losing proposition. The best time to look for oil in
the U.S. was1920.
§ (Graph below) Energy Return on Investment
(EROI) for conventional oil and gas: The production on old field has peaked in
about 1970 and has been dropping ever since. EROI for solar energy was
increasing. But unfortunately it’s been flattening off.
§ (Map) U.S. oil reserve: Here’s why we are
not finding much oil in the U.S. Most oil comes out of very deep holes. We dig
3 million holes. Gas found deeper.
§ (Graph) Estimates of energy required
(Hall 1975): Based on current
population growth and M. K. Hubbert’s estimates of energy use (Resources and
Man. 1968).
§ (Graph) Minerals: During depression when
domestic demand was low, the grade of copper mine was way up. Anytime you
increase the rate of exploitation, decrease in quality, and increase in energy
requirement. It’s clearly the case in agriculture. As you increase the rate of
exploitation you decrease in efficiency. Because you have to on average low grade
of stuff.
§ (Graph below) Biological solar energy
conversion: Solar energy won’t do it. All solar energy fixed by all plant
biomass in the U.S. is less than the fossil fuel consumption.
§ (Flow chart) Biophysical model of
economy.
§ (Graph) Getting liquid energy from trees:
1.2 cal per 1 cal invested. For alcohol 1 cal/ (?) cal invested. Although wood
as a fuel for power plant makes sense as in willow project, making liquid fuel
from wood doesn’t make sense at al.
§ (Graph below) Stocking rate vs. animals
gain in Midwestern range: If you have a lot of cows per ha they grow well. If
you have few cows per ha each cow grows well. Total amount of beef produced
follow maximum power curve. Maximum
power comes into play everywhere.
§ (Graph below) Fossil fuel efficiency vs.
Beef production: The more beef production per ha the lower the efficiency.
Overheads
§ (Graph) Annual energy use in 12 tropical
countries: India, Malaysia are increasing in energy use. What’s the
relationship between energy use and economic activity?
§ (Graph below) Commercial energy
consumption per-capita: As energy consumption per-capita increases GDP per
capita increases. Where does this increase of wealth come from? – It’s from
more use of energy per capita. Some countries are effectual – increasing energy
consumption without increasing their economics output.
§ (Graph below) Energy efficiency of
national economy: In general all countries have relatively flat efficiencies or
decreasing efficiencies. In developing world there is no evidence that we are
getting more efficient in turning energy into wealth. The secret to development
is that if your energy use increases more rapidly than your population growth then
you become wealthy. For most countries increase in energy use and increase in
population growth are about the same. There is no increase in per capita
wealth. In order to have development work you have to have population growth
rate increases less rapidly than your energy increase. In most countries your
increase in population eats up increases in your energy use, which can be
translated into wealth.
§ (Article) “Is the Argentine national
Economy being destroyed by the Department of Economics of the University of
Chicago?” C. A. S. Hall, Matossian, P. D., Ghrsa, C., Calvo, J., and Olmedo, C
(in press): These are the people who put out free market – neoclassical
economics. Are some of the most powerful schools make the problem worse?
§ (Article) “The Correlation of the Dow
Jones Industrial average and the price of Oil” David Riposo (ESF graduating
senior, in press)
§ (Article) “The biophysical and economic
efficiency of tropical economies, especially with respect to energy and water”
C. A. S. Hall.
§ (Article) “Will Hydrogen Be Able to
Maintain the Historic Pattern of Energy Progress?” Corrado Giannantoni, Hall,
C. : We could get poor but cleaner if we get into hydrogen economy.
Readings
§ (Reading) “The need to reintegrate the
natural sciences …” Hall et al.
§ (Reading) “Energy Resources” Hubbert
1969.
§ (Reading) “Why the Bush Oil (Energy)
Policy Will Fail” Cutler, Cleveland, and Kaufmann.
§ (Reading) “Food, Energy, and Agriculture”
Hall, Cleveland, and Kaufmann.
§ (Reading) “Urban Dynamics” Jay W.
Forrester: Counter-intuitive behavior of systems. First who wrote the Limits to
Growth model. They are often counter-intuitive. You cannot solve the world’s
problem without limiting investment.
§ (Reading) “A New Urban Ecology” James P.
Collins: The virtue of this article is that they are talking about urban areas
as all the same properties of ecosystems – structure and function and so forth.
2. Discussion
Discussion we
had in the classroom is not covered in this web page.
Some follow-up comments about ecosystem functions:
Primary
production takes place at different rates on any ecosystems with deep enough
water – and nutrients. So the blue ocean is different than from deserts. Other
than that, primary production is vaguely in the same ballpark. Animal
communities are roughly proportional to pp except that they seem to be more
abundant in estuaries. Most of the systems have some subsidies from other
systems, e.g., Lousiana coastal waters from the estuaries, Flax pond - maybe
from coastal waters going in, all human systems from oil wells of Soudi Arabia.
All these are energy subsidies. They come in and allow greater production than
would be possible from sunlight alone. Nutrients are cycled to different
degrees of ???. Human impacts tend to loosen nutrient cycles.
Last modified:
May 5, 2001.
Any comments?
E-mail to akogawa@syr.edu