The film China Sydrome highlights how a complex system can fail due to the failure of just one tiny component (initially a water level indicator, but subsequently a weld on a pump strut).

The China Syndrome is indeed an excellent example of the situation we are in at present. I am reminded of the ancient nursery rhyme here:

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

We as a society have lost sight of the lesson presented with this verse, and the implications of the infrastructure we have built over time.

Kathy

What he says is true as it goes, but as you indicate, he left out the biggest and most important factor – able bodies to man the oars and pump the bilge. And even that is not enough.

Economies of scale require mass production to get the costs down. Mass production requires mass consumption to keep the factories open.

People who cry out for less consumption and lots of conservation will be faced with living in a world of lower technology if the world follows through with that. AND it will result in many deaths. Why? Because high population levels are sustained by high levels of technology. Maintaining high technology and population levels are symbiotic processes, entirely interdependent.

Be careful of what you ask for…

I suspect the games are BIG money generators for the elite. Don’t want to spoil any last minute opportunity to make a buck, eh?

Hopeful has more likelihood of getting published.. and getting to promote your book on the talk shows.

Kevin Moore can well attest to that!

Kevin I have wondered about your comments on the games – why would they wait? But I watched a vid recently and the preps for security are so extreme that perhaps they want all this internal security in place before they let things collapse? Are there other reasons to hold it together until after the games?

Your theory has much merit, his theory falls short by quite a bit. I wrote him once via e=mail and asked what about peak oil. He discounted the idea and that it had any relevance at all. Ah well. Hopeful has more likelihood of getting published.. and getting to promote your book on the talk shows.

Just to emphasise the point you made, when Thomas Savery invented a steam-driven pump in 1698 almost all his food was grown locally (he may have drunk some imported wine); the society around him functioned perfectly well without the steam pump. Almost every town and village had a blacksmith, and basic metalurgical skills were commonly available.

By 1898 British society could not function without the steam pumps that kept coal mines free of water and could function without the steam engines that hauled the men up and down the shafts and extracted the coal. A century later almost nothing in industrial societies can operate without cheap oil.

My nearest blacksmith facilities are probably in the Pioneer Village museum about 35km from here.

The film China Sydrome highlights how a complex system can fail due to the failure of just one tiny component (initially a water level indicator, but subsequently a weld on a pump strut).

After a relatively short boom based on immigration, speculative housing mass tourism and greenhouses, Spain peaked around 2008 and is in rapid decline; the reported general unemployment rate is 23% and for 16-24 year-olds it is over 50%. Portugal has been forced to pay in excess of 15% p.a. on the short term loans needed to prop up the economy. The Irish economy is shrinking rapidly, now that European ‘development funds’ have stoppaed arriving and the soeculatuive housing bubble has burst. The deliberations on how to ‘save’ Greece go on and on. Riots in Hungary and Romania.

Many commentators say the US is in a worse financial quagmire than Europe. And there are plenty of rumours about the bursting of the Chinese bubble. If China sneezes Australia get pneumonia and takes NZ down with it.

I believe the elites will do whatever is necessary to hold things together until after the Olympic Games. I also belive once they are over things will get very ‘interesting’.

Despite all the frantic drilling and fracking, I still believe we will see the end of present economic arrangements by 2015.

I’m not waiting for technology to save the day. I’m waiting for salvation from technology.

Excuse me? Unless I have grossly misunderstood what you just wrote, I am led to the conclusion that you just performed a masterful act of speaking from both sides of your mouth? Please explain this statement so I might stop the drool from escaping my open mouth?….

My first reaction, however, is that relatively few people are required to keep a technology going, and that you don’t have to know nuclear physics to work in a nuclear power plant.

The second part I agree with, though with some reservation. There are technical skills required that do not involve nuclear physics at all, but nonetheless require expertise far beyond the cook in the plant cafeteria to keep the plant operationally safe. There may not be many of them, but they are of critical importance. Certainly, you are not suggesting that because the cook works in the plant, he can save the day when the technicians are no longer available?

And surely you are not suggesting that when a highly technical and critical part starts breaking down, that the folks there can, using their massive ingenuity, reconstruct a spare part on the spot?

High levels of technology require massive numbers of people – no way around that. I am convinced that if you delve into what is required for even one piece of equipment, say a computer, to remain a working component capable of contributing to the overall operation of the plant, or whatever else purpose it might have, you will quickly discover the numbers of people and supporting technologies required to keep it that way – everything from a global supply chain involving land/air/sea transport, manufacturing facilities, raw resource extraction, metal forging, component design and manufacture, lcd technology, communications technology, wiring and infrastructure technology, electronic storage technology, integrated circuit technology (graphics and main processors, etc.), back plane technologies for the more advanced computer architectures, satellite and cabling technologies required to communicate with the outside world or over a LAN, software engineering to supply and maintain the function of the operating system and the various applications that reside on the computer, sales and marketing and logistical services to communicate the availability of the computer itself along with its parts and supplies and technical support services.

I could go on, but hopefully, you are getting the point. Huge numbers of people are involved in these supporting endeavours in order to both supply and maintain just one computer, a relatively minor component of a nuclear power plant, but without which the plant would likely be rendered inoperable.

And that is just the production side of it all – getting the computer built, delivered and supported. In order to do all that there must be in place millions of consumers to purchase all these technologies and services in order to keep the costs down to an affordable range. This requires of course massive numbers of sales, creating economies of scale in virtually every area mentioned above. There have to be huge numbers of people ordering computers for the factories to stay in business. There have to be large numbers of orders for the shipping services to stay in business so that parts can be delivered. There have to be a viable market for the software and support services in order for software houses to stay in business.

And behind all these manufacturing, service provisions, parts suppliers, and supply chain infrastructure are billions of people who are further supported by billions more people supplying food, water, medical services, housing, transport, heating/air conditioning, education, sports and entertainment, government services, and on and on in order to service and support these people’s families whilst they are supporting the modern global infrastructure.

All this for one computer. And then you have all the other plant equipment!

Economies of scale. THAT’S what drives modern technology. And without it, technology costs are far too great to support.

And without billions of people, economies of scale are simply not possible – and neither is modern technology.