the move to onshoring is hypocritical

November 5, 2022 8:43 AM

From the edited discussion (video) on The Geopolitics of Stuff in the inaugural issue of The Polycrisis: The last two years has demonstrated the power of feedback effects—how crises and policy responses magnify each other. Uneven international access to finance for energy worsens climate vulnerability, causing countries to then pay a higher price for debt.
posted by spamandkimchi (16 comments total)

Also from the article:

Since the end of 2020, we’ve been in a global bidding war.

One wild example of that, just recently, was when the entire country of Bangladesh lost power. They had been rationing before that, but at some point, the limited supply of gas just meant that there was an entire blackout of the grid. Why doesn’t Bangladesh have enough gas? Bangladesh had bought gas via long term contracts on the global market. But the companies which had promised to supply Bangladesh with gas said: “wait a second, I get ten times the price if I sell into Europe, so I’m just going to break my contract with Bangladesh, pay them the penalty, and go make more money in Europe.”

posted by spamandkimchi at 8:51 AM on November 5, 2022 [9 favorites]

We'll never have solar or sail freight at the current scale, so almost all trade must stop anyways.  We'll move some freight by electric powered rail of course, but mostly only within countries and their immediate neighbors.  We'll maybe move some freight by nuclear power too, but this'll drive nuclear proliferation like nothing before.  

We mostly need trade to just completely stop though, and before the important trade is forced to stop in the 2040s anyways, hence on-shoring is kinda progress.  It's also beneficial the more nations experience the "bridge fuel natural gas" being unreliable, so maybe they'll adopt solar and accept its more know issues.

As for the quote, we must destroy economic growth focuses organizations like the IMF and WTO too, so ideally resource exporters should stop mining for us, and instead focus upon their own water and food security.

Also, two related MCH2022 talks:
  Where did all the parts go - the 202x component availability trashfire by Kliment
  An Ontology Of Electronic Waste by Maurits Fennis
posted by jeffburdges at 10:29 AM on November 5, 2022 [6 favorites]

Useful, complicated and depressing, except that they do point out some improvements that are dependent on political pressure, so… we can try to live up to the movements of the past, it all looked impossible to them too. Say not the struggle naught availeth.

Term I needed: "A hurdle rate, which is also known as the minimum acceptable rate of return (MARR), is the minimum required rate of return or target rate that investors are expecting to receive on an investment. "
posted by clew at 11:19 AM on November 5, 2022 [1 favorite]

It's too bad the claims "US government's new export controls are wreaking havoc on China's chip industry" turnned out to be hyperbole.  We'd be moving more the right direction if a trade war between the US and China has made building new cars anywhere far harder.
posted by jeffburdges at 1:29 PM on November 5, 2022

We mostly need trade to just completely stop though

What a regressive, immiserating idea this is.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 2:20 PM on November 5, 2022 [6 favorites]

I still think there's something to the Breton-Woods idea that global trade makes it harder to do global wars, so, by similar reasoning, I'd challenge anyone against global trade how likely they think it is in their world that someone would start a genocide for resources.

"Zero" is not a realistic answer. The question is more: how much worse do you think it could get.
posted by Merus at 4:32 PM on November 5, 2022 [2 favorites]

When you consider the horrors of slavery and colonialism the human rights case for international trade is not straightforward. Arguably, the very idea of invading another country for its natural resources is something that only really makes sense within a system of extractive economies linked by international trade.
posted by Pyry at 4:56 PM on November 5, 2022 [5 favorites]

It would take a global empire to stop global trade. Ain't gonna happen. The idea is nonsensical.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 6:41 PM on November 5, 2022 [3 favorites]

We never really discussed Simon Michaux' work in the Nate Hagens post. In this, there is no deep discussion of mineral shortage here either, but at least they give different and more political specifics.

Ain't impressed by economists claiming credit for other peoples' work towards peace (and a general war fatigue). It's way less dangerous to think nuclear proliferation brings peace, like Charles De Gaulle and Ozzy Osbourne did. Although nuclear powered freight makes them all happy I guess.

We'll have world carrying capacity under one billion in like 100 years, due to ecosystem collapse and climate change driven causes. I'd think Breton-Woods' "peace" looks laughable once credited its share of those six billion deaths from famine, cannibalism, etc.

I said "at current scale" and "almost all", not "all trade". We invaded countries and extracted by sail too, so presumably that'd still make economic sense. At least sail trade makes sense anyways, even if invasion by sail becomes impossible due to technology, like internal supply lines using fast trains.

We could make fuels using solar power of course, but conversion costs favor spending this energy elsewhere, like space, invasions, winter heating, etc. At present, we circumvent unions by using labor on the other side of the planet because doing so makes political and economic sense, but it never made sense energetically or ethically, so this "regression" winds up being social and technological progress.

An economy cannot afaik stop itself from burning oil, gas, and coal, so actually a global empire cannot stop trade either, but individual nations randomly disrupting one anothers' fossil fuel use can likely stop most seafaring trade.
posted by jeffburdges at 7:36 PM on November 5, 2022 [2 favorites]

Colonialism wasn’t international free trade, indeed it was the exact opposite of it!
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 10:10 PM on November 5, 2022

Glad to see more people pointing this out:

One issue I’d like to throw into the mix is demand. Take lithium as an example: Lithium is experiencing a crazy supply crunch right now. The numbers are from the top forecaster—Benchmark mineral intelligence—There are forty or so lithium mines that exist globally, including the small ones. By 2035, we will need almost double that in new mines (seventy-nine total) to serve projected EV demand. Even if we recycle a lot, we will need fifty-four new mines. This is a huge factor of growth. As Joe has discussed on Odd Lots, mines take a decade to come online. So, if we need seventy-nine new mines by 2035, they should have started yesterday.

I'm reminded of similar timing issues with water desalination and energy production from both nuclear and renewables. To the broader point, I found The Hard Math of Minerals a good overview of the challenges an energy transition faces. With that in mind, I really like this idea:

Affluent people don’t need an Electric Hummer. It is a terrible use of lithium. Can we make that illegal? I would support that law, and I can imagine a populist coalition around it—think of the War Production Board, the Atomic Energy Commission, the Texas Railroad Commission.

That would be a nice start. Scarcity exists.

It would take a global empire to stop global trade. Ain't gonna happen. The idea is nonsensical.

Haven't we had and lost global (or near-global) trade several times before? The first examples that come to mind are caused by run-of-the-mill collapse of civilizations (e.g. collapses of the bronze age, Roman empire, Maya...) but the end of the silk road required only a shift in geopolitics. What makes the current setup so much more resilient?
posted by daveliepmann at 11:52 PM on November 5, 2022 [1 favorite]

I liked the Mark P. Mills succinctness too, so thanks for linking, but do check out his entries at Climate of Denial and DeSmog.

I'd expect Mills cites those scarcity facts honestly, but I read his subtext as pushing the status quo, vs the post-growth "reduce our consumption, trade, etc." message.

I botched the Hagens link above but his interview with Simon Michaux discusses economy shrinkage:  Around 24m they discuss recycling and its limits, but rather than being hopeless Michaux slipped in phrases like "reduced performance".  Around 32m they discuss limits upon nuclear power and the tragedy of wasting our fossil fuels now.  Around 39m they discuss the renewables transition dependence upon reducing global power use.

I'd prefer if Michaux, and Hagens were more aggressively "damn the consequences" "collapse now and avoid the rush", but they discuss topics problems first, which feels legit.
posted by jeffburdges at 3:25 AM on November 6, 2022

Colonialism wasn’t international free trade, indeed it was the exact opposite of it!

Erm, firstly, why are you adding in the “free”’part? Secondly, what is it that you think “free” trade is? Trade under capitalist economic systems? You know that the history of colonialism is inextricably interwoven with the development of capitalism, yeah? And that capitalism requires regulation, in particular enforcement of contract laws,;so the “free” part, like how modern day conservatives talk about “free” speech, is from a very limited and specific viewpoint: namely, that capitalists are free to exploit non-capitalists and develop whatever markets will make them money… which is pretty much what colonialism was about as well. Or are you working with a non-standard usage of “free” trade?
posted by eviemath at 8:13 AM on November 6, 2022 [3 favorites]

Haven't we had and lost global (or near-global) trade several times before? ... What makes the current setup so much more resilient?

Determined actors might disrupt trade networks in some places, but nobody is likely to be in a position to disrupt them everywhere.

With regard to lithium scarcity: Yes, it does take time to bring a new mine on line. However, lithium batteries keep getting more efficient. So we're going to be able to do a lot more with the lithium supplies we already have access to. Lithium battery recycling will probably also become a bigger deal as lithium demand increases.

And there are many alternative battery chemistries being explored. It will take time to commercialize them, of course.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 10:22 AM on November 8, 2022

Re: lithium scarcity, the FPP reports a doubling in our lithium needs, which I guess one could say we could meet with recycling and efficiency improvements. That's a lot of optimism but I suppose it's within the realm of possibility. But... that number is based on projected EV demand to 2035, not what we in fact need for a transition. From the "Hard Math of Minerals" link I posted:

[The International Energy Agency (IEA)] estimates that an energy plan more ambitious than implied by the 2015 Paris Agreement, but one that remains far short of eliminating the use of fossil fuels, would increase demand for [lithium]...by 4,200%

That's quite a lot. To put it another way (ibid):

In a recent report from the Geological Survey of Finland, researchers considered the minerals implications for achieving a so-called full transition; that is, using solar and wind to electrify all ground transport as well as to produce hydrogen for both aviation and chemical processes. They found the resulting demand for nearly every necessary mineral, including common ones such as copper, nickel, graphite, and lithium, would exceed not just existing and planned global production capabilities, but also known global reserves of those minerals.

Emphasis mine. I'm sure we can find more, but as a layman this doesn't strike me as something where we can rely on increases in efficiency and recycling. These are extreme requirements.
posted by daveliepmann at 10:39 AM on November 9, 2022 [1 favorite]

Direct quote from the IEA report:

In climate-driven scenarios, mineral demand for use in EVs and battery storage is a major force, growing at least thirty times to 2040. Lithium sees the fastest growth, with demand growing by over 40 times in [the IEA Sustainable Development Scenario] by 2040, followed by graphite, cobalt and nickel (around 20-25 times). The expansion of electricity networks means that copper demand for grid lines more than doubles over the same period.

posted by daveliepmann at 10:42 AM on November 9, 2022 [1 favorite]