dawkab wrote on Sun, 01 August 2004 12:33 |
Sorry for a small injection of crass commercialism here but..
What about future possible petrochemical shortages?
If cd/lps become more expensive to produce, digital transmission becomes more vital.
It would be interesting to know how high the price of oil per barrel would have to be before cd/lps become too expensive for various market sectors.
Andrei
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Andrei -
I am SO GLAD you brought this up!!!
When you say "possible" it might be much more accurate to say "IMPENDING" petroleum shortage
.
While the following points might be better served by a couple of other excellent boards I lurk regularly on -
http://pub38.ezboard.com/fdownstreamventurespetroleummarkets &
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/energyresources/ -
and if Brad feels this is too OT I'd be fine if he deletes my post - I feel just as no man is an island - no "industry" or endeavour is isolated from world events - and as such if we are interested in figuring out what the future of audio mastering is - we should also look at geo-political forces which will dictate future economies and lifestyles. I feel this shouldn't be off topic because the people here are incredibly intelligent and educated and capable of understanding that this is a valid point of conversation even for this forum.
Essentially:
There are a tremendous amount of petroleum geologists (i.e. folks like Colin Campbell, Jean Laharrere, Kenneth Defeyes, etc. - who are all veterans of working for the majors like Shell & TotalFinaElf and each have spent 30+ years in study of production and supply) & energy experts (i.e. Matt Simmons - head of Simmons & CO. Intl. - head of the largest investment bank for energy developers) who have come to the conclusion based on all available data that the global peak of oil production will happen in approximately 5-20 years. What this means is not that we've "run out" of oil - but that supply will no longer be able to keep up with demand - and that the amount of energy needed to be expended to produce the same amounts each successive year will increase (in roughly a bell shaped curve). Natural Gas production in North America - which the North American electricity grid has become increasingly dependent on - is coincidentally also very close to a production peak in the same time period.
The implications of this for our society are staggering when you consider that 95% of all transportation is dependent on petroleum, that fertilizer, pesticides and nearly all mechanized equipment for agriculture, and the trucks that we distribute our food with are dependent on petroleum, and that 40% of our total energy consumption comes from petroleum. What also is troubling is that all the alternatives have distinct inherent problems - i.e. coal (which the US has a very large reserve of) even in it's "clean" forms where generators have the latest scrubbers produces a huge number of carbon emissions that lead to pollution and global warming, nuclear has safety and waste disposal problems, solar is a very dilute source that simply can not provide more than a few percentage of our energy needs even if we devote a large percentage of our energy supplies towards developing it full scale, bio-methanol would require a huge & unrealistic amount of land devoted to canola (or similar crop) production, and hydrogen is not a source of energy at all but an energy carrier that requires more energy to make than it actually produces.
What is also disturbing is that the necessary steps to transition our society to using a much greater percentage of alternative sources is simply not being under taken now. Essentially - single motorists driving 18mpg SUV's for hour commutes, the fact that it takes 1300 miles to get the average piece of food to plate, cities with no mass transportation facilities, etc. - are simply not things that can be sustained for a long time into the future.
So as far as the future of our industry in particular:
*) polycarbonate (used to make CD's) has stayed cheap currently because there are simply too many plants that have capacity to make it that are under utilized. As petroleum prices continue to increase it will be more difficult for some of these to subsidized. Costs to make CD's will rise slightly and then much quicker after a certain point is reached. CD production - while requiring lots of electricity is not as energy intensive as many manufacturing processes but will still be impacted by these rising costs and increased costs of shipping.
*) there are fewer and fewer makers of record grade vinyl (Keysor Century actually went into Chap 11 a couple of years ago). There's a maker in France (forget the name) and Rimtec in New Jersey and a few others - but petroleum prices impacts this production directly. Vinyl production is fairly expensive relative to CD production as it requires besides electricity a boiler to provide steam and produces on a single press roughly 1/10 units what a CD press can produce in the same amount of time - and with Toolex ceasing production of molds the only place to get the majority of parts for what are at youngest 20 year old presses is from RPA - who charge exorbiant prices as they essentially have a monolopy. So vinyl production will without a question also get way more expensive in the future.
*) global distribution and transportation will get more and more expensive - so those cheap Chinese prosumer gadgets and audio gear will get pricier
*) our industry is essentially a luxury - like it or not - and in times of economic stress - people have less to spend on luxuries.
So - yes - digital distribution - which involves lesser energy useage - no inventory creation - and no transporation costs - will become more and more economically preferable.
but that is just touching the tip of the iceberg. While, in an optimistic projection, we may only see the start of these issues - our children - or at the very best, our grandchildren - will have to wrestle with much more difficult circumstances than we undergo now.
Anyway -
I urge all of you on this board to further explore the issues of the global oil production peak and the implications for our collective futures at:
http://www.oilcrisis.comhttp://www.dieoff.orghttp://www.globalpublicmedia.com http://www.fromthewilderness.comhttp://www.postcarbon.org/Best regards,
Steve Berson