Singapore Peak Oil

Mr Mah Bow Tan, Singapore's Minister for National Development, in today's Straits Times:

More than 700 policymakers, governors, urban planners and environmentalists from various countries are gathering at the Suntec Convention Centre, where the concept of 'sustainable development' will be in the limelight.

It is 'one of those terms that people use without knowing the meaning', noted Mr Mah, who defined it as such: 'It's how do we continue to grow in a way that doesn't adversely affect our living environment.'

With all due respect, I have to ask him, "Minister, do you know that the phrase 'sustainable development' is an oxymoron?" It is oxymoronic because the arithmetic of steady growth becomes exponentially large over a period of time, and due to physical constraints development or growth has to stop somewhere when the limits are reached. See video.

While Singapore has done 'fairly well over the last 40, 50 years', it faces new challenges in terms of resource constraints - energy, water, and land - as it tries to maintain growth, said Mr Mah.

To grow, he added: 'I submit that we need to continue to attract talent.

'More talent, more people means more strain on resources. More strain on resources means growth may be at the expense of the environment. So how do we reconcile that? It can be a vicious circle or we make it into a virtuous circle.'

I'm glad Mr Mah sees the toll a higher population exacts on the environment, but strangely he does not see the obvious solution. How do we reconcile that? He asks. Well, the simple answer is we can't. We can't reconcile environmental protection with ever-increasing human numbers and consumption. Logic dictates that conclusion as we live in a finite world with finite resources. The only (unpopular and politically incorrect) solution is to replace the doctrine of population and economic growth with a Steady State Economy.

How in the world does Mr Mah intend to make "more people" a "virtuous circle"? It's impossible. Is the minister familiar with Garrett Hardin's Three Laws of Human Ecology? I don't think so, and even if he is, he is not taking them seriously.

First Law of Human Ecology: "We can never do merely one thing." This is a profound and eloquent observation of the interconnectedness of nature.

Second Law of Human Ecology: "There's no away to throw to." This is a compact statement of one of the major problems of the effluent society.

Third Law of Human Ecology: The impact (I) of any group or nation on the environment is represented qualitatively by the relation

I = P A T

where P is the size of the population,A is the per capita affluence, measured by per capita rate of consumption, and T is a measure of the damage done by the technologies that are used in supplying the consumption. Hardin attributes this law to Ehrlich and Holdren (Ehrlich and Holdren, 1971).

http://dieoff.org/page39.htm

Said Mr Mah: 'Now we've got to look at energy. How do we save energy? How do we make better use of energy? How can we, can we recycle energy?'

Does the minister even understand what he himself is saying? You can't "recycle" energy because the Second Law of Thermodynamics dictates that. Energy once used is transformed from a state of low entropy to high entropy. Entropy measures the unavailability of a system’s energy to do work. When you burn gasoline, chemical energy is transformed into heat energy to power the car. How do you "recycle" the dispersed heat that has been used to do work? Is it possible to assemble the used energy for "recycling"? The answer is you can't. The entropy law dictates that this transformation process is one-way only and is therefore irreversible.

One cannot help but despair of the future when the minister who is responsible for a sustainable living environment makes such ludicrous statements.

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The Straits Times, June 23, 2008

http://www.straitstimes.com/Free/Story/STIStory_250709.html

Next target: Cut energy use

Minister Mah suggests reduction of 20%-30%; people will need to rethink how they use electricity By Li Xueying

SINGAPORE has to work harder at cutting down energy usage - perhaps by 20 per cent to 30 per cent, as countries around the world increasingly emphasise sustainable development.

National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan, who said this, noted that Singapore has scored relatively well on the water and land usage fronts.

'But I think (on) energy, we've not done enough. I think we need to do more,' he said in an interview with The Straits Times.

There would have to be a multifaceted approach taken, he noted.

On the Government's part, it can examine policies such as using new materials to construct HDB blocks, examining new ways of designing and maintaining lifts which currently 'use up a lot of energy', and installing energy-saving lights in public carparks.

Singaporeans, as consumers, also have to play their part in understanding the amount of energy that their various appliances use up, and going for energy-saving versions, he added.

'So I think we need to go into the details of each and every one of these items, and see how we can cut down energy usage 20 per cent, 30 per cent,' said Mr Mah.

His remarks come as the inaugural three-day World Cities Summit - co-organised by his ministry - kicks off today.

More than 700 policymakers, governors, urban planners and environmentalists from various countries are gathering at the Suntec Convention Centre, where the concept of 'sustainable development' will be in the limelight.

It is 'one of those terms that people use without knowing the meaning', noted Mr Mah, who defined it as such: 'It's how do we continue to grow in a way that doesn't adversely affect our living environment.'

Certainly, there are challenges as Singapore seeks to cut down on its energy usage, he conceded.

'Upfront costs may be a bit higher, but we have to (do it), if it makes practical sense. And (whether) the payback period is two, three, five, seven years, whatever, if this makes sense, then we have to do it,' he said.

'How many taxes, how many incentives are there, what are the things we need? I think these are things that we need to sit down and discuss.'

These are details that an inter-ministerial committee - co-chaired by Mr Mah and Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Yaacob Ibrahim - is thrashing out.

It will be rolling out a 10-year roadmap next year on how Singapore can adopt green solutions in transport, housing and industry.

While Singapore has done 'fairly well over the last 40, 50 years', it faces new challenges in terms of resource constraints - energy, water, and land - as it tries to maintain growth, said Mr Mah.

To grow, he added: 'I submit that we need to continue to attract talent.

'More talent, more people means more strain on resources. More strain on resources means growth may be at the expense of the environment. So how do we reconcile that? It can be a vicious circle or we make it into a virtuous circle.'

This comes in tandem with record energy prices.

In an assessment of Singapore's efforts to date, the minister said: '(With respect to) water we have done very well: How do we save water? How do we make sure that water is reused and recycled?

'On land, I think we've been very conscious about how we make use of land: Better utilisation of land; we've already done intensification, higher plot ratios and so on.'

So what is lacking are efforts on the energy front.

Said Mr Mah: 'Now we've got to look at energy. How do we save energy? How do we make better use of energy? How can we, can we recycle energy?'

xueying@sph.com.sg