Correction to Thesis #29: Post-Collapse Metals
by Jason GodeskyThesis #29, “It will be impossible to rebuild civilization,” is perhaps the most controversial of the thirty. I still stand by most of the points I made there, particularly regarding arable land and the effects of climate change and the end of the Holocene. However, none of those have recieved as much scrutiny as the issue of metals in a post-collapse world. I would like to thank my critics; without your criticism, I would not have returned to this subject to examine it in more detail. My thinking on this matter has changed considerably.
When the solar system formed, the gravitational forces that created the sun and the planets tended to pull the heavier elements–like metals–closer. This is why the inner planets, like earth, have so much metal, while the outer planets tend to be gas giants. However, for the purposes required to maintain civilization, only some metals are useful.
- They must be strong enough for agriculture or war.
- They must keep an edge.
- They must occur in economically feasible quantities.
- They must have a melting point low enough to be worked.
Gold, silver, etc. immediately fail; the quantities are insufficient, and they are far too soft. In fact, of all the metals available on our planet, very few meet those criteria. Copper, for example, was never used for anything but ceremonial goods until the process of alloying it with tin to create bronze was discovered, leading to the Bronze Age. However, as “Josef,” an “oil engineer” pointed out in a letter to Matt Savinar:
[The] Bronze Age was possible only because copper ores available then assayed 30-50% metal and were therefore processable by the primitive firing technologies of the day. Today’s world best [sic] copper mines average less than 0.8% copper, hence requiring enormous amount of both energy and material scaffolding to render the ore into useable metal.
But the Bronze Age ended not for want of copper, but for want of tin. We may have copper in abundance, but there is very little made of pure tin that can be scavenged. Most tin resources are already alloyed, and thus useless for making bronze.
We will revisit this problem again and again–you may note that this problem is similar to that of “Peak Oil,” as a question of efficiency and economical use. That’s because, like the question of “Peak Wood,” it, too, is a problem of marginal returns.
Aluminum, like copper, is another metal that we might expect to fit the criteria for economic use. Sufficiently thin sheets can be beaten into a necessary shape, but such thin sheets rust very quickly. Thicker blocks must be melted and recast, since simply hammering away at a large block of aluminum, like an aluminum engine, will only crack it. Casting aluminum is tricky business, because when heated, aluminum begins to soak in a great deal of oxygen, which makes it brittle. This is why so much industrial aluminum casting is done in an environment with only inert gases–and why it was only in 1827 that aluminum was first (officially) isolated from bauxite ore. It seems unlikely that aluminum casting would be plausible in a post-industrial society; whatever role aluminum would play would likely be confined to thin sheets that rust quickly–thin sheets that are also generally too soft for most practical purposes.
The metal that deserves the most attention is iron. The Wikipedia entry on “Iron” drops a number of fun facts:
Iron is notable for being the final element produced by stellar nucleosynthesis, and thus the heaviest element which does not require a supernova or similarly cataclysmic event for its formation. It is therefore the most abundant heavy metal in the universe.
Iron is the most abundant metal on Earth, and is believed to be the tenth most abundant element in the universe. Iron is also the second most abundant (by mass, 34.6%) element making up the Earth; the concentration of iron in the various layers of the Earth ranges from high at the inner core to about 5% in the outer crust; it is possible the Earth’s inner core consists of a single iron crystal although it is more likely to be a mixture of iron and nickel; the large amount of iron in the Earth is thought to contribute to its magnetic field.
Now, you will note that even though iron is incredibly abundant on earth, its occurence is correlated with depth inside the planet. The core may be solid iron, but the outer crust is only 5% iron (the outer crust is up to 70km deep). Iron very rarely occurs on its own, however; it almost always appears as iron oxide. Iron has a higher melting point (1811 K) than was generally impossible for more primitive furnaces. In a charcoal fire, iron can be extracted from ore, but it still does not metal–the reaction takes place as a solid. Richard Cowen discusses the labor needs of iron, compared to previous work with bronze and copper:
However, there is no easier way to produce wrought iron with the equipment available. Each small piece had to be hand-hammered. The labor-intensive preparation meant that the first uses of iron were confined to fairly small objects, and, more important, wrought iron had to be clearly superior to bronze before it could be produced on a large scale. Smiths could join pieces of wrought iron together by heating and hammering, but it was not always easy to achieve uniform quality along the piece, and re-shaping also required even more investment of time, energy, and fuel.
So we can see that iron is problematic, but not impossible. It is difficult to work, and rusts quite easily, but it is also abundant, and strong enough for use in weapons and tools. The question, then, is where would the survivors of our civilization find iron? There are three primary sources to consider: (1) ore, (2) scavenged iron, and (3) bog iron.
Let’s deal with ore first, since it is the easiest. Most near-surface iron deposits were exploited long ago. What remains is deep in the ground. The original application of James Watt’s steam engine was to pump out water, so miners could go deeper, looking for iron. Ores are unlikely to be accessible without fossil fuels, except in rare exceptions–too rare to warrant a consideration for overall economic utility. Of the near surface mines that do still have ores, nearly all have been passed over for basic logistical reasons, like the copper mines of Cyprus, the silver mines of Laurion, or the iron mines near Ostia. All were still producing high-quality ores when they were shut down, because it was simply too difficult to bring fuel to the mines.
Scavenged iron is likely to be the most abundant source, especially shortly after collapse. Most of the metals we use now rely on the kind of high temperatures attainable only with fossil fuels to create sophisticated alloys. Scavengers will be unable to melt these alloys down. They can be reworked, hammered, and bent into new shapes, and there is a great deal of potential just in that, but casting will be all but impossible with most of the metals available in the aftermath of a global catabolic collapse.
Of course, the scavenger culture will be affected by the fact that their supply will be rusting through. After a few decades, the supply of ferrous metals available to scavengers will be half rust. Rust is iron oxide, just like iron ore, so it is possible to smelt rust just like an ore. The problem is that the more rusted the metal becomes, the lower its quality as an ore. In general, rusted metal is poorer quality than any mined ore. In the immediate aftermath, scavenged metals will be far more economic than mined metals, but there will be little recourse for casting them. That shouldn’t matter too much to the scavengers; there’s still enough that can be done with heated and reworked scavenged metals without actually melting it down and recasting it to satisfy most of their needs. After a few decades, as the scavenged ferrous metals become more and more rusted, the EROEI of metalworking will begin to diminish as it becomes harder and harder to make poorer and poorer metal weapons and tools.
The final source is bog iron. Bog iron is actually a renewable resource, created by bacteria in peat bogs left behind in glacial moraines. From “What is Bog Iron?“:
The sheets of ice that alternately covered and retreated during the Pleistocene left behind a landscape ground flat by the great weight of frozen water sometimes more than a mile thick (1600 meters). At the terminus or leading edge, the glaciers melted and deposited the loads of mineral dust and rock, moraines. The moraines often trapped the remaining meltwater; wetlands and slow moving streams formed within the flattened landscape. Sphagnum mosses pioneered the revegetation of these wetlands. Millennia of Sphagnum growth built peat soils.
Bogs are areas of wet peat-based soils. If dominated by grasses and sedges, they are properly called marshes; dominated by trees and shrubs, they are swamps. The anaerobic (low oxygen), acidic conditions of the soil provide habitat for the odd iron bacteria–Gallionella and Leptothrix species.
As iron oxide-rich waters seep or flow into marshes and swamps, iron bacteria precipitate the molecules into filaments or coatings which perhaps serve to protect the bacteria. Colonies of bacteria form nodules of iron ores, siderite or limonite. The ore nodules form within the peat soils, hence the name bog iron. The nodules vary in size with the length of time they had to form.
The glacial origins of bog iron suggests that it may be geographically limited as a resource, though it is apparently well-known in Texas. The biological origins of bog iron also suggest that its future supply may be susceptible to climate change–though I have no idea how climate change would affect it, whether creating more or less of it.
Bog iron was the primary material used in the Viking era, but as this living history page explains, it was hard work with a relatively low return.
Although Norse people knew of mining and mined some iron ore in a variety of locations throughout Scandinavia, most Viking era iron was smelted from bog iron….
When a layer of peat in the bog is cut and pulled back using turf knives (right), pea sized nodules of bog iron can be found and harvested. Although the iron nodules are reasonably pure, there aren’t many of them. They are, however, a renewable resource. About once each generation, the same bog can be re-harvested….
Because the smelting process is difficult to control, the quality of the iron obtained was highly variable. In addition, the process was very inefficient; a lot of iron was left in the slag….
Because of their expense, iron tools and weapons were highly valued. The loss of an iron tool from a Norse farmstead was a disaster, especially if it were a major tool like an axe or scythe. A typical farm in the Viking age probably owned no more than 40-50kg (100lbs) of iron, in the form of tools, weapons, and cooking equipment.
So, bog iron is renewable, but only on a fairly significant timeline. It may be up to a century before today’s bog iron deposits are refilled; after that, it may enter the cycle of once-a-generation per bog. The smelting process was long and difficult, the supply of iron was somewhat limited, and the end result was a very expensive tool or weapon.
It is important to note that there may be up to half a century between the time that scavenged metals begin to decline in usefulness, and the time when bog iron becomes viable. This is crucial because of one other necessary resource that we have so far not considered: knowledge.
The knowledge of how to work iron accrued over centuries of random experimentation, first poking at the slag left behind from bronze production and hammering meteorites, then experimenting with how long to work and fold iron over a charcoal fire to get just the right balance of carbon and iron to form workable tools. This process took thousands of years, an accumulated knowledge of metallurgy gained by practical means that has, recently, been replaced by chemical analysis in a lab. Those who know, no longer do; those who do, know longer know. The science of chemistry has disrupted the practical knowledge transmission of metallurgy. How many people will know how to work metals, without a chemistry lab to do it? How much more knowledge will perish in the decades of scavenging, when most metallurgical knowledge becomes irrelevant as we simply hammer whatever metal we can find into new shapes? Among the Romans, blacksmiths were guarded like state secrets for their knowledge; the myth of Wayland the Smith tells of how he was crippled, so that the king could keep that powerful knowledge for himself. The knowledge of metallurgy is a powerful thing, difficult to regrow from seed, and easily lost. Most of today’s metallurgists are engineers who work with specified qualities and amounts of various metals imported from around the world. Identifying those same metals for themselves, or being constrained only to locally-available metals, are no longer in their training. The specialization of the industrial world has created a crucial gap that may make the modern metallurgist’s knowledge inadequate for the future task. More importantly, for several decades, most metallurgical knowledge will become irrelevant. How much will manage to survive that period, for the time that comes after when it becomes useful again? If it is insufficient, we will be starting from scratch again. We may have bog iron, but we’ll need to rediscover how to use it.
The worst case scenario, then, is a culture setting up near an iron mine with high quality ore, near the surface, with good logistics that 6.5 billion industrialists scouring the world for just such a thing never happened to stumble upon, that also has maintained a pragmatic metallurgical tradition and has blacksmiths who know what to do with iron ore. For that society, the limit is the same that nearly collapsed Western civilization at the Bronze Age, and did collapse most civilizations that encountered it, like Cahokia–the problem of peak wood.
Smelting requires heat, and to produce enough charcoal requires a great deal of fuel. For a post-industrial society, that fuel will need to come in the form of timber. Deforestation will be a major problem, and such small niches of complexity will cause small blots of environmental disaster, but long before they threaten the world on anything like our modern, global scale, they will reach the point where the nearest remaining forests are so far away that it takes more energy to retrieve the timber, than there is energy in burning the timber.
Previous cultures have reached this limit within a few centuries. That is the worst case scenario: in the rare instance where all the resources align perfectly, a small city-state could be viable for a few centuries, based solely on the grounds of metal production. Of course, what they will eat is another question entirely.
This suggests a revised expectation of metals after the collapse. Reworking scavenged metals will create a new, metal-based, post-apocalyptic economy based primarily in and near the cities, where metals are most abundant. It is far more likely that the factor that will ultimately end this state of affairs will not be metal supply, but rust–as ferrous metals rust more, they become poorer and poorer ores, until finally they become entirely worthless and rust into flakes and dust. During this time, it will be very difficult to keep metallurgical knowledge alive. Knowledge of how to rework metals may be revived, but knowledge of how to cast metals will likely be lost forever.
Beyond that, bog iron may become a useful resource, but it has severe limitations. If metallurgical knowledge survives the scavengers, it may become the basis of a limited iron age–limited by the renewal cycle of both bog iron and forestation. After the collapse, we may see a brief Iron Age, but it seems more likely to fade away itself within the next two centuries, leaving the only viable remaining metals so deep underground that geological time will pass before they become available to us again. By then, we will almost certainly be an entirely different species and then, who can say what might happen?
Of course, the availability of metals is only a side-point to thesis #29. The primary argument there involves not metals, but farming. In the near-term, most arable land has long since been depleted, and is now utterly dependent on fertilizers made from fossil fuels. In the longer term, climate change will soon bring the Holocene to an end, and with it, the unique climatic conditions that made farming possible. Without those conditions, once the soil has healed (presenting a clear break with the previous agricultural tradition that may require reinventing the whole process), there will be only a very few, small, exceptional pockets where agriculture is possible. The probability that these small pockets will happen to lie anywhere near those small pockets where viable metals might be found is another matter, but I wouldn’t expect it to be terribly high.
i wonder if “feeding” iron bogs with the iron portions of civ’s detritus that couldnt be reworked would increase the rate at which the nodules were secreted? that would be pretty sweet, but what do i know.
Comment by Anonymous — 27 March 2006 @ 2:23 PM
I don’t think so. We’re talking about run-off metabolized by bacterial colonies, so I’m not sure dumping a bunch of iron alloys into a lake would really do anything for bog iron productivity.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 27 March 2006 @ 2:37 PM
Great essay!
I’m not intentionally nitpicking, but I believe you asked for proofreading criticisms:
“Those who know, no longer do; those who do, know longer know. ”
A beautiful turn of phrase, but the penultimate “know” should be “no”, no?
Comment by rob — 27 March 2006 @ 2:44 PM
Proofreading wasn’t the kind of criticism I had in mind, but you ARE right, that IS a typo.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 27 March 2006 @ 2:57 PM
Hey –
There are actually an unusual quantitites of those today, Jason. Were you excited about getting this one done and up?
BTW Did you find more information on Iron Ixode(ore) and Iron Oxide (rust)? I had thought it was pretty clear that they are different molecules???
Janene
Comment by Janene — 27 March 2006 @ 3:17 PM
This is more notes than a finished piece, and it shows.
Hermatite is the same molecule as rust, it’s just a matter of the impurities. Neither one is a pure hunk of that same molecule. Unless we’re talking about a very minimally rusted piece, ore is going to have less impurities, so it will yield more iron for less work. Rust requires more work for less iron. So once again, it comes down to EROEI.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 27 March 2006 @ 3:20 PM
You know, it’s a goofy idea but I wonder if there is any specific way to help the microbes that produce bog iron. Imagine helping to shape a sustainable ‘iron’ source that would last you forever, yet also prevent a civ from re-emerging.
Best
Bill Maxwell
Comment by Bill Maxwell — 27 March 2006 @ 6:53 PM
What they wil eat, unfertile soil, and climate change, together, add up to a scenario where no one will be able to gather the resources necessary in staying long enough to invest the time and energy in working iron.
Comment by Rick Larson — 27 March 2006 @ 10:23 PM
You’re no fun Rick!
Think imaginitevely. So, the tribe out here used to move back and forth between multiple spots over the course of a year. So why can’t new tribes of people?
Now, imagine if those people, using a form of permaculture (I personally favor Fukuoka), are slowly re-greening the area so that it supports life again. And suppose one of those stops that those people make is those bogs that used to be a part of the San Fernando Valley.
There, they seed the land with mulch and things beneficial to those microbes until, say, decades later, the bog iron can be produced.
Wouldn’t that be clever of them? Especially if they planned it in advance, pre-collapse?
Best
Bill Maxwell
Comment by Bill Maxwell — 28 March 2006 @ 3:38 AM
Bill!
It’s just too hard fanticizing about all that hard work and sweat being poured into the making of anything out of iron. Heck, while your busy making these things and planting seeds, I’ll be hunting beasts and munching greens whilst chasing (half)naked ladies…!
Well, that is (a) (singular) lady.:-)
Unless all the men have gone and hacked each other up.
That’s possible you know.:-)
Comment by Rick Larson — 29 March 2006 @ 9:01 PM
I would say that overall I agree with most of what you say, except I believe aluminum will play a much more viable role in scavenging operations, and will be around for a while. Aluminum is often alloyed in when corrosion resistance is desired. It is very stable, because the thin layer of oxide that forms does not flake of and protects the rest of the metal (and even thin sheets last a long time, which is why modern aluminum mirrors last much longer than their silver counterparts). Separating it from ore is indeed difficult, but once separate it is fairly easy to work (only gold is more malleable, and it is the 7th most ductile metal). It is rare in its pure form though, and was once considered more valuable than gold. I think all those engine blocks are going to be a valuable source of cooking pots and knifes (especially if alloyed with a little copper). Perhaps the metal won’t be as high a quality as the first time around, but it shouldn’t be too difficult to figure out an approximate blend of copper wiring to make the aluminum into a rough duralumin.
Comment by limukala — 2 April 2006 @ 5:10 PM
we understand how to use coal, which is something we in america have a great deal of, whereas the norse did not, they made charcoal with wood. so I don’t think wood is a factor here considering other more abundant sources of heat. ethanol form corn would be another possible resource.
i really do like these ideas and I’m sure some of them will survive into a “real” and very important article, in the future.
Comment by TonyZ — 4 April 2006 @ 4:51 PM
Major problem is, we mined all the easy coal. What remains is fairly abundant, but it’s also pretty deep in the ground–too deep to get to without an industrial economy. We’re talking about tunneling a mile into the ground before you even reach the coal mine.
I need to research the process for making ethanol–is it really a viable option without an industrial economy?
Comment by Jason Godesky — 4 April 2006 @ 5:01 PM
Ethanol is the kind of alcohol people drink. It can be made from any plant with enough sugars. It can be made by a forager group. If you’ve maintained enough technology to build a still, you should be able to distill it sufficiently to use as a fuel. It should work to smelt iron as it burns at about 2558 degrees Celcius and according to the sites I found you can smelt iron at 1500 degrees Celcius.
Comment by ChandraShakti — 4 April 2006 @ 9:03 PM
Making that much ethanol would require even more intensive harvesting than you’d need for charcoal. Peak Wood times a thousand, with an equally quick extinction.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 4 April 2006 @ 9:15 PM
Hey, you’re the one who brought up the ethanol in this context Jason.
Comment by ChandraShakti — 4 April 2006 @ 9:55 PM
No, Tony did.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 4 April 2006 @ 10:16 PM
Well, those coal deposits that are hard to reach are the only commercially viable mines.
Suppose one lived reasonably close to a deposit of surface coal not deemed worthy, or perhap, another fossil fuel not sought after by large machines and marginal profits, it would be reasonable that a small amount of oil working would be possible.
Methane, a biological gas, is is no short supply. many gases, including hydrogen, could be used.
There are many chemical solutions to the cultures who choose to use them. I think it is reasonable to say if someone wants some metal, they can get it.
Comment by TonyZ — 5 April 2006 @ 1:26 PM
Then they could do a few interesting things–but the reason it’s been ignored by us is because it’s too small to warrant the effort, or the logistics of it are too great. If we, with all our energy, cannot overcome the logistical problems, what hope does a society with far less energy have? If it’s simply that the deposit is too small to be worthwhile, then it’s too small to be anything but a minor exception.
I’m not sure what methane has to do with anything, though….
Comment by Jason Godesky — 5 April 2006 @ 1:32 PM
I think the use of materials, as they are desired and available, has always contributed to the culture and utility of any society. AS thousands of groups all have their minor exceptions, over time, you see divergence in culture. So those minor variations through time will prove to be a foundation to the return to diversity in the human animal.
I’m not sure what methane has to do with anything other than its wide availability as possibility as a fuel source for those who so choose.
Comment by TonyZ — 7 April 2006 @ 1:48 PM
You need some way to collect it, no?
Comment by Jason Godesky — 7 April 2006 @ 3:46 PM
Well, there is a farm in Minnesota, that provides power to itself and 50 homes through collection of methane
…magical google search reveals…
http://www.auri.org/news/ainjul01/05page.htm
Comment by TonyZ — 7 April 2006 @ 5:03 PM
Sure, using metals and industrial equipment to capture and use the methane.
How do you do that with stone?
Google? Google?
Embrace the future, my friend.
Google is the Man. Not “the Man” in a positive sense, in the way that, say, I am the Man. Rather, Google is the Man who is keeping you down. Google is that the Man. Viva la Clusty!
Comment by Jason Godesky — 7 April 2006 @ 5:08 PM
What about using electical power to process metals?
If the technical issue is high temperature, it can be overcome by using an electrical heating elements.
The electricity can be generated by slave muscle power.
Comment by _Gi — 7 April 2006 @ 6:23 PM
Slave muscle power?
Slaves are highly problematic for primitive groups. They need to be fed, sheltered, and closely guarded. Even complex, sedentary societies, which are able to make better use of slaves, ran into trouble if they got too many. Sparta militarized for fear of a slave revolt, or look at the example of Spartacus with Rome. This is why when primitive groups do have slaves, it’s one, or maximum two, shared by the tribe as a whole.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 8 April 2006 @ 12:32 AM
Jason,
I agree basically with your article but I note you did not discuss the one thing that I believe will make a big difference in our lives this time around: stainless steel. Yes, aluminum, iron and steel will all rust and degrade, but stainless will last much longer, and retain a workable edge for, I think, at least 3 times as long as other ferrous metal edges.
This would allow us a longer forage period though that may be detrimental to the knowledge base.
Wonder if you would care to comment.
You original of being unable to rebuild after collapse is very true. Pity the human race does not care for its future generations.
Norman
Comment by Norman — 20 April 2006 @ 1:45 PM
I was under the impression that with stainless steel, the cost of that resistance to rust is that it’s also much softer as a metal–harder to keep an edge, more liable to bend and snap?
Comment by Jason Godesky — 20 April 2006 @ 1:56 PM
Jim Jubak, “Why metals stocks haven’t peaked.”
Comment by Jason Godesky — 20 April 2006 @ 2:08 PM
Hey –
I could be wrong, but I don’t think stainless is used to make ANYTHING with an edge. Just running it through my memories… I see pats and lids, countertops, shelving units, etc… pipes, furniture/home accessories… and I am sure there are industrial uses as well, but I bet that I would have at least one stainless steal knife if they made such things….
Janene
Comment by Janene — 20 April 2006 @ 4:11 PM
Hey –
Sorry, correction.
I do have stainless flatware and the bread knives do have a serrated edge. But hardly sharp enough for anythin not already cooked.
Janene
Comment by Janene — 20 April 2006 @ 4:12 PM
All my kitchen knives and cutlery are stainless steel, Janene, although the decent knives are all serrated and I’ve found it difficult to sharpen the ones that aren’t. I’ve always put that down to my really needing someone to show me how to sharpen a knife decently, though.
Comment by Vashti — 21 April 2006 @ 4:10 PM
Yeah, I only know stainless steel in the context of flatware, and I can’t imagine making a plow out of something that bends as easily as that.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 21 April 2006 @ 4:14 PM
Hey –
hmmm… I may have to check that out… I’ve always thought that my ‘real’ knives are carbon steal. Maybe, maybe no… hmmm.
Janene
Comment by Janene — 21 April 2006 @ 4:33 PM
Hey –
Correction… my knives are, in fact, ‘forged high carbon stainless steel’. Who knew
Janene
Comment by Janene — 21 April 2006 @ 4:38 PM
Just buy a shovel, you don’t really need a plow anyway…
Comment by Bubba — 21 April 2006 @ 5:11 PM
A stainless steel shovel.
Comment by Mike Godesky — 21 April 2006 @ 5:15 PM
You do if you want to farm.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 21 April 2006 @ 5:15 PM
Hey –
Potato - PotAtOO.
I planted my whole new permaculture garden without EVEN a shovel… so it depends on whether you’re talking about Big A farming… or just generic farming
Janene
Comment by Janene — 21 April 2006 @ 5:52 PM
I have stainless steel kitchen knives. I have friends with stainless steel knives as well (more like a… knife you’d bring out into the woods or something). They’re really really easy to sharpen, but they dull easily. My carbon-steel knife is a lot harder to sharpen but keeps an edge for a long time.
-Mike
Comment by Wackymorningdj — 21 April 2006 @ 9:18 PM
I’ve grown gardens, and my family has grown a goodly amount of food without any plow. Shovel was all that was used, so I think a plow is really overkill, unless you are trying to Farm for profit, rather than horticulture farming etc. for extra food for self/family.
Better to grow as much easy picking food as possible, no plow needed for berry bushes. Double raises beds etc, don’t need a plow for that.
One of the main reasons to have farm animals etc, besides protein, was the cheap smelly fertilizer.
Comment by Bubba — 22 April 2006 @ 12:47 AM
Boil ‘em, mash ‘em, stick ‘em in a stew!
Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 22 April 2006 @ 8:58 AM
Peak copper, from Treehugger.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 27 April 2006 @ 3:30 PM
I think you’re too pessimistic about knowledge. Basic metallurgical know-how is not widespread now because it’s not needed. Powerdown or technological collapse will not occur overnight, nor in every country at the same rate. Useful information spreads quickly even in a non-industrial culture.
There are enough books and encyclopedia articles to restart metalworking technology from scratch within a generation. As soon as a technology becomes valuable any information about it will be copied, studied and improved. I can’t see any gap in time between the last printing press stopping and metalworking becoming useful, being so long that many relevant books won’t survive.
In any event, wide use of metals is not necessary for sophisticated civilisation. Wood remained the main construction material long afer the Iron Age arrived. I can imagine a future based around concrete, fibreglass and wood; biomass-derived plastics may play large role.
Toby
Comment by Anonymous — 18 July 2006 @ 10:10 AM
Well, the reason for my “pessimism” (I prefer to think of it as optimism) is that there will be a significant interrim. It will be even less useful than it is now for a bout a generation—and then, suddenly, just as our old sources of information are crumbling into dust and the last people who know are dying, then it will become useful again. There may be enough printed material available now, but printed material tends not to fare well in a collapse. The reign of simply scavenging a block of metal and banging it into shape will last a good century in most places. During that time, the prevalence of scavenging will likely put real metallurgy at a disadvantage. Then, once the scavenged store starts to run out, metallurgy makes a comeback. But by then, it’s been a century since the last book on the subject was printed, most of the books were burned for fuel anyway, and everyone who remembered metallurgy from the pre-collapse days died a few decades ago thinking that knowledge had become permanently useless.
But you’re wrong that metal is unnecessary for sophisticated civilization. Without metal, there are problems of scale that cap any would-be civilization at a fairly low level, simply because it lacks the weapons to wage the two primary wars of civilization: with other people, and with the ecosystem (i.e., farming, “the other war,” or Derrick Jensen’s Strangely Like War). That caps us at about a Neolithic level of complexity. Without metals, it’s very hard to do anything useful with concrete, and if you want to see the limitations of wood vs. metal, look no further than post-Roman Britain—which had more metals than we will.
But this isn’t pessimism—this is optimism. Because of this, we’re going to be free again, and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop that.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 18 July 2006 @ 10:34 AM
Even in a scavenging culture, I think smelting has some uses and the process is simple enough to keep the knowledge preserved.
Some things metals are particularily good at, but there are alternatives for most uses. I believe a societies’ level of complexity and sophistication is determined more by its literacy and the level of knowledge than use of metal.
Large scale organisation and projects (like the Egyptian pyramids or Channel tunnel) required several things
a) suffiicient (storable) food surplus to support high population densities and parasitic rulers
b) sufficient benefits of specialisation and coordination to encourage specialities and hierarchy
c) long-distance communication and transport (eg ships)
Iron ploughs for intensive farming are the only obvious metallurgic dependency here. It is interesting that recent work in permaculture shows the most productive agriculture is based on perennial plants, not annuals which requires ploughing the land. Just because we lived a certain way before the Iron Age, doesn’t mean we have to live that way after it ends.
I dont think it’s complexity per se that uses energy and wastes resources. Many specialisations actually save energy/resources because they improve efficiency (with the cost of greater coordination). It’s Heirarchy, with unproductive layers of people, that wastes (human and natural) resources. If we can organise specialisation without heirarchy we would get the benefits of both worlds.
You point out metalworking has caused deforestation in the past. The question is whether a sustainable culture can include metalworking, or would that inevitably lead to deforestation and decline? I believe that if people are aware enough of land degradation and unsustainable practices they will act in the long-term interest.
Even if we survive peak oil and reduced food production, there is also the problem of copper ores running low. Peak Copper may signal the end of an electrified society.
Toby
P.S. a larger comment box would help with writing these comments.
Comment by Anonymous — 18 July 2006 @ 12:52 PM
All facets of complexity are interrelated, so Liebig’s Law of the Minimum applies. So complexity can only proceed as far as the most scarce resource allows. Otherwise, we’d need to base all this on the premise that Neolithic kingdoms were simpler because they weren’t as smart as we are today.
That’s really the major limitation, though. Without an iron plow, you’re stuck with stone plows, which break more often. That means smaller fields, less economy of scale, and so forth. That means smaller harvests, which means smaller population. Without metals, your storage facilities are smaller since you’re stuck at the scale of purely wooden buildings, stonework has to be much simpler, and all of this greatly reduces the benefits of hierarchy while doing little to alleviate its cost.
But as for permaculture, we’ve discussed this extensively elsewhere. Permaculture doesn’t scale up the way agriculture does. It’s far more efficient, but its absolute yield is smaller. That absolute yield is really all that matters if you’re worried about maintaining hierarchical domination systems.
Complexity has a benefit, and it has a cost. It’s subject to diminishing returns. Specialization can be more efficient, unless you take it too far–then you get into diminishing returns. So even without hierarchy, there’s a balance to be maintained.
Until the first opportunity arises where something that’s long-term catastrophic provides a short-term gain. You won’t eliminate personal ambition, but you can put it into a context where it’s constructive, rather than destructive. We had such a context for a million years; it was only recently that the context changed, and agriculture provided a means for people to gain short-term benefits at the cost of long-term catastrophe. In that setting, humans have proven incapable of appreciating long-term costs. It’s certainly understandable, but that’s also why I think any plan that relies on people being more forward-thinking in the future than they’ve been in the past is probably doomed from the outset.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 18 July 2006 @ 1:40 PM
“agriculture provided a means for people to gain short-term benefits at the cost of long-term catastrophe”
True. But pople didn’t undetstand the long-term implications of farming marginal lands or cutting down trees on soil. Easter Islanders had less excuse since the effects of deforestation in such a limited area would have been more obvious. Unconstrained tribal competition or modern capitalism encourages such short-term thinking.
It is possible for communities to sustain collective long-term projects in which everyone has a responsibility and shirkers or freeloaders are punished. For example the Dutch have been building and maintaining their dykes since roman times, even though lack of maintenance must take decades to have effects. I think the key is that the effects of action or inaction must be easily detected or visible and the long-term consequences of the policy are clear to everyone.
If soil quality and tree health were regularly measured and published for each region and recognised as valuable by the community, I believe local pride and regional competition would ensure sustainable practices were followed. It is easy to become disillusioned in modern society, but communities with high social capital have much more collective power to enforce standards.
Toby
Comment by Anonymous — 18 July 2006 @ 2:26 PM
I think the question is less one of knowledge, and whether you’ll suffer the consequences, or your children will. Dykes fail in a decade, but agriculture takes a century to despoil the land. Humans have always been all too willing to let the next generation pick up the tab for us to live beyond our means.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 18 July 2006 @ 3:06 PM
Check out http://www.geology.ucdavis.edu/~cowen/~GEL115/115CH5.html
Its a good site on the smelting of iron.
A few main points from it, and extrapolated from it:
1) Smelting to increase or decrease the carbon quantity in iron is possible with charcoal, as is forging.
2) Removing slag from iron fairly straight forward, though it takes a lot of muscle energy.
3) Rust has nothing in it that would prevent it from being smelted into quality iron, given access to enough iron rust (which cities will certainly provide), enough charcoal, and enough fresh boar meat.
4) At no stage do you need to melt raw iron rust or ore (though you can melt carbonized iron, which requires a lower temperature).
It seems to me to be possbile that the amount of iron available to humans could remain at a somewhat steady level after the fall of civ, slowly decreased by inevitable loss, slowly increased by new finds of ore or bog iron.
There are two issues:
1) Certain modern alloys. No idea if modern alloys can be resmelted with charcoal. This would limit, though not elminiate the quantity and quality of avaialbe iron.
2) Energy throughput. Especially working with rust, you need a lot of energy, both wood and muscle, to produce iron in quantity.
On a related note, a question for Jason: Is there anyway to happily (environmentally and socially) have any complexity above paleolithic?
Comment by Anonymous — 25 July 2006 @ 2:34 PM
I addressed each of these points in the article. Charcoal fires are sufficient to work iron, but only as a solid. This requires a great deal of energy, so the EROEI is fairly poor. Rusted iron can be used in a similar manner to an ore, but continuing rust creates a contiually poorer ore, with less and less iron to be extracted from it.
Finally, most of the iron available to a scavenger are alloys, which generally can’t be worked in a charcoal fire. Those require much higher temperatures.
My intuition is “no,” with the caveat that the complexity of the Paleolithic was still sufficient for all manner of wondrous things, and that while we may be bound to that level of overall complexity, no one’s said how we need to apportion that complexity.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 26 July 2006 @ 9:04 AM
Hey Jason
First, it seems that the Chinese blastfurnaces ran on charcoal.
You wrote:
The problem is that the more rusted the metal becomes, the lower its quality as an ore.
As far as I can tell, and I have been poking abouts quite a bit on this, there is no real decrease in quality as metal rusts. In fact, from what I’ve read, rusting, the process of oxidizing iron molecules, can actually both take the iron out of an alloy or impurities (since the iron rusts seperately and at different rates from other elements).
Also, from what I’ve read, most iron can be purified (even sulfer can be pulled from it) with nothing more complicated than limestone (and was done, before industrial tech or coal), at charcoal temperatures. You just need the know how and the time.
Also, it seemsJ that bog iron is Fe(III) - the same as rust. However, bog iron contains silicates that form a protective glasslike sheen on forged products protecting them from rust.
The limiting factors on iron seem to be primarily the knowledge of how to work it. It is a complicated metal, and it is not straight forward to work.
Certainly iron will never again be used in such a casual way as it is now, as industrial charcoal production and hammering blacksmiths will not be around in more simple societies. But it seems very likely to me that iron tools aren’t going anywhere.
I would also like to throw out that I think there is a lot left to learn about iron metalurgy. There are several historical iron artifacts that modern metallurgists don’t quite know how to replicate. Iron working was a continually developing “magic” up until the industrial revolution, when all of the art left it, and was replaced by high energy “blunt force” reactions.
Comment by MatthewJ — 20 August 2006 @ 4:32 AM
The quality of an ore is primarily measured by how much metal you can get out of it, versus how much effort it takes to get it out. The more a block of iron rusts, the less iron there is to get out of it, so the less its quality as an ore.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 21 August 2006 @ 10:21 AM
Iron is elemental. It cannot go anywhere.
Rust is the addition of three oxygen atoms to elemental iron.
It is as smeltable as ore.
So rust is literally the re-oreification of the iron.
Where is all of the iron going to go?
Sure, some will fly off into the wind, but due to the shear volume of iron floating abouts, this won’t be noticible for thousands of years.
Comment by MatthewJ — 21 August 2006 @ 2:45 PM
Errmm … chemical bonds are often very, very hard to break. It’s my understanding that even in industrial furnaces that can produce far more heat than the hottest charcoal ovens, you’re not so much knocking the oxygen atoms and iron atoms apart, as knocking the rust off the iron underneath. The more it rusts through, the less iron there is to get.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 21 August 2006 @ 2:49 PM
Ah.
It is my understanding that smelting is the actual process of removing the oxygen atoms and either replacing them with carbon (for steel) or creating metallic bonds (for regular iron).
From: http://www.the-orb.net/encyclop/culture/scitech/iron_steel.html
[quote]This allows the iron atoms to combine into a mass of metal. Rust goes in; iron comes out…
The smelting furnace has two tools to bring about this transformation: heat and carbon. Smelters, like all furnaces, burn carbon fuels to produce heat; that much is obvious. But burning is never complete, and the hot gases within a smelter are rich in carbon that is chemically active. Hot carbon has a strong affinity for oxygen, and the oxygen atoms are literally stripped away from the iron by the gaseous carbon. Left without any chemical partners, the iron atoms form a mass of nearly pure metal…[/quote]
(sorry if that quote code doesn’t work - learning the formatting codes here)
Comment by MatthewJ — 21 August 2006 @ 6:54 PM