IV Congresso ASPO-Italia sul tema: “Terra 3.1”
Trento, Facoltà di Ingegneria, 5-6 Novembre 2010
Giorgio Nebbia nebbia@quipo.it
Questo breve intervento propone la tesi che la maggior parte dei processi di produzione dei beni materiali, che chiamerò “merci”, ottenuti dalla trasformazione di risorse naturali inevitabilmente limitate, o dei processi di utilizzazione (consumo) di merci in un mercato e in uno spazio inevitabilmente limitati, sono destinati ad affrontare un ciclo di crescita a cui segue il raggiungimenti di un massimo di produzione o utilizzazione --- “picco” --- a cui segue una fase di declino, talvolta di scomparsa.
Il fenomeno ha analogie con quelli che si manifestano nelle popolazioni vegetali e animali. La crescita e il declino di una popolazione di merci in un territorio limitato o con risorse limitate può essere in genere descritta con equazioni logistiche con vari termini che frenano la crescita a mano a mano che aumenta la popolazione della merce in esame.
Talvolta la crescita di una popolazione di merci può essere accelerata da incentivi fiscali o una produzione in declino può essere tenuta artificialmente in vita all’avvicinarsi o dopo il raggiungimento del picco, ugualmente con incentivi fiscali, Similar to aggressive treatment, in general, limited and little lasting effect (protectionism in autarky).
will be examined here are some examples of each of these conditions, supporting the view of the inevitability of the growth cycle-peak to decline.
(a) The decline in production of goods depends on impoverished reserves, inevitably limited, the materials extracted from nature. It 's the most frequent and most studied. The phenomenon can occur on a local scale (in this case involves each region), or on a planetary scale.
Examples can be carefully designed to remember the "peak" oil production in individual countries or areas (such as the United States and the North Sea) or in the whole world, the main subject of study of this association Other examples are offered by the exhaustion of reserves of sulfur in Sicily, native sulfur extracted with the Frasch process in the United States and Poland, the phosphate in oceanic islands of Nauru and Christmas, the depletion of reserves in the Plateau Chilean caliche.
(b) Sometimes the decline of the extraction of goods from a reservoir or decline in the use of a production process, followed by a resurrection due to some technical innovation, it is the case of extraction of natural gas in Italy that after a peak around 1973-74 and relative decline, had a recovery, with the achievement of new deposits, resulting in around 1994 and peak current decline.
Other examples are offered by a brief resurrection of the fountain pens compared to the dominant market for pens, a tendency to resurrection, for reasons of fashion or "green" of some natural fibers, which have long since reached the peak of production (hemp and flax) in a market dominated by synthetic fibers.
Chance Claus process, which was developed in the second half of the nineteenth century, to recover sulfur from calcium sulfide, a byproduct of the production of pollutant Leblanc soda, after the cessation of that product availability è resuscitato per recuperare zolfo (fonte di inquinamento) dal gas naturale e dai prodotti petroliferi.
(c) Il declino e la scomparsa di una merce, dopo che ha raggiunto un picco di produzione, sono stati determinati dalla scoperta di effetti nocivi o inquinanti, nel qual caso il suo uso e la sua produzione sono vietati da una autorità o dal comune sentire
Si possono citare, fra i tanti, il caso del piombo tetraetile, del talidomide, del mercurio in molte utilizzazioni, dell’amianto, di insetticidi clorurati a cominciare dal DDT, di alcuni esteri fosforici, di PCB, di alcuni coloranti per alimenti (coloranti liposolubili Sudan), di alcuni coloranti per capelli.
La datazione dei rispettivi peaks can only be made about a lack of statistical data.
(d) The decline can be determined by the introduction of processes that produce the same goods with less consumption of raw materials, energy or money or with less pollution. In these cases usually use the first process or manufacturing the goods, after reaching the peak disappears, and often the second process or commodity, in turn, suffers the competition of another process or merchandise and so on.
An example is provided with the Bessemer process of steel production, driven by steel produced with open hearth process, driven by the process oxygen, the last two substitutions partly due to the need to deal with growing quantities of scrap.
The production of sodium carbonate with the Leblanc process has been replaced by one with the Solvay process due to excessive amounts of waste (calcium sulfide, hydrogen chloride) generated in the Leblanc process whose peak has occurred over the last decades of the nineteenth .
The synthetic indigo has replaced all of the indigo whose peak production has occurred over the last decades of the nineteenth century, the replacement in India has caused a serious economic and social crisis that has accelerated the movement for independence from ' England.
The production of nitric acid by ammonia has replaced the short synthetic production of nitric acid synthetic oven, with a peak in the early twentieth century. In domestic heating in Italy and perhaps in other countries, the use of wood has been supplanted by the use of coke, which in turn was soppiantatati fuel oil, and then from low-sulfur diesel fuel and then mostly methane.
In the production of surfactants and the production of alkyl sulfonated branched alkyl sulphate (obtained using the tetrameter of propylene by-product at a low price to the petrochemical industry), non-biodegradable has been supplanted by that of alchilfolfati or sulfonated linear relation more biodegradable.
Other examples of invasion by the market of goods or processes that have supplanted the background shall be offered by the competition against the parchment paper, as part of lighting kerosene supplanted whale oil, gas lighting HJA replaced the kerosene, the spread of electric lighting has replaced gas lighting.
The transistors have replaced the vacuum tubes, computers have replaced typewriters, fountain pens have replaced the fountain pen and nib.
Each new operating system or computer model has replaced the previous ones, etc. In each of
these transitions are recognizing the growth cycle-peak-decline in commodity or process.
(e) The introduction of goods that meet the same needs but cost less and are more convenient than the existing and dominant, could lead to the coexistence of the two productions, one of which, however, typically declines after reaching a peak.
A case is offered by the competition between soaps and synthetic detergents. Until the first half of the twentieth century the only soap detergent was represented by: the invention of synthetic detergents in the soap has taken away the market for fabric washing, leaving the market to use soap for personal hygiene. The resurrection of the curious little soap (the "Marseille") as an additive to some preparations for washing.
Since the mid-nineteenth century sugar beet was placed in the market of cheaper sugar cane, occupying about one third of the total sugar market, thanks to government incentives in virtually all countries. Such incentives ceased the production of beet sugar declined. In Italy the peak was reached in the early years of this decade and currently Italy refines raw cane sugar.
Olive oil is excellent for cooking oil until the early twentieth century. The emergence of cheaper seed oils has entered the market for edible oils; initially hampered by disincentives tax against oil seeds, now the two types of edible oils coexist, sharing about half of the oil market Italian food, thanks to tax incentives, more or less occult, in respect of olive oil.
Similar situations have occurred with the competition between margarine and butter, including natural rubber and synthetic rubber, including petrol and diesel as fuel for motor vehicles.
The production of steel in electric furnaces from scrap living with full-cycle production process.
The natural fibers (cotton and wool), have been a weak competition from synthetic fibers (cellulose, such as rayon) and strong competition from synthetic fibers that share today, worldwide, about half the market for textile fibers, coexisting with cotton and wool, but after almost completely supplanted hemp and flax.
(f) After a good peaked, the decline can be avoided with temporary operations, aggressive treatment by public subsidies.
Sicilian sulfur production was kept alive during the Fascist autarchy, during periods of war or self-sufficiency, there was a brief appearance of goods or processes, kept alive artificially, then abandoned some technologies, however, are susceptible to temporary resurrections in particular conditions of scarcity of alternative goods. A case
è rappresentato dalla crescita, picco, declino e resurrezione, col nome di bioetanolo, dell’alcol etilico carburante.
(g) Saturazione della soddisfazione dei “consumatori”, cioè della carrying capacity del mercato, ma anche dello spazio disponibile. Ogni persona può possedere o usare una quantità di merci fisiche limitate, al di là delle quali non sa che cosa farsene o dove metterle.
Questo vale per la saturazione del consumo (e declino della produzione) di molti beni mobili: una persona può avere due o tre ma non venti divani o automobili o televisori o frigoriferi, eccetera. Un altro caso è offerto dal declino della produzione di piastrelle che ha raggiunto il picco nel 2001. Per far fronte a questa saturazione fisica del mercato e conseguente pressione dei fabbricanti, i governi e le imprese provvedono o tentano di intervenire con incentivi alla sostituzione di vecchi modelli con nuovi, alla creazione di mode che spingono a tale sostituzione, o con incentivi fiscali come nel caso delle automobili.
Quanto si è detto finora --- e la storia della tecnica e della merceologia --- suggeriscono che si tratta di tentativi di accanimento terapeutico destinati prima o poi all’insuccesso, cioè ad una temporanea ripresa della produzione del consumo seguita da picchi e declini.
La presente breve analisi si propone come suggerimento di comportamenti a governi e ad imprese. Non è possibile continuare a martellare a population of consumers with the myth that you should always buy new goods: cars, mobile phones, appliances, equipment for sound recording, computers, because all the efforts, often very large and expensive to beat the competition by offering new goods that have some alleged innovation, end up clashing with the inevitable limitations of the carrying capacity of the market. These efforts
investment and innovation could be more usefully employed to design the best goods, make them safer and more environmentally sustainable and in the process of manufacture, use and disposal after use. The analysis of growth trends could usefully inform when are close to saturation, and the signs could allow economic forecasts, political and technical able to avoid costly mistakes.
Unfortunately not always consistent and comparable data are available on the production of goods for a period long enough to allow the analysis of growth curves and the development of accurate forecasts. Sometimes the changes are so fast that governments and businesses realize when mistakes have already been made expensive investments, there have been numerous examples of incorrect predictions in the field of telecommunications, energy, transportation.
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