I'm actually talking to a group in Hawaii where they want to do the same thing that I did in Finland, as in what were six scenarios to phase it fossil fuels in Finland. Do the same thing in Hawaii. And that's actually now in progress. And the purpose of that work is to be a book in for Iceland, because when we approach Iceland. 01:16:11 How do we do that for Iceland? And so they become two sides to the planet, but you've got an isolated island, they both have geothermal. How would they approach that, and what are their respective problems? So this is the purpose of the global community. We could transfer information from one end of the world to the other. How did we do this? What were the problems? 01:16:35 What were the things that worked? How do we navigate our way out of this? What are the lon-term problems? That's the transfer that's actually happening. So I believe we are looking at the evolution of the human species, like you just said. But if the human species was modeled as a single individual, it'd be like an obese crack 01:17:00 addict that's been told to kick the habit and lose some weight. And it's going to be painful, but this is what we have to do for our survival. And on the other side of that, we're going to be much healthier. This happening at humanity at all scales.

you've got groups like Norway that have oil and gas. Even though it's declining, it's some oil and gas. So they could keep the local region going while we're actually constructing this system. But they've also got a lot of hydro, right? Hydro power, a lot. So all right, so we could actually attach industries, sectors to that. Sweden and Finland has a combination of nuclear but also combined heat and power from biomass, 01:13:50 which also is linked to industry. So how do we organize around that? So we are seeing an ordering across for example, several local nation states at the moment. So the size of the circular economy could span say Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland. And you'll have a circular economy-like structure going between them. 01:14:18 But it's actually the energy sources that will organize the industry, and the industry will organize everything else.

I put forward the idea that what might work in the future is alliance between industrial clusters. Not between political nations, industrial clusters. 01:12:58 And you might have a cluster around for example, in Iceland, they've got a lot of geothermal. So much that they can make aluminum, which is almost pure electricity, right? So geothermal makes heavy industries, things like aluminum. They could also make lots of ammonia or hydrogen using the heat. So that's a hub.

Current manufacturing at the moment is dependent on a very complex, six continent, just in 01:10:00 time supply grid. And when we build something like a computer, it's tough. Pulling stuff from all over the world, and it is like the transport of material goods is irrelevant. It's based on that assumption. I think it will become more regional. Now the current manufacturing system will start to fragment I believe, and we will see the components part of the value chain crash. 01:10:24 Like for example, microchips to go into cars are becoming a problem. Therefore cars are not being produced as much anymore. That's the example. But we'll start seeing that in other sectors. So I can see a situation where the value chain around the components will break down, but then before that, there'll be the ability for smelters to produce metals will start 01:10:49 to become difficult, because concentrate getting to them is no longer what they need to produce effectively. So the part on the end, the car on the showroom floor is the very end of the value chain. And they will become less available and less accessible because the value chain before them is starting to fragment. So when it fragments, we will develop a new technology that is more primitive, is more 01:11:18 robust, can be subject to change, and is more adaptable. And will be sourced within say a 500 kilometer radius around from where the final product winds up. Nate Hagens: So when you say we in this case, do you mean all of humanity, or do you mean those communities and 500 kilometer regions that are thinking 01:11:42 or working ahead? Or how did this come about? Because my challenge with all this is it all generally makes sense. And of course I have a probabilistic view of the future. So we could kick the can another decade maybe, or this could all be upon us by next summer. I don't know. But there will be these parallel things. There's a lot of people that are chomping at the bit to work on the future that you're 01:12:09 describing. But those people are still a tiny fraction of those riding shotgun on the super organism where we need growth, and economies and jobs are going to be the thing that dictate our elections and everything else. And energy security will trump lower carbon, etc. And so we will be pedal to the metal until we hit a wall. 01:12:34 What you're talking about is once we hit a wall, these are the things that need to be in motion.

Well, we're first going to have a frank discussion of what minerals we think we need versus what we've got. And then we're going to realize what we've got won't work with the existing plan. And we'll start doing things like making batteries out of sodium, or sand, silica, or fluoride, or zinc, or lead. Nate Hagens: Lower tech, scalable things that don't give us the dopamine return on investment, but they are cheap and functional. 01:07:52 Simon Michaux: And can be recycled. So we're going to first scale back our expectations and our requirements for complex technology. We'll develop a technology that is simpler, more robust, and can deal with poorer quality material inputs, and require less energy to produce. Nate Hagens: How much of this is happening now in this domain? Simon Michaux: So there's a lot of talk at the moment that 01:08:18 the current mining industry is driven by demand and it's driven by money and by profit. So at the moment, there is just a bit of talk. And we're starting to talk about alternatives, like batteries made of fluoride for example. But at the moment, it's not taken seriously. And the future is seen as lithium iron based chemistry, like LFP batteries for example. And that is the focus, 100% of the time. 01:08:44 And so they're giving it lip service now, whereas five, 10 years ago, they wouldn't concede it existed at all. So it is progress. So first of all, we're going to change what we are going think we're going to do. Then we're going to start sourcing our minerals from our waste products because it's all around us.

One of the things that concern me is copper. So we need about 4.3 billion tons of copper for the first generation of electrical, non-renewable technology systems. Including everything's stitched together. So 4.3 billion tons. 01:04:25 Nate Hagens: And if we relax your assumption of four weeks of buffer and that we have some hybrid system of depleting fossil fuels with some renewables, that 4.3 billion tons could be relaxed to 3.3 or 2.2 billion tons? Simon Michaux: I think it's 2.2 billion tons. It substantially does reduce. However, we are producing for copper say 24 million tons a year now. 01:04:53 So we've got to run at 180 years to hit that point. So existing at- Nate Hagens: It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. And here's the other thing, and I'm sorry to interrupt. But Olivia Lazard is going to be on this show in a few weeks and her work is the countries where this stuff comes from. 01:05:17 And not only are they war-torn and have inequality issues, but there are also many of the countries that are going to be influenced dramatically in the near term from higher wet bulb risk to humans climate impacts. And we won't even be able to extract in these countries because of social and environmental 01:05:45 reasons. I can send you some info on that. Simon Michaux: Yes, please. But these are the things we need to get our arms around. So our copper reserves at the moment are at 880 million tons. Now existing growth, that's according to the USGS, US Geological Survey. So prior to 2020, humanity mined 700 million tons of copper back to 4,000 BC. 01:06:10 And that sounds like a lot. But to keep up with copper growth, copper demand growth, just the way we are now without electrifying, we will do the same in the next 22 years. So the last 4,000 years will be compressed into 22 years to keep up with the economic growth as it's increasing. And so the first generation, let's say the 4.3 billion tons is correct. 01:06:33 That is 6.2 times the historical mining rate back to 4,000 BC. So if we are right and we can shrink that buffer down, we are still three times the historical rate. Nate Hagens: Not the historical rate. The historical total cumulative

this is part of the problem that we're having at the moment, where one part of society is not connected to other parts of society, and they just don't actually know what they're missing. So first of all, most of the non fossil fuel system has not been constructed yet. Less than 1% of vehicles are EV now, for example. 01:03:11 As as it has to be constructed, we can't recycle it. So the first generation at least must come from mining. But if it was all manufactured tomorrow or next year say, it's not for about 10 years that we've actually, when they all wear out the first generation of materials to come in, that's enough for recycling. And so recycling, if it is going to work... And I believe it will, but that's many years into the future.

Minerals are a thing at the moment where they're sort of seen as a side issue. And in fact in Europe in particular, we don't like the idea of mining at all. It's seen as dirty. And what's interesting is if the environmental movement not make friends with the mining industry, then its green transition will not happen. Right? That's the brutal truth. So I can see a situation where the environmental movement and the mining industry will join 01:01:21 hands, and both groups will evolve their practice to meet the other side halfway. And for example, every mine site will be rehabilitated when it's finished to the point where it can now be a natural biodiversity hub. All toxins are removed completely from the environment. That is possible.

Sewage sanitation. 00:54:26 Now again, this is not a very fashionable thing to talk about. But in the past, especially when a hurricane hits and devastates a town, if you don't get the ability for people to go to the toilet and wash their hands and sanitation disease starts rippling through the area and cripples everything. And it can corrupt food, it can corrupt water. And so it's a system that allows humans to live in dense population areas together safely 00:54:55 and healthily. Now at the moment we have these systems which are citywide, and they use electrical power to push things along. And the problem here is maintenance. This is talking to the complexity issue. How can we maintain such a complex system in a low energy world where we won't have the ease to go out and maintain such things easily? So we have whole sections of the network breaking down, and they'll be really hard to keep going. 00:55:23 So we're going to go from a big system, to a series of localized systems that can connect to each other if they chose, or disconnect if they need to, while one system goes down for maintenance. And again, we're going to have to use technology that may not necessarily use power. What if we used gravity again to try and push all these systems through? And instead of actually using chemicals to treat the water plant, what if we had these 00:55:50 big ponds that used different plants and animals to process human sewage and the bacteria out? In permaculture, there's a lot of discussion about gray water systems and black water systems. Start thinking in those terms, but on a larger scale.

A water potable water supply that is say for three or four suburbs in a city together, and there'll be a standalone system. So if that system needs maintenance and goes down for a bit, the systems around it keep going. Whereas at the moment, if you have one problem in a water plant, the whole city goes down.

So it's not just water. We need water that's not polluted. And so that there are drinking water standards that need to be adhered to. So traditionally we just get that out of a stream or a pond. But now we've got so much population in areas which the climate doesn't lend itself to supplying such a lot of water for so many people. So we need to seriously think about how do we actually provide clean drinking water. 00:52:16 And if we don't, and this is the problem with the next one, which is sanitation. If we don't have proper drinking water, we start having disease rippling through our society, which will cripple us, our ability to do certain things. And so we have to have the ability to filter water. And so we might move into a society where water will have to be filtered through, you can make a filter with things like charcoal and rock and gravel. 00:52:42 And water might have to go through that to remove its bacteria load. See at the moment, our water is purified in water purification plants, but they're done centrally and their water's pushed out along all these pipes all over the city. So what if that is no longer practical? For example, we can't maintain such a large network of pipes anymore easily. So we might have to go to a more localized way of managing water.

in food, what it means is local communities will start to grow their own food. So all the food you eat will be grown completely in say a 50 kilometer radius radius or 100 kilometer radius.

f we can't get food services to them, it becomes easier to break those large cities up into smaller communities that are more decentralized.

So food will be re-engineered where a lot of our fertilizers and will be developed organically or partially organically, locally. Now we could use industry to do that, but it'll be done locally. And so what we call food will have to actually more mirror and work with the environment, not against it. Current industrial agriculture works against the environment. Our new systems will have to use biomimicry in a greater scale, and work with the local 00:50:38 environment. And so will we.

So food at the moment, five, 600 years ago, everyone grew their own food and they grew 00:46:07 it locally. And then we invented industrial agriculture, which is supported by petrochemicals. At the moment, our food is created in vast quantities causing enormous problems very far away. I can see a problem with petrochemicals because it's causing land degradation and it's overloading the nitrogen and phosphorous cycles on a global scale. So the food system's going to have to be radically engineered, and it will have to become more 00:46:32 local, and almost certainly have to become organic in some form. And so what that means is- Nate Hagens: Why? Simon Michaux: Okay, so at the moment we're using petrochemicals. And those petrochemicals, for every bushel of wheat that we send to the market, 0.8 cubic meters of soil is being sterilized. And you could argue it's improper use of those petrochemicals is making that happen. 00:46:55 But the reality is because there's a money profit to it, that's exactly what people are doing. And so it's not just the fact that it's made on things like phosphate rock and gas, which are non-renewable resources, but how we're actually applying it is interacting with the environment in a destructive fashion. And it's not just destructive in one sector. Multiple sectors across the environment are getting hammered by this. 00:47:20 And we are required to withdraw from those sectors, let those sectors heal naturally, and help that along, but then re-engineer our food systems. Now at the moment, the old school plans for this is GMO technology connected to more petrochemicals managed by AI systems, and most of the farming will be done by robots. 00:47:43 That's the vision for the future by groups like say BASF. I think that will be work in a short term, but it'll be disastrous in the long term. We actually create a worse problem. Nate Hagens: BASF doesn't make our food, they make the food- Simon Michaux: Chemical. They make the chemicals for the fertilizers and the petrochemicals, but this is their vision of the future. I attended one of their meetings. 00:48:07 Nate Hagens: So the future of food then, a conclusion echoed by many other of my podcast guests is we're going to have to have more human labor inputs relative to today. Simon Michaux: So every more people will have to be involved in the actual production of food. One thing we have lots of is humans. Now humans are an amazingly adaptive unit that can do work, and we have energy. 00:48:35 And so more people will be involved in more things. We have to work harder for a smaller outcome. At all levels, we're going to have less actions taken of higher quality. So we're going to go from quantity plus dopamine hit is going to transfer to quality plus much less of.

how would the energy systems be different in the new system under your Maslow hierarchy framing? 00:43:15 Simon Michaux: I've been giving some thought about what energy actually is and how does it serve us. At the moment, energy is used for transport a lot. So our energy systems will have to empower transport somehow differently. And so this is the whole electric vehicles and buses. So I think the electric system will happen, but at least substantially smaller. 00:43:42 Excuse me. So for example, we would see more buses, more communal transport, and less individual cars. We might have the idea of car sharing where instead of owning a car, we might book a car in. This is the idea of the self-driving car. That might happen in a small scale. It won't be enough to replace our existing systems. 00:44:05 So the form of energy comes when it comes. It will be different to what we have now. And everything around it, including our technology, will have to evolve. And part of that I can see for example, instead of one big giant seamless power grid that delivers sinusoidally pure power all the time, and our electronics cannot cope with anything else, I can see a situation where we will evolve an engineering electronics that can 00:44:29 cope with variable power. So if a power grid goes up or down, if we get power blackouts, it doesn't cook the electronics. So instead of seamless, we now have a non-linear production of power and its outcomes. So that means- Nate Hagens: There would be no demand for such a product now. Simon Michaux: No, no. Because no one thinks it's necessary. So if instead of one big grid, we had lots of micro grids that are connected together. 00:44:54 And they sometimes transfer power between them. And sometimes when things get difficult, they could shut down one or all of them without actually damaging themselves and they could start up at any time. And each of those micro power grids will be around an industrial activity of value. For example, a power grid will be around a hospital. And that hospital will then also be surrounded by a community of people who operate that 00:45:18 hospital. And the food systems for that hospital, but all comes off that one power grid. It's reason to be is that hospital. And we might attach schools to it, that sort of thing. And so our energy will be organized very differently. And so it may well be things like solar panels, wind turbines. But we should also consider unconventional stuff, like some of the really weird ones, like the kinetic kites are an unusual energy system. 00:45:43 I don't know if they're viable in the current environment. But if things get more difficult, we might try such things. All unconventional and unorthodox ideas must be looked at and taken seriously, and the alternative is we go without. That's how I sort of see energy going.

let's probably just circle around your Maslow hierarchy of needs to get more people thinking about the direction we need to go. So I'm not sure how to proceed. 00:34:05 I think what maybe we could do is those six categories you mentioned earlier, maybe you give a five to 10 minute overview of how you think about energy, food, water, sewage, heating, manufacturing.

So what I've done here is when we often talk about say the Maslow hierarchy of needs, this is about what do we absolutely need in order of priority? And usually that is for a human being or a human society. But what if we projected that thinking onto several sectors? Because at the moment, the Maslow hierarchy of needs was based around what happens in 00:21:27 an emergency. And they talk about things like food, water, security, and what have you. But all those things are industrially and technologically delivered to us now. We need for example our systems to deliver us our food and our water is piped to us. So Maslow's hierarchy of needs is now projected onto a couple of sectors.

Before Maslow’s Hierarchy: The Whitewashing of Indigenous Knowledge

Self-Actualization Self-actualization refers to feeling fulfilled, or feeling that we are living up to our potential. One unique feature of self-actualization is that it looks different for everyone. For one person, self-actualization might involve helping others; for another person, it might involve achievements in an artistic or creative field. Essentially, self-actualization means feeling that we are doing what we believe we are meant to do. According to Maslow, achieving self-actualization is relatively rare, and his examples of famous self-actualized individuals include Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, and Mother Teresa.

The most recognized theory of intrinsic motivation was first based on people’s needs and drives. Hunger, thirst, and sex are biological needs that we’re driven to pursue in order to live and be healthy.