No need to worry about the extremes, you could just use stuff at lower rates maybe there is even some sort of optimum somewhere.

Also once we are through with this planet all the concentrated stuff will be spread out and the energy we will be willing to expend to process a mineral at a certain concentration will be less than is required. Then we will find something new (then we are not though with this planet and we can increase the future maximum possible moral outrage) or we are screwed (then we have achieved maximum spread, at this point the moral outrage will not be balanced by progress anymore).

I hope this wasn't too convoluted.

Nowadays there are MLCCs at 220uF that could replace Tantalum in a number of applications, not to mention Niobium based capacitors that derive their raw materials from Brasil and Canada.

That patsari stove design looks simple enough to replicate, if you look at burn design lab you have to get the mass production of the steel stoves going first.
Making bricks may still be energy intensive, but somehow it feels easier to do. For simple energy starved societies this should still be easier to do than setting up steel processing.

(Just to mention it, Spanish isn't my strong side)

Actually TLUD stoves would create char coal and burn the pyrolysis gases, now they are just wasted. The article is low on detail, here is a free ebook about stoves and their use in 3rd world countries:

http://www.biochar-international.org/sites/default/files/Understanding-Stoves-okt-10-webversion.pdf

and a slide show that explains the principle:

http://www.bme.gouv.ht/ugse/TCharbon%20Kara%20Grant%20-%20English.pdf

I haven't seen this mentioned in the article which is somewhat thin on detail, but there is way more to stoves than the article explains. Also Burn Design Lab doesn't explicitly mention the TLUD design.

Oh, here is another website:

http://stoves.bioenergylists.org/

Somehow the UW related stuff is free of the TLUD principle, I wonder why. Also, you are wrong.

I sugar coated the icepick too much I guess.

Well fortunately we live on a cylindrical planet where the area higher up is equal to the area towards the middle ...

No, that was wrong let me have another positive look at this, we applied a step function to the input of a non-linear system with feed-backs and all. If we get
lucky the temperatures move up so fast the Equatorians won't be able to catch up.

There is one excited Ph. D. student who is talking about the prospect that it is getting warm in Canada:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zw1GEp8UBj4

and staying that way throughout the next ice age, which wouldn't have to be called that way anymore. He also mentions that the equator may only get +3 degrees temperature improvement.

Har, har, good one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywell#Recent_US_Navy-funded_work

Things are progressing it seems.

Also embodied energy that nature put into hydrothermal enrichment of ores, but this is more of a side show.

History says otherwise:

"Besides, of all ways whereby great wealth is acquired by good and honest means, none is more advantageous than mining; for although from fields which are well tilled (not to mention other things) we derive rich yields, yet we obtain richer products from mines; in fact, one mine is often much more beneficial to us than many fields. For this reason we learn from the history of nearly all ages that very many men have been made rich by the mines, and the fortunes of many kings have been much amplified thereby."

From here:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38015/38015-h/38015-h.htm

So we are mining energy instead of metals now, anybody know a good book about energy?
Beyond that I first want to see a space efficient fusion reactor that works. What ever happened to Bussards wiffle ball reactor the US Navy swallowed?

I personally like the following graph:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/glob/201306.gif

I just don't see all that much flatness there, especially if you keep in mind that the system delay is ~40 years and that the trend hasn't really been broken by a temperature decline over a 40 year period. Also if you allow for some oscillation due to El Nino and other effects you would expect some ups and downs.

Also I don't really expect anyone to go down the depressive realism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressive_realism) path to just have a better understanding of reality. Industrial society depends to 80% on fossil fuels and anyone suggesting that we stop it all in a relatively short time frame to prevent global warming and assorted feedback loops is completely nuts (which would probably be necessary). This is especially silly since our ancestors lived in far more difficult conditions without industrial society and took all the hardship of famine, war, disease, and death with ease. We will also deal with the results of global warming when we suffer from starvation, disease, and the occasional hot spell by dying with a smile on our faces knowing that we've had it all (not all of us, and poor people suffer first, but hey).

I admit I shouldn't have called the GP a Climate Zombie, but I really hate it when people paint our trajectory in rosy pictures or try to bullshit themselves (and me).
Then again the Forbes articles I had a look at had much lower quality:

"These cherry-picked items are then assembled, condensed and highlighted in the Summaries for Policymakers which are calibrated to get prime-time and front page attention."

I'm always amused when politicians/journalists call guys like Manning or climate scientists attention seekers - "uh, oh another fish in our pond" I can hear them squeal. So that went into the bin much like the other article it linked to that was only slightly more sensible.

There you go Mr. Climate Zombie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_-8u86R3Yc

Adding another dimension to the 2d-table:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDcmL02peSY

In other words, people choose the more immediate reward, i.e. have a party now, get screwed later.

There is also an appropriate piece of music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_BoAXopS54

My last job was kinda odd this way, they were so frightened of me spending some extra time on my actual project to ensure it works in cases of bad input and to simplify some code that they laid me off. Of course, I was a bit cavalier about ensuring management backing.

I would call this a sign of the times, I currently work for some guy for free because he has an interesting project and yet I still don't want to fool around with stuff that needs doing but isn't highest priority. This is a startup and needs some help so I better show some manners.

But in general I squarely blame net energy decline for it. While it may look to some as if financial mismanagement caused this short term thinking craze that has gripped CEOs and associated ilk, I think it is actually the awareness that we really do have no future for projects mankind doesn't need anyway. If our world is turning into an energy starved wasteland much like the onion suggests:
http://knowyourmeme.com/videos/66081-the-onion

then there is really no need for engineers who have a passion for their job and improving their knowledge of highly complex systems that depend on a working industrial society for its continued existence. Ultimately you will be overspecialized in a field that due to its multiple hard dependencies has an increased probability of failure in an environment that is characterized by shortages and sub standard performance because somebody tried to follow the growth paradigm
by eating its own flesh, i.e. abused the trust still existing in society to sell a shoddy, substandard product while the usual drivers for growth like population growth and energy input have become unavailable.

I heard your employer gives them away for free.

They didn't spread British weather over Germany. Even though the additional 300mm of rain would have be great.