Slam on the brakes!
(Note: Commentaries do not necessarily represent the position of ASPO-USA.)
Editorial Note: Ron Swenson’s call to reconsider the tenor of our debate in its entirety is the full version of his excerpt originally found here in the third edition of “ASPO-USA Asks: What are we missing?” from early June 2011. The first two parts of that series are available here and here.
Reading all these price predictions by peaksters, I’m reminded of the Austrian economist Murray Rothbard who said, “The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.”
We know that the media (government / business / religious leaders) are giving very little attention to Peak Oil, but I would like us to consider what we, the Peak Oil community, are not talking about.
We’re not talking about slamming the brakes on fossil fuels.
Even as our contribution to creating Peak Oil awareness begins to see a little light (at least in some circles), I am concerned that we will be so worried about saving our own bacon or appearing to be rational that we will fail to take posterity into account. If we are to save just a little oil for our children, we need to just plain stop using oil (gas, coal).
“Conservation” doesn’t capture the urgency of our existential moment in history. In fact, conservation is like a salve to assuage the conscience of well-meaning people who are stuck in “business as usual.” We can be conned into thinking that we are doing our part by swapping out incandescent light bulbs.
Why can’t we just use less oil? If you are drowning, drowning slower isn’t going to save your life.
If you are in the know (Peak Oil), it’s not about telling others to slow down. We have to abandon the artifacts of the oil-based economy and retool.
It requires a fundamental shift. It’s about transforming society from oil to ingenuity. We must slam on the brakes and turn about-face.
Nuclear power swirled down into the ocean in March and humanity’s perceived energy options narrowed sharply. We are back to where our great-grandparents were their whole lives: figuring out from-one-day-to-the-next how to live within a solar budget. They did it (or we wouldn’t be here having this conversation). We can do it too. But we have to shift gears.
We are sliding down the back side of the peak, and just like with most mountains, the dark side is steeper than the sunny side. Will it be a soft or hard landing? Well… it depends:
If we have already used up too much of our natural resources, it will be a hard landing. (Time will tell.)
If we “conserve,” I don’t see how we can avoid a hard landing. Going slower sliding off the cliff is still sliding off the cliff.
We are aiming at the tail feathers of the goose that passed by here already a while ago. We need a word somewhere between conservation (voluntary) and deprivation (involuntary, Mother Nature’s decision) - something to make it obvious that we aren’t stuck promoting the same old baggage. The ship is going down. I repeat: we must jettison the artifacts of oil. If we hang onto them, they will sink us for good. (Some of Cortez’ men loaded their pockets with gold as they were escaping the Aztecs. When a causeway collapsed, many of them sank like stones and drowned.)
What legacy are we leaving for our children? What robust assets will they have at their disposal to climb back out of the hole we put them into? Why are we postponing this radical change? By waiting even one day, we are willy nilly leaving the solution up to our children. But what advantage are we giving them by drilling for more oil, mining more coal, fracking more gas? We are handing them a polluted world, a mountain of debt, hobbled with depleted resource deposits, and blindfolding them - all the while talking seriously about the price of oil for the next year.
We aren’t calling enough attention to carbon-based boondoggles (”shovel-ready” projects). Anyone who designs a system or artifact (highway, bridge, tunnel, airport, automobile, bus) that depends on imported oil is a traitor. After all, eight presidents in a row have proclaimed that imported oil is a threat to national security. Promoting a construction project to convey vehicles operating on mostly imported oil is now an act of treason.
I hear the question, “What percentage of our energy demand can be replaced by renewables?” There are two unchallenged assumptions that frame this question and illuminate our fossil-fuel mindset.
1. One good answer is none. “Replacement” suggests doing things the same way. We can’t “replace” oil with sunshine any more than we were able to “replace” horses with high-speed 4-legged robots shaped like horses. We jettisoned horses and made devices with engines and wheels.
Now we must jettison devices with engines and wheels that are 1% efficient, that weigh 2 tonnes to move 100 kg.
For example, what about biodiesel? Consider this thought exercise. Define inefficient = stupid. A car engine is 13% efficient (per RMI); the average car weighs about 4000 lbs (per DOE, DOT) and carries an average of less than 200 lbs; that’s 5% efficient. So 13% (engine) * 5% (mass) = 0.65% < 1% efficient = stupid. Now how do we get biodiesel? Photosynthesis can convert 3-6% of sunshine into soybean plants. Then we take the oily portion of the plant (you can’t make oil out of the stems) so even assuming that it takes zero energy to harvest and process that plant material into oil, your net efficiency is <<1% = stupid. (Using 100 gal/acre/year, I estimated that 0.05% of the sun’s energy is converted to soy biodiesel. I’ve heard of yields as high as 600 gal/acre/year for “next-generation” biofuels. Give them the benefit of the doubt, and we’re at 0.3% efficient, still <<1%. Correct me if I’m wrong.)
Now put that <<1% efficient biodiesel (stupid) into a car that is <1% efficient (stupid) and you get << 0.01% efficient. The result? Compound stupid.”
2. Another answer is 100%. Built into the question (remember the question, “percentage of energy … replaced by renewables”) is the curious assumption that we have a choice. We don’t.
Most of humanity lived within a solar budget until World War II. As near as I can tell, we have no option but to return to 100% renewables, whatever that may look like. (I’m all ears if you think you have found something else.) With the incredible amount of knowledge and skills we have gained during the fossil fuel era, we are much more capable than our grandparents to take on the task. If we are to avoid becoming a dead branch on the evolutionary tree, we will switch to renewables now so we can leave something for our children to work with.
It’s not “practical.” We will face skepticism and ridicule. But those who embrace renewables now will be the sellers in the post-oil economy, and there will be plenty of buyers who postponed the inevitable shift.
Slam on the brakes! Save the oil!
Ron Swenson, ASPO-USA Board of Directors
Comments
By Robert Spoley on June 20th, 2011 at 9:13 am
Dear Ron,
The problem has never been and never will be the availability of energy. The problem is and always will be how many people are using it and how much per person. The human lifespan is rather short. Unfortunately, the birth/survival rate to breeding age has gone off the charts. Every single person on this planet wants the most and best they can get. That will never change. Thus the answer lies in the fact that there are just too many of us. Primarily in the developing world. Solve the numbers problem and the rest of the tipping point problems on this planet will disappear. Boy, am I politically incorrect! Prove me wrong, — if you can.
By Antony on June 20th, 2011 at 1:41 pm
Dear Robert,
the problem is not that there are too many people in the developing world.
The problem is that there are too many people in the rich world who consume
20 to 100 times more energy and resources than in the developing world !
To my mind, the solution is with entrepreneurs who will develop renewable
energy the fastest.
They are already doing it with solar panels that follow Moore’s law in terms
of doubling capacity every 18 months.
Antony.
By Don Hirschberg on June 20th, 2011 at 7:53 pm
Good comment Spoley.
The last time we, i.e. humans, lived with essentially renewable energy was before 1830, not really so long ago – I had great grandparents alive at that time. The population of the world had already tripled from its all-time high of about 0.3 billion during the Roman Era in considerable measure due to the use of the horse collar allowing for the use of horses rather than oxen. This was a great improvement in the amount of energy availability. Farm productivity increased greatly and horses could haul food to distant towns never reached with oxen.
Animal population has always been limited by food supply, and lest we forget we are animals. Now there was more food, hence a growing population. Trees could no longer supply the fuel needed.
We all know the rest of the story: fossil fuels and continuing exponential population growth. I was born into a world of less than 2 billion and am alive in a world of 7 billion. And everything is pointed in the wrong direction. More fossil fuel production every year, more population every year. And we already have been on the renewable kick for decades. Anyone remember the Kyoto Protocol? It didn’t slow the use of fossil fuel usage which is an easier task than addressing population growth.
During the time we experienced renewable energy life was described as “nasty, brutish and short.” (Thomas Hobbes) We should be able to do better than those in the 1600’s with 0.7 billion, but with ten times this population how much better, if any at all?
By Steven Kopits on June 21st, 2011 at 5:59 am
The oil supply appears largely inelastic. It hasn’t declined, but hasn’t grown either. But the price pressures on the oil supply are not because of peak oil as much as due to the rise of China and other emerging economies. Their rising oil consumption is bidding up prices–but it is also associated with increased prosperity. As a whole, the world has never been as prosperous as it is now. That’s why oil–as well as gold and other commodities–have become quite expensive in the historical context: because traditionally poor countries are getting wealthier.
Although oil may be short, we have plenty of natural gas. The EIA’s shale gas assessment show 120 years’ technically recoverable resources for the countries surveyed (much of the globe). And that excludes hydrates and other resources.
Finally, I had a chance to visit at Stanford University last week to discuss autonomous vehicles, which may well prove the catalyst for battery-powered cars. We’re about a decade away on that front. The rise of artifical intelligence may become a key means by which stresses from a limited oil supply are overcome. Our grandchildren may well find their own solutions, even in the absence of easy oil.
By James Mulholland on June 21st, 2011 at 10:29 am
We need to discover a truly inexhaustible source of usable energy. We seem to be stuck in the past with our focus on solar panels and windmills. Electrical engineers will not find an answer, but theoretical physicists may. Perhaps if the NSF stopped funding dishonest research in climate change and put money into futuristic energy solutions, we might find an answer. Meanwhile, no one will make the shift away from fossil fuels until they have no choice.
By Don Hirschberg on June 21st, 2011 at 12:44 pm
Steven Kopits, Autonomous vehicles? This is the stuff we saw on the covers of magazines in the 1930’s. (Glass domed cars carrying shapely girls in bathing suits.) How is this related to the energy dilemma?
I am glad to learn that greatly improved rechargeable batteries are only 10 years away. Just what science is being kept secret for another 10 years? After about 150 years are we going to get something much better than the lead-acid battery now found in everything that moves except new electric cars.
“… as a whole, the world has never been as prosperous as it is now.” “Now” meaning the 2 billion people either severely malnourished or actually starving. Only about 800 years ago far fewer were in such dire conditions as world population was far less than the number of destitute people today. We are now in unprecedented financial trouble. It is hard to even imagine a happy outcome.
Artificial intelligence? Great, but how is this going to supply food and energy even if we can all carry around a hand held device with the capability of the largest computer?
“…traditionally poor countries are getting wealthier.” Tell that to a Nigerian. Sure, the “country” is wealthier from oil exports but the population has soared. The people remain very poor, perhaps even worse off from their bonanza.
By Steven Kopits on June 21st, 2011 at 3:24 pm
Don -
Google has driven autonomoun test cars more than 150,000 miles in California. The technology is, in many ways, ready. Here’s a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9Fxp3HK6DI
A major problem of electric vehicles is asset cost. This can be addressed by increasing vehicle utilization. The average car is utilized only 8% of the time. (Mine is well below 5%.) If you could double that, the average capital cost per mile would fall by half. How can you increase utilization? By making the car independent of the driver, that is, with self-driving cars. As the video clearly shows, this is not 1930’s technology, but the latest from Google and Stanford Artificial Intelligence labs. Clearly, market introduction for self-driving is years away, but let’s work towards that with the intent to give ourselves options.
As for welfare: Yes, probably more people are hungry today than the total human population of the planet in 1300 AD. On the other hand, the Black Death in the middle of the 14th century, some 30-60% of Europe is thought to have died. In sub-Saharan Africa, we can talk of malnutrition or hunger, but populations keep increasing. So it’s not the Middle Ages anymore. We have no recent parallels to the Black Death, either by famine or disease.
I think the more relevant test is whether people are better off than they were a generation ago. In the advanced countries, we’re not too much changed, although some technology has improved (computers, cell phones). In places like China, Brazil, Korea, Vietnam, Russia, central and eastern Europe, and increasingly India, people are better off due to economic growth. High oil prices are in part a symptom of that success.
The poverty and backwardness of places like Nigeria, Somalia, the Phillippines or Boliva are primarily are function of national governance, not resource constraints. Argentina, for example, should have a per capita income on par with Australia, indeed, Argentina has a much better resource base than the Aussies. But it’s much poorer, with GDP per capita (in US dollars) only 1/6th that of Australia. That’s all about government and culture, not availability of food or oil.
By Don Hirschberg on June 22nd, 2011 at 11:37 am
Steve,Seems to me the Model T was the autonomous vehicle. Go anywhere, any time, with no prior notice. and change you mind without wasting even seconds, notice or penalty. Sharing your autonomous battery operated car is almost the opposite of Henry Ford’s big idea. Worked good.
Seems to me a driverless car is more of a technology stunt than a solution without a problem. Sort of an automotive lava lamp.
The battery is the problem. As I asked above, what science is being withheld for another ten more years? The electric car is no problem. They were commercially sold 100 years ago – with lead acid batteries. They were very successful for use within metropolitan areas. I saw them glide silently by on my way to school. And this was all done before electronics was even a word.
As far as the growth of world population goes the Black Death was a non-event. Unless one uses an X-axis (years) selected for the purpose the Black Death blip in population growth goes unnoticed. Same with WWI, and WWII & holocaust plus Stalin’s deliberate starvation of tens of millions included.
I don’t understand what you mean by “As for welfare.” In those countries that after over 100 years have hardly started building electric service didn’t have the money then nor do they now. Without base load capacity now they can only build coal burners until they get some base load capacity.
In India, soon to be the most populous country, technology has succeeded in giving more Indians cellular phones than the use of a toilet. Most Indians do not have electric service. Indians talk very green but they continue to build coal burners like crazy even though they are having trouble supplying existing coal burners by opening new mines, increasing coal carrying RR, and buying coal from all over the world. And their populating growth leads the world. Seems no amount of messing with the arithmetic can point to a solution to their dilemma.
Yes, Argentina is a disappointing special case. About 1930 Argentina had become on a par with many European countries. But with a largely Italian (and Spanish) population they could hardly take arms against the AXIS. They became a pariah exacerbated by some bad regimes. (I find the comparison with Australia not nearly as bad as you indicate. I.e. not a 6/1 GDP disadvantage but a 2.5/1 disadvantage (Wikipedia) Argentina’s mother country was the sick man of Europe and was independent from 1810. Australia was part of the British Empire (the super power) and became independent in a complex series of steps extending all the way to 1986.
As to the desperately poor countries, sorry Thomas Jefferson, all people are not created equal.
By kevin on June 27th, 2011 at 6:43 am
The quote “The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.” comes from John Kenneth Galbraith not Murray Rothbard.